Matthijs Bouw is a Dutch architect and urbanist and founder of One Architecture, an award-winning design and planning firm that was established in Amsterdam in 1995 and again in New York in 2015 after the firm won the Rebuild by Design competition in partnership with BIG. Bouw is also the Rockefeller Urban Resilience Fellow for PennDesign at the University of Pennsylvania, where his work centers on urban resilience and water management projects.
For this week's Small Studio Snapshots, we talk with Bouw about opening up his New York office, the difference between working in the Netherlands versus the United States, and the benefits of keeping a small team despite working on large-scale projects.
How many people are in your practice?
One Architecture was established in Amsterdam in 1995. After winning the Rebuild by Design competition in 2015, with the BIG U proposal we co-led with BIG, we expanded to start an office in New York City, One Architecture and Urbanism. In the last two years, our NYC office has grown to eight people with a satellite office in Boston. We are an international group of designers, architects, urban designers and planners with cross-disciplinary interests in ecology, equity, data and technologies.
During the time I was in the Netherlands, our office employed 20 people at its max. Now, since I focus much of my attention and live here in the US, and following the real estate crisis the country went through, the office is much smaller.
Why were you originally motivated to start your own practice?
In a way, we had two beginnings from two different motivations. First, during my architecture studies in TU Delft, an opportunity presented itself to design a daycare center. With a group of fellow students and a young architect, we designed a radical daycare center that was applauded as one of the most critical buildings of a new generation – and that started our firm.
In many of our projects, we see the local component as very significant
The second was, several years later, when we won the Rebuild By Design NYC competition. This resulted in the opening of an office in New York City three years ago. The NYC projects: The Big U, East Side Coastal Resilience and the Lower Manhattan Coastal resilience projects are deeply rooted in the city. Experiencing the city and opening an ongoing dialogue with the community are major components of the projects. In fact, in many of our projects, we see the local component as very significant, you need to be in the place, see the available potentials and meet the stakeholders in person. Thus, we started a satellite office in Boston. As this city is making progressive moves in crafting resilience plans and after completing the work on the Climate Ready East Boston and Charleston report, we are in the midst of starting another exciting project with StossLU.
What hurdles have you come across?
Beyond the expected difficulties of building a network and a trusted name in a new place, I experience many cultural differences in the way things are done here in the US. The approach towards planning here is different. Long-term integrated strategic thinking is often overtaken by aggregations of individual projects. I arrived here after Hurricane Sandy and expected there to be advanced progress on reducing risk and willingness to invest, top down, in necessary measures.
In Holland, planning with water historically takes place from a control perspective. We have a long history of controlling nature.
In Holland, planning with water historically takes place from a control perspective. We have a long history of controlling nature (in spite of our recent ‘building with nature’ program)—nothing like that exists here. The unwillingness (or inability) I encountered in the US to try and control its risk like we have, even after Sandy, was a surprise. In the US, we do ‘resilience,’ creating the capacity for bouncing back and adapting. This is something that I realized we are very good at. In the Netherlands, much of our work was already focused on engaging the new complexities that economic liberalization, democratization and multiplicity bring. And, because we have always been really interested in using design to embrace and simplify this complexity, the systems approach comes naturally to me.
We look at cities as complex systems, and try to find the links between these systems and its components so that they can be optimized and put to work. We leverage the concept of resiliency to address urban planning and design in general. In that, we are inspired by the approach to landscape architecture as it is practiced at Penn, where I am the Rockefeller Urban Resilience Fellow at PennDesign. At the same time, as a pragmatic Dutch, I do tend to view systems less as moral constructs than landscape architects often do.
Perhaps, because I am Dutch and an architect, I approach social principles, material flows, and financial mechanisms from a more objective perspective, without an a priori philosophy. We as designers have the unique position to oversee the layers and components of the system and find unique connections. In our work we peruse opportunities to explore the connection of systems and to illuminate impact of the urban layers on each other.
