Creating a better place

Rafał Ostrowski, ‘Eurobuild CEE’: Your studio is known for designing characteristic and recognisable structures. You don’t seem to like straight walls, do you?

Nathalie de Vries, architect, co-founder of MVRDV: Not for a project like Bałtyk. Simplicity would not be the right choice in this location. It is a complicated, multi-faceted place with differing height levels that can be seen from different distances, so it cannot be a one-dimensional design. But believe me, we have made a lot of straight walls in the past. Still, I must say that it would be a little bit formalistic to talk only about the shape. You also need to talk about the function.

I agree, but before we say something about function, let’s talk more about what really catches the eye. It’s the unique form of many of your works that seems to be the main thing. What is the special role played by the distinctive features that you give to your buildings?
Well, I think it all depends on the location, of course. Our studio is often brought into projects where something has to be changed in the general neighbourhood. So the building is often the driver of that change, the catalyst. And by absorbing the complexity of the site and by thinking about very different aspects, the building sometimes has to be a very typical project, but each design is a unique solution to a unique question. And it also helps if the building becomes something you can identify with, helping it to become much more acceptable for people living around it.

Does it somehow pay off for the investor to make the design unique?
I think it does, but if you overdo it people will be aware of that as well. I think the important thing for investors is to realise that they can make a building work not only for themselves but also by contributing to the improvement of a quarter of the city. It would be great if investors incorporated this into the instructions they give to architects as well. I also think the people working in such buildings like this approach and prefer workplaces that have a pleasant environment and offer extra functions. So in the future I think all of these additional elements together with an attractive identity will be important, and will give the investor a competitive advantage.

Such fancy buildings must be much more expensive...
Not necessarily. If you take a really closer look, these buildings have a special appearance, but they usually have simple shapes. Bałtyk is maybe an exception to this rule, but what they usually have is an extra element and it is this that can transform the whole building.

So what you are saying is that such an approach is not necessarily so costly?
I don’t think so, if they are well designed. Our clients don’t give us any extra budget to do this. No, they also have to make their profits of course. It is sometimes a question of simply reorganising the volume of the building, in terms of the programming of the building [the application of its various functions in the design – editor’s note] and how you put the building on site. For example, for a market hall we designed in Rotterdam an investor competition was originally held in which they were asked to develop a market hall with some housing. So we used the residential program to create the market hall. The merger of the two functions actually created a special building and a special place

The investor behind Bałtyk has not disclosed the design costs, but claims that employing your studio did not significantly increase the investment costs in comparison to a local studio. My sources reveal that the difference was app. 20 pct, including both the design costs and the future costs of the development of the rather elaborate project you designed. Do you have special pricing for Poland and the CEE region?
Absolutely not. We are present in many different countries and the way we work is that we always have a stage before the preliminary design to define the project in a better way. We try out different models and solutions. This is a very important feature of our method and clients accept it. If there is anything that requires extra payment in our work, it is precisely this: we always ask the client to take some time to think about the questions they ask us, and together, almost in a workshop kind of way, we go through a few different solutions. But our studio is active in many different countries, so I do not adjust my fees to specific countries. I always explain that this is the amount of money that we need here in the Netherlands when we start to work on this project. Whether that is the most competitive approach or not, I don’t know.

What do you think about the new office developments in Poland?
The first time I visited Warsaw the only tower was the Palace of Culture, which then had a lot of empty space around it. So there has been a huge change. I don’t like all of these buildings, I have to admit. They could have been more exciting maybe. I am generalising now, but from the look of some of these developments it seems as though the main thing that mattered was the budget. Developers and investors sometimes only have to work just a little bit harder to improve this. I think it would be good for them to realise that when these buildings are in the centre of the city they should really have an extra quality. However, sometimes when I look at these projects, I think they may as well have just been built outside the city instead of downtown. I haven’t been able to research this yet, but I am very curious about what the quality might be for the pedestrians at the foot of these buildings. Is the atmosphere very lively or is nothing happening there after work hours?

So could you tell me how would you personally build these projects if it were up to you?
I think if you build so many tall buildings you have a wonderful opportunity to create more housing and public spaces and public functions as well. Maybe even more important than the style are the range of functions and programmes. If you only build offices and not housing for example, you don’t really make the area more liveable and cars will inevitably take over. We had the same situation in Rotterdam for many years, but the city council managed to turn that around. You cannot build office buildings without also building residential space. As soon as people start to live in the centre many more things will start to happen on the streets as well. And the people will push out the cars because it will be much more important to create pedes-trian space. But if the centre is just a place from which you have to get out in time then cars will dominate it. On the other hand, if this is a place that you go to after work, at five o’clock, then everything will be very different. From my very distant perspective I would say: build some more apartments in the city, including in this office tower area – the improvement would be dramatic if this was done. If cities take the time to plan this carefully they can avoid the mistakes that were maybe made in the 60s and 70s, as had been the case in Holland.

