MVRDV founders Winy Maas, Nathalie de Vries and Jacob van Rijs are delighted to announce the appointment of new associates in order to accommodate the need for specific expertise and to ensure continuous creative quality within the growing practice of 170 architects, designers, urbanists and other staff in Rotterdam, Shanghai and Paris.
The new associates are Sanne van der Burgh, Klaas Hofman, Aser Giménez Ortega and Gijs Rikken.
“MVRDV has recently been organised into six architecture departments, one urbanism department, office support and a strategy department,” says MVRDV co-founder and managing partner Jacob van Rijs. “The new associates are going to lead the office-wide effort to connect the departments with expertise and innovation, as a ‘diagonal’ layer in our ever growing organisation.”
Sanne van der Burgh (1978, The Hague, The Netherlands) is an architect and senior project leader at MVRDV since 2009. Sanne is a versatile designer, working on a broad range of project types and scales. She is currently leading design teams in various countries and phases of the building process. One of her key projects is the public Art Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, currently under construction. The soon-to-be-realised collection building is a new building typology that opens up art conservation and storage to the public. Other key projects include the winning design for Peruri88, a vertical city in Jakarta, and Lyon Part Dieu, renovation of a retail and leisure centre. She has a keen interest in new technologies such as parametric design and rapid prototyping and brings significant know-how in this field to the office.
Sanne is currently involved in several mixed-use, residential and cultural projects in the Balkans, Indonesia and the Gulf region.
Klaas Hofman (1974, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is an architect and senior project leader at MVRDV since 2008. He is a strong conceptual designer involved in a wide variety of projects, ranging from small and medium-sized architectural projects to complex urban planning.
Key projects include the Almere 2.0 vision, Almere Oosterwold and Almere Floriade World Expo, the winning competition designs for Ku.Be House of Movement in Copenhagen and the Ragnarock museum in Roskilde, both completed in 2016.He is currently responsible for developing the masterplan for Almere Floriade, which will host the World Horticultural Expo in 2022, and the design of the new Cultural Cluster in Zaandam, which will go on site by the end of 2017.
Aser Giménez-Ortega (1979, Murcia, Spain) is an architect and senior project leader at MVRDV since 2007. His leading experience includes projects of various scales and phases, ranging from masterplan to detail design and from concept to construction. Aser overlooked the conceptualisation and realisation of Oslo’s DNB bank headquarters and Shanghai’s Hongqiao CBD, both exemplary green projects with a fast and smooth construction process. Other works include Wonders Headquarter, Shanghai, Roskilde Festival High School, Denmark (which is breaking ground in Spring 2017), the winning proposal for Logroño Ecocity, Spain and Vertical Village research in collaboration with The Why Factory. He is also responsible for a range of public and retail projects both in Europe and Asia
Gijs Rikken (1980, Boxtel, The Netherlands) is an architect and senior project leader at MVRDV since 2007. At MVRDV, Gijs is responsible for the design and execution of a wide variety of projects, ranging from large-scale, complex buildings to detailed innovative material research.
Key projects include such completed buildings as the Glass Farm in Schijndel, The Crystal Houses in Amsterdam and the Balancing Barn in Suffolk, England. Other defining works consist of the winning design for the Urban Hybrid in Emmen, the Coral Tower in Sydney and the Theater aan de Parade in Den Bosch. He is currently responsible for the development of Ravel Plaza, a 75,000m2 mixed-use building in Amsterdam which boasts three residential towers and a publicly accessible, vertical park.
Founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries, MVRDV engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. Design methods centre on a collaborative and research-driven approach that involves clients, stakeholders and experts from interdisciplinary fields throughout the entire creative process. Appointing associates is part of a larger organisational effort which included the appointment of new partners, a move into a new office and the very successful office-wide implementation of BIM software and measurable sustainable technologies.
Image: Mark Bolk