An architect lays the foundation for a building through design, but does not determine its endpoint. An office building I design today may serve a different function in years to come — housing, an educational centre. That transformation is possible because the first line on paper already accounts for what may follow. Function, for me, is therefore not a fixed destination but the starting point of a story that continues beyond completion.
Experience works from the same principle. A building that shelters people during a storm, and that same building forming a visitor's first impression of a place — these are not coincidental side effects, but proof that a single design can carry multiple kinds of value at once. Function and experience together form the position from which I approach architecture: not as a definitive answer, but as a design that leaves room for what is yet to come.
Every design is shaped by two forces that emerge from the project itself — the location, the existing building, the brief. Those forces differ per project, and that is what makes each design unique. In Industrial Nature Park it was connection and scale: the high-rise connects its surroundings and neighbouring districts at a large scale. In Urban Rowhouse Cloister it was calm and relationship: the existing building was already understated, which formed a good basis for transformation, while the relationship to the surrounding built fabric determined how that transformation took shape.
Many designs act as if they have the final word: a closed answer, ready for use as conceived. I prefer to design a building that is resistant to time — one that does not break the moment its original function changes. In TNBW, the flood risk is not concealed but named as a direct consequence of the design ambition. In URC, the question of full flexibility is deliberately left unresolved. That is not a shortcoming — it is the recognition that a good design leaves room for what is yet to come.
My ambition to become an architect grew from a fascination with how structures not only stand, but shape the way we live and move. Over time, I realised that my interest lies not only in how buildings are made, but above all in what they mean to the people who use them.
I do not draw an endpoint. I draw the foundation on which architecture can continue to evolve.