#67 - Winy Maas - MVRDV, Markthal, Imprint, Technology, Computational Design, Urbanism

Architecture is not dying to start. Many professions use the word architecture in their domain: the architecture of the digital world, the architecture of processes, etc. So seemingly we are hot. So I'm happy to do that for better and for worse, because architecture is serious, yes. So I still hope with our architecture that I can make German smile is my personal ambition, and to have—I don't say laugh, I say smile.

No, it's great. You have a good subject, so that's nice to participate to that. And it's more important than ever to this whole parametric considerations and research that we, yeah, otherwise how can we tackle our growing complexities?

Well, in general, I don't see challenges. The word, the way how you use it, is not so useful. But challenges are normally long-term and short-term. Every project that you love, you have to somehow fight to get it because it tries to be innovative, tries to be a little bit ahead of the time, and that immediately pushes boundaries or conventions. Conventions over time change, so the longer-term challenge is how to work with the transformations over time. In 30 years, a lot has happened. What you fought for 30 years ago is normal eight years afterwards. So you start to learn about the transformation process. That's the good part. You have to repeat certain things before they are implemented. Other things have to grow easily or be taken over by colleagues. I always ask students: think about 30 years from now, but look 30 years back. What didn't we have 30 years ago? No internet, no electric vehicles, no wood structure in high-rises, no adaptation of plans in buildings, very limited knowledge on that, there was also no MVRDV 30 years ago. So that could also happen. There was no high-speed trains, no specific political regimes that are now happening, not so much knowledge about climate change, less say for participation in democracy. Wow, what can we do in 30 years? That's quite a lot. MVRDV could do some things in 30 years, that's already a shopping list. If we mirror that to the future for the coming 30 years, then you have an agenda. This is an eye-opener, makes it easier to fantasize.

Okay, but if we are obstructed by norms only, then we cannot question the norm. So there is liberty in our program. Architecture has the duty to question norms. I am very democratic: I will do my buildings so that more than 50% of the population likes them. You need to go through procedures. The Depot had some criticism, but the majority loved it. Why do people love it? Some people might be critical or defensive, but that has to do with fear. I have a lot of trust in our society and in the future. We can deal with changes. A lot of people are curious about the future and want to solve problems. Innovation is needed to tackle bigger problems, and we have to do tests to develop technologies. A building is only a building. 99% of buildings are really ugly or so normative that you fall asleep before you see them. The general quality, especially in certain countries, is debatable. In order to get a majority to discuss and innovate, this small amount of buildings helps to set standards and test specific zones. We need this kind of buildings to escape from the predicted norm and from the endless continuity of sameness. Most things cannot escape because of program, brief, norms, laws, costs — they all lead to the same product. So we have to invent a culture of invention and escape. I'm happy to do that for better and for worse. People join this operation, others not, and that's fine. I appreciate that people talk after our buildings are done — some like them, others don't. That's society. If I pleased everybody in one go, I would doubt myself because then I didn't go to the edge. The Market Hall: most people love it because it became a tourist attraction. The city shows itself as an important beauty, combining housing with a public market to stress the need for good food production. There are 250 houses, 500 people that embrace that and have their identity because they live in the Market Hall. It costs a little bit more for the windows to have three layers of glass to block sound and oil from the walks, but the windows are key — people can look from the house into the market. The developer controls the market but is also controlled by the 500 people. It's an instrument of how to live together, not ego.

From my perspective, what happened in these 30 years with architecture and what helped architecture to what it is now and gives direction for the future are couple of elements. Participation has grown a lot, demanding architects to be communicative and decisive. Second is innovation in materials. The learning curve of material development was low in the beginning, then accelerated — glass innovation, energy innovation, integration into materials. The world of concrete, stone, aggregates is much richer than before, allowing more shapes. Digital technology has also grown tremendously to help in design. We can process complex things like participation with computer-aided, parameterized decision-making models. We can guarantee more variety of potential demands. We can even make housing that is overly complex — if you want an apartment building where every house is different, I can make it for you. We use parametric models to find the correct balance. We have experience: 30 years ago we made the Double House in Utrecht, then Silodam, and we made the book 'WeGo' which parameterizes completely, leading now to Vertical Villages in China. It took 30 years for that ping-pong between software designers, programmers, and us. We took programmers in the office, developed our own software. I remember relationships with programmers over time, from optimizers to randomizers, and hacking Google Maps to see what is green. That helped understanding what a green city could be. We started with AutoCAD, then Rhino, Grasshopper, blending programs to find suggestions, make them work, understandable, convincing to clients. The Valley is only built by those tools — we could negotiate between costs, spans, privacy, water management, wind, shelter, views, sounds. You see ten parameters, each including hundreds, and then I add that no balcony is the same — variety. That is beauty. Now we are making eternity tombs in China using fractals, manipulating them in grain and size, so the software creates an infinity tomb for every person, add materials, 3D print. That combination of skills I couldn't have done 30 years ago. The latest projects show how they fuse. I'm not ready — I have to print and unprint at the same time, mix and aggregate, script the properties into the 3D printing. Beautiful.

On AI, let's start with: it's an umbrella for much more than often applied. It's not only image generation. Two elements are important: input and output. In the input zone, we can add more: we can train our AI to be more MVRDV, to select or blend in such a way that it follows our values. We add the scripting zone towards AI. Ultimately, when we have an open source AI-oriented recombination of parameters, that would be helpful. It has complexity beyond visualization, and hopefully it analyzes the parameters behind it — a slipstream coding that comes with it. We try to do that with our WeGo scripts. The Vertical Village, the Barba Papa exercises — they all have mini-scripts, building up a giant scripting program. It has a track record, a genealogy of elements. If we can trace that in AI, it makes it doable to control it, see gaps. That's a fascination. Also to make that more accessible as a complexity level — transparency. The hope is that out of new recombinations, it becomes better, bigger, more inclusive. That is an element we would like to target in our office. Does it go fast? There's a German word 'ja-nein' — yes and no. Yes, it goes quick; no, it doesn't go quick enough because complexity becomes bigger. Does it have success? I don't know, I don't care. I'm not a market leader. I have a personal interest, maybe obsession, with dealing with this composition of unraveling complexities, raising complexities, mastering them, being transparent — that's a typical Dutch thing.

That's a big question. First, why the Why Factory and why MVRDV? I believe it's good to engage in the public domain with research, not only in the office like OMA did with AMO. It's better to enter outside the office because there are more research budgets not connected immediately with commercial firms, so you can be slightly more critical and open-minded. The beauty of the academic world is that it should be open-minded, not led only by commercial targets, and can explore that domain. We concentrated on futurism in architecture and urbanism. We made a structure: one, model cities — an average abstract city, change one parameter and see what happens. Two, real — apply it on cities where we have relationships. I'm working on a sky city floating in the sky, and of course I have to do it in Los Angeles, so we make 'The New Angels' flying over the city. Third, the big machine — parametrics come into it, stored sometimes related, sometimes not. I call this the triangle of research. It gives opportunities because not everything is sequential. Maximized research reveals impossibilities or things that lack. Every studio — I don't work with PhDs, too slow, only Masters. The Why Factory is about argumentation (the word 'why') and speeding up (factory). 'Why' is also existential. It touches on criticism beyond the norm. People believe in the existence of the norm; I'm more in a flux because existence changes over time, although there are limitations like planet Earth. How does it affect the office? Yes and no. The program of the Why Factory is independent because it needs to be. Some architects ask students to make an opera for them — I think that's not a good idea. Academic research by nature is by itself and has to be as academic and scientific as possible with Masters. I do a kind of science fiction to span the gap, and I'm honest. But of course it influences our work. The model of vertical village was done by students, and now we make one in Shenzhen. It takes 10 years longer. Students that worked on it are co-authors. I wish I could concentrate on the patent part, but my time is limited.

You touched on the planetary scale, which is a phenomenon that has come across much more in the last 30 years. The planetary scale requires overview and requires architects to position themselves in that scale. When you make a house in the countryside somewhere, the knowledge beyond even that countryside has issues that play a role on the planetary scale. For example, a cute corner in France is drying out because of soil and the wine industry. So if you make a villa there, what's the task? Immediately, everything you do has a relationship at a wider scale. MVRDV tries to do that, and the Why Factory does it on a bigger scale. It's fascinating to address that and see what it means. On one hand, it limits your work; the architect becomes planetary connected to that intervention in that specific time and place. On the other hand, there is a need for research on the planetary level. We have to scale up our research. If I say it's good to cover buildings with plants, I have to calculate the effect. For instance, covering all flat roofs with plants would give about one degree of cooling to the planet. But we need to do more.

For me, it is an architecture that says something, that wants to deal with bigger issues, that manifests that and makes it understandable and readable for the outer world, for non-architects, for laymen. It is also somehow free, that relishes, by its positioning, and is not a dictatorship but tries to mitigate and find a way on this global messaging. I like a good architecture that has a certain kind of humor. But humor is very delicate because architecture is serious. So I still hope with our architecture that I can make German smile is my personal ambition. I don't say laugh, I say smile. Because in a serious country like that, it helps. The relative is an important word. I know I can only do small things with my buildings, but to give it a twist that opens up people's minds. I never use the word populistic — I know there's an edge — but pop, I'm very fine with it.

When we were asked to make a casino and a nightclub on an airport in Saudi Arabia, we thought: if you go to many places like Vegas, during the day they are boxes, and then they are decorated, and you have no clue where you are at night. During the day you don't want to be there. So how to do that? We made a hotel there in the Paralis City. We decided to make something that stands out, but first you have to make a good neighborhood — a place where your hotel guests after they are drunk and in the morning when they wake up, they go around and don't have a nightmare, but instead feel pleasant. So what does it mean? He asked me: your buildings are nice, so let's copy them in an indirect way — that's when they are imprinted in our buildings. So they go together. You walk there during the day and see 'I'm in a place that is not like somewhere else,' and you accept the qualities of the place. That was how it started: a Ying-Yang, positive-negative combination, accepting an architecture that is not my architecture as the source of my architecture. Then we lifted here and there to dramatize the entrances of the nightlife. It had millions of different panels in a specific type of GFRC, so we had to do a lot of work to specify every panel. That simple suggestion with those two factors — do the negative and the bending for openings — created richness.

One: architecture is not dying. Many professions use the word architecture — the architecture of the digital world, of processes. So seemingly we are hot. Secondly, architects are good in analysis and in giving or changing structure. Third, architects are super good in visualization — they are the visualizers of the future. Use those tools not in cliché, because AI at the moment is cliché and limited because it uses the same data. But to visualize what is happening and what can happen on our planet is what they can do. Thirdly, architects have an overview of the spatial situation of cities and worlds, so they can integrate or not, exaggerate or not, they can create and put criticism into observations of what the world needs, from technical to climatic to social to political. Architects are also political, so they have the possibility to think about values and can warn politicians with all these tools about the future of the city. Universities have to train them in these four or five aspects, beside all the technological components. That will lead hopefully to a group that mirrors the planet in the best way, mirrors our behaviorism, and creates escapes and possibilities beyond the norm.