Founding Partner, MVRDV
Maison Talks // Winy Maas
Winy Maas is a Dutch architect. Together with with Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries he co-founded MVRDV, a prominent ...
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.
Transcript (16 segments)
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Winy Maas0:00
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I think it's very good to make the user distinguish between two words, home and house. In that way, as an architect, we can work on a couple of ways to make the step from house to home. One is, for instance, to create character. So basically it means that every space could be different and that people can choose because of that character. If a house has a normal cube, it's boring. If a house has a void or a strange chair, that is one way of dealing with it. And then people choose because of that character to live in it, so you're already closer to the word home because of that.
The second element is, and that's more radical, what we try to do now with the On-the-Go House as a research project, where you can, when you want to make your house, you can make it yourself. So basically it negotiates with the neighbor. If you want to have a house that looks like this, of course the neighbor says something. So it optimizes the relationship and it does it on the go. This is based out of elements that can move, including acoustics, including everything, and turns it into this combination. I think there's an interesting aspect into that because you can make your own environment, but you also have to negotiate. Software does that with your neighbors. You start also to learn your neighbors. So from ego, you want to express your ego, it becomes we-go in that way. That's the second project that we try to engage with in order to expand the gap from house to home.
And the last thing has to deal with the way how architecture can accept the familiarization or the domestication of the house. Certain spaces, I mean it's always fascinating to see what people do with decoration or with their choice of furniture to deal with it. And I think of course our houses, we need the knowledge how people will react. A little bit, yes, the chair is like this, so there should be sufficient space in that way. But I find it intriguing how people react to the spaces. So we try to film that in many of our projects to see how, because it helps to understand and to evaluate a little bit. It creates also knowledge if we have enough experience on this idea of domestication and making it into a home. That's I think the third way how we deal between the word house and home.
Well, the first thing is technology, because if you make a fat wall, 25 centimeters of concrete, I don't hear you. So acoustics are incredibly important. Windows with triple glazing, we can do much more than ever before. In that sense, with different kinds of curtains, you can be more than ever in privatization. So I'm aware about that, but that's the first step to guarantee that. On the other hand, I know that people would like to share more. They want to have actually tinier places as long as they can have a kind of garden, or if they have people that are nice next to them to share things with. The sharing economy is also there, and especially with the younger generation, that one step that wants to go beyond the anonymity of the town.
And that feeds also a process at this moment to make buildings that can accommodate that. It takes more time, let me say that. So the first ten years, this WeGo movement will be maybe ten till twenty percent of our cities. I think what can happen in the future, I'm very happy that people love the city these days. Also I would say the old coffee culture is also part of that momentum, and the desire in the younger generation to be part of the city because it's more ecological, because it's close by, because you can meet people. It's growing. So the tendency helps because then you are under pressure voluntarily, because yes, you are living a place but you want to share. And if it's outside or part of all the terraces, there are different ways of translating it. So that movement is still going on and it helps, and it drives maybe that direction and it can grow down to forty percent.
I think another aspect which is quite important is technology in the future that will facilitate also the acceptance of that. We spoke already earlier about the acoustical question that can do that. But the changeability of things, that fascinates me even more. I spoke about the On-the-Go House, but imagine that we have a material which is changeable very easily, not by robots but simply by chemical processes. In that way, what is real estate at that moment? It becomes surreal estate, and that is a major momentum that could happen if that development takes place ultimately.
At the moment we're also researching stuff from within the nano world, from inorganic to organic material, so that this can also be like a place where simply plants can grow, and that can fabricate also next steps in this material, which is technically already very close in the chemical world. But that will be even more interesting because then you're always mixed with nature somehow, with an in-between filter.
And that is actually also quite cool in terms of collectiveness, because then we share that. When I live in the middle of the city, in a fantastic neighborhood where I know a lot of people, and yes, we go on our roofs and we meet people there, and yes, we are on the streets over there. So the streets are very important also. I must say that some of your streets are horrendous here in Russia. They are too big, there's cars everywhere, and they drive like maniacs, and there's no green at all. So I support enormously the Strelka's plan to make this kind of greening in that way. And it is a long way to go to make it doable. But I like the Market Hall because you can see your neighbor, you can look into it, it's very eyes. I like it.
I was not able to show today the urban plans that we make. I think our plan in Bordeaux, which is under execution, with streets that are only six to ten meters wide, I think it's wonderful. Because of that you force basically intimacy, and you like it. It can guarantee you. We did this test in Helmond, I showed that today, six meters. Because it's kind of awful of course to replace people, to push them at certain places to go away, and that should be done in a voluntary manner. That's fair enough, property, property. And we're all intelligent enough to decide upon that.
But having said that, certain bigger changes are also much blocked. I mean, in New York you can't do anything because of that. It's a kind of insane situation. Certain cases and how to develop them, techniques of conviction and alternatives to help that. Like we do in Amsterdam at the moment. When we first make new quarters and people are attracted by it, and then they go there, and then you can do something with the old in that way. That's a technique that is advisable anyway. For certain kinds of things, new infrastructure, new metro line, how to do that? And how to show that also to people that you accept that, I have