Such as?
Now we are much cleverer in the sense of making use of public transport. We can build in a more sustainable way and are no longer afraid of mixing functions. Now we think that a place for drinking a good caffè latte is just as important in a city as an optimised, economised work space. We know that it is important for cities to also be culturally – and not just economically – successful.

I have heard it said that Bałtyk was not an easy project to design. Would you agree with this assessment?
Well, we wanted to adopt a new approach that would be suitable for this location, but at the same time we had to be sensitive to the local history in terms of the very different styles of the surrounding buildings. It has a highly complicated planning history in which large projects have been built together with all kinds of buildings, including small ones. There was also the issue of introducing public space in this location, making it economically viable in a very important quarter of Poznań – everybody in the city will have an opinion about it.

In one presentation we were shown about twenty different possible shapes for Bałtyk that were considered at the various design stages. One of these was finally chosen. What was the reason for preparing so many?
This was just a selection of the most distinct and different versions. It is also for us a way to discuss the project. For a single meeting we would come up with maybe five different shapes that respond to the conditions in different ways. But the fact is we can make them very quickly. And there are not only models – the designs can be in the form of sketches or 3D animations. This is also how we talk with the client. We visualise our ideas and we make some rapid prototypes. This is just the way we work.

With Bałtyk how long did it take to come up with the final shape?
I think it took two or three years, but it doesn’t always need to take that long. There were also some special requests from the city. And there was an openness to the program: a building with a different shape can also lead sometimes to different ideas about the program and function of the building, so there was an amount of organic work to be done.

The city played a large role in this process. Do you think that this was a good thing?
The way I understand it is that it is typical in Poland for cities to maintain a powerful position when it comes to controlling development. I think this is good because there are some very seductive ideas around about the future of cities. Architects and developers come and go, but the city government will stay – and it also represents its citizens. This probably is one of Poland’s qualities when it comes to development, because it is much needed in a country that is changing rapidly. There has to be some local leadership.

What about the nice little old Concordia building, which is going to be obscured behind Bałtyk when it is built? A considerable controversy has been generated by the development of such a building in this location.
Poznań’s urban planners have made it clear that this is a long term development for the city and the construction regulations have not been changed for this project. This is what the city wants to have built here in terms of the size and shape. In fact we have made it smaller, less thick and less deep to be able to create a plaza behind the building. And we have made the building more transparent. You can walk through it, since the two entrances of the building are connected like a little street. So everybody will be able to walk and see through it. The entire ground floor of the building is accessible to the public and the top floor will also sometimes be accessible. Cities need public spaces and this is a building that can perform that function.

Bałtyk is the first project you have undertaken in Poland and the CEE region. How did it come your way?
The investor looked at many different architects and in the end they decided to talk to us. When they contacted us we thought it would be very interesting to work in Poland. The important thing was that there was a personal chemistry between us, and because this is a very demanding project with intense processes, it is very important that people like each other on a personal level. And what we liked very much was that they were not just thinking about making an interesting project at the commercial level but they immediately started talking about the city, its inhabitants, the importance of the place – and about what was important for Poznań.

Are you hoping for more projects in the CEE region?
Absolutely. Poland is a very interesting country. There is a lot of ambition and there is also a lot of development going on. You can see that its society is changing and its needs are changing and growing. So, yes, Poland is going through a substantial transformation and I think there is still much more that could be built.

A career in architecture
Nathalie de Vries (born in Appingedam, the Netherlands in 1965) is an architect and urban planner who founded the MVRDV studio together with Winy Maas and Jacob van Rijs in 1991. Early projects, such as the headquarters of the Public Broadcasting Company VPRO and the WoZoCo housing project for the elderly in Amsterdam, brought MVRDV to the attention of a wide field of clients and achieved international acclaim. In twenty years MVRDV has produced many architectural and urban designs, master plans and research projects, including, for example, design software such as Function- and Region Mixer. Nathalie regularly lectures, takes part in international juries, and teaches at universities and institutes worldwide, such as Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, the Harvard Graduate School of Design, TU Berlin and IIT Chicago. She has also taught at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the ABK in Arnhem and Delft University of Technology. In 2013 she joined the supervisory board of the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. She is a board member of The New Institute for architecture, design and e-culture, the Museum of the Image in Breda and a jury member for the Charlotte Köhler Award.