Perhaps, because I am Dutch and an architect, I approach social principles, material flows, and financial mechanisms from a more objective perspective
In many ways, the innovative ideas we have been working on in Holland are only now starting to be part of the conversation here, such as new development models, open city making and circular economies. In our office in Amsterdam we started exploring the idea of circular economy and open city through an ongoing research project the “Hackable City”. Our starting point was a community development project we are involved in, Buiksloterham. In it, we try to keep value local, and form our own collective, community and economy. While Buiksloterham is already being constructed, in our NYC office we had the opportunity to discuss and envision similar platforms for circular economies and collaborative models in the recent design initiative for the Fourth Regional Plan (RPA - collaboration with Only If). We proposed stimulating circular economies locally in manufacturing districts through innovation, zoning, and regulations in NYC’s outer boroughs. This work now forms the basis of the project we do with BIG and Sherwood for the Bay Area Resilience competition.
We design projects that are not necessarily physical objects only. Outcomes of design process might be digital platforms, they might be new development policies, and they might be social cohesion-building programs. That’s where we spend most of our time in the practice trying to think through what it means to design processes and policies instead of objects – and you can’t do that without designing at the system scale.
Is scaling up a goal or would you like to maintain the size of your practice?
While large firms have the resources for independent research, we leverage our projects for innovation
We are much happier collaborating in significant projects with others than growing ourselves. Not having to worry too much about feeding the beast, and still being able to make important contributions to complex problems is a great model for us. Less worry about the economics means more time to think about the content. One of the great advantages of collaboration is the opportunity to take part in creative and innovative projects. While large firms have the resources for independent research, we leverage our projects for innovation. We seek the research component of each project and perform as the innovation agent. We were very lucky so far to collaborate with great people and have our own agency in the work without the need to significantly compromise our efforts.
This last year in New York was very busy for us. In 2015, two main projects came directly out of the Rebuild By Design competition. The first is the Eastside Coastal Resiliency Project, which is run by the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC). It is for the area between East 25th Street and Montgomery Street. The second is the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency project with BIG and AECOM. That project focuses on the area between Montgomery Street down to the Battery and then up north to the northern end of Battery Park City.
Last year we were selected, with Only-If Architecture, to develop a long-term visionary plan for the Triboro Corridor in NYC as part of the Regional Plan Association's design initiative for the release of the Fourth Regional Plan. As the threats of climate change become more vivid, cities are starting to think about long-term strategies. Boston published its Climate Ready Report and we had the opportunity to collaborate with StossLU and Kleinfelder on the first phase of the plan in East Boston and Charlestown. Recently we've begun to institutionalize resilience with the Asian Development Bank, in part through the optimization of a masterplan for a new, 1.2 million, city in the Philippines and the implementation of circular, nature-based, resilient solutions in it.
From practical reasons this incredible influx in work and interest necessitated us to grow fast. However, we are still able to maintain a scale in which each person is involved in all projects.
What are the benefits of having your own practice? And staying small?
The benefits of having my own practice are the flexibility in project selection, the ability to be nimble, and having my hands in the design process that gives me the capacity to be intricately invested in each project. We can all fit around the conference table, which makes it is possible to develop and to work with the entire team on an internal agenda: to figure out how design can have agency in a complex world.
However, one of the challenges of being small and working on large projects around the world is the ability to be physically present in the places we work. The local and social component of our work is very important, and you have to experience it in person. We need to meet the community and stakeholders and understand the latent systems of the place in order to expose the issues and link them together.
A small office has a greater diversity in career opportunities for the team
I think a small office has a greater diversity in career opportunities for the team. Everyone at the office is involved in all of our ongoing projects. It is important that everyone in our office has the opportunity to work on all scales and types of projects, from research and exhibition design to construction documents. I believe it’s important for their interest and excitement at the personal level, and because the future of cities and resilience calls for a full engagement at all scales and domains, and make the necessary links. Being a small practice involved in massive projects makes us an exciting place to work in, I hope.
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