About Winy Maas
Winy Maas, founding partner of MVRDV, gave a talk titled "The Art of Coincidence" in July 2026 as part of the Architects, Not Architecture series in Barcelona. During the talk, he discussed his personal and professional influences, describing his education at Delft and his early exposure to figures such as Aldo van Eyck and Rem Koolhaas. He reflected on the role of ugliness in his work, stating that "people that come from Amsterdam are normally spoiled because of the beauty" and that "ugliness is very double because you want to escape and other hand it creates a lot of liberty." He also said that "working with students is one act of optimism" and described his "spatial mission" as uniting people "by difference."
In a November 2025 episode of the Super Urban Podcast, Maas discussed the expansion of architecture and urbanism into systems of data, ecology, and infrastructure. He said he was "annoyed about the kind of introspection that architects have" and argued that urbanism involves understanding what a building's position "does to the wider world." He also addressed planetary density and climate, noting that "it becomes a bit busy on this tiny planet" and that "the climatic issue becomes so too hot," suggesting that using the sky or other measures could be considered.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Winy Maas's recent appearances.
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Transcript (13 segments)
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Winy Maas32:10
Gives a lot of space statistics to do that, but statistics have been developed over time. And we have seen that currently you mentioned already.
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Host32:18
The twin, the digital twin. I think we were already very active in the first book we tried to work on the word optimization, but the tools that were the computational tools that were there.
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Winy Maas32:34
At MIT, we developed a platform for regional planning that was interactive. Later, we used scripting with Grasshopper and Rhino to address growing complexities from technology, participation, and the need for buildings and nature. One could say it's a primitive form of AI, but scripting and AI are not closely related. When you compare to photoshopping or writing, those are how AI is most used. There's criticism and fear of job loss, but we shouldn't stop. This evolution has been happening for 40-50 years, and I contributed. It evolved from a primitive start to a richer, deeper approach. It's not finished, but it explains how we progressed with society.
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Host35:29
Yeah, no, I think it's a really important recognition of the different tools and how they might be applied. Part of the skepticism around AI is that people see it as a disruptor or a black box with limited control. I was curious how you deal with those questions when looking at projects, because information can be used to reinforce undesirable conditions or to isolate and learn from them. How do you apply these logics in projects?
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Winy Maas36:31
We installed a department called MVRV Next to focus on scripting. We try to be ahead of AI through complexity. We apply open sourcing—for example, our carbon calculators are online for criticism. I'm attracted to deeper complexity. RMIT is a laboratory. We need mineral cycles. Collaboration is key: I'm just a tiny architect; to touch bigger agendas, you must collaborate. Our architecture is clear, not mystical. We are more postmodern than the postmodernists. Clarity is a communicative vehicle. Conceptual architecture becomes a messenger. It's a moment in time, but we exaggerate and deepen it. Architecture is petrified research. In Melbourne, I see a dialogue with other buildings.
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Host45:10
So, I've been thinking about your lecture and the persistent undercurrent of mischief, playfulness, provocation, and transgression in your work. These are methods that exaggerate urban logics, pushing systems to absurd limits. Do they function as critical instruments or as aesthetic strategies that risk neutralizing political edge? And by extension, do you think architects take themselves too seriously?
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Winy Maas46:45
Many architects never smile. In some cultures, smiling is forbidden. I see playfulness as a tool for criticism, to relativize seriousness. If everything is deadly serious, there's no room. The question is: is strictness really good? The moment of naughtiness in a process is a moment of liberation and hyper-analysis.
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Host50:37
So Winnie, I'd like to discuss the Sky City project with the Y factory in Melbourne. Cities have been shaped by mobility systems, and now we see a three-dimensional urban condition. The Sky City project treats the sky as an active urban layer populated by drones and autonomous flight. When mobility becomes volumetric, what fundamentally changes about urban space?
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Winy Maas52:24
Everything can fly. The planet is crowded, and we can use the sky. Climatic issues push us to manipulate meteorology. Drones have entered society dangerously. We study the civic aspects: making drones stable, grouping them, energy supply, docking. In two years, we built a stack drone in Barcelona. Clustering mini drones is now a tool. This opens civic possibilities but raises privacy issues. We can reduce traffic with drones, but it's contradictory. We can make farms in the sky using grouped drones. A house made of 10,000 drones can transform. This is a tool for students to explore free urbanism.
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Host1:01:22
It's an absolutely fascinating project that asks core questions. Through new tools and technologies, we adapt systems to understand the city as a layered, algorithmically governed volume. The sky becomes infrastructure. Thank you very much, Winnie, for joining us on the Super Urban Podcast.
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Winy Maas1:02:40
Thank you, and thank you for your questions.
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Host1:02:42
Yes, maybe there's another moment soon for part two.
This conversation is a reflection on a practice that expands what architecture can do. From data to atmosphere, the city is a continuously produced condition. Across Winy Maas's work, we see a commitment to modeling and building at the limits of urbanism. As limits dissolve, questions sharpen. When everything becomes urbanism, what does architecture refuse? Thank you to our listeners, supported by the Alistister Swain Foundation and RMIT. We acknowledge the Bunwong and Wurong people on whose country we record.
