The Rotterdam based architecture firm MVRDV, known for the Rotterdam market hall and The Stairs to Kriterion, has completed its new offices.Called the MVRDV House, the building captures the style of the firm, as well as building a home-like environment: a living room, a dining room, even “a sofa for the whole house to sit together,” explains MVRDV co-founder Jacob van Rijs. The tailor-made new spaces are designed for the collaborative way in which the architects work, to boost their working methods.A long lunch table, around which the firm gathers daily, is the centerpiece, together with other oversized elements: the sofa, a huge split flower pot, in the middle of which sits the MVRDV’s ‘welcome team.’ The Atelier for the project team – separated from the living room with a glazed wall, covered with diagrams and project doodles – takes up the bulk of the central space. Opposite are the brightly painted, multi-colored meeting rooms, with glass walls that create a feeling of peeking into a doll’s house. Among the meeting rooms are the less formal Lounge, an intimate Library Room, and the Game Room with a table tennis table.Keeping up with the trends, the firm also has gender-free toilets. A wall with family pictures completes the ‘home’ atmosphere of the office.“The expanding MVRDV family needed a new house; so this is exactly what we tried to capture,” says Jacob van Rijs.The building was originally designed by Dutch post-war architect Hugh Maaskant, who is also responsible for a string of buildings in Rotterdam. One of them, the Groot Handelsbegouw, was the building to which The Stairs to Kriterion led. The temporary giant staircase by MVRDV was in place from May through June 2016, taking pedestrians to the roof terrace of the former commercial building and cinema.Distinguished for its concept-driven practice, the architecture of MVRDV has been described as gutsy, visionary, and provocative. In two decades of existence, the firm has completed a number of projects that have stretched the limits of residential density, mixing of land uses, and form, with a number of brightly colored, boldly shaped buildings – the prime example being the recently completed Rotterdam Market Hall, covered by an enormous, colorful arch, that doubles as a residential building.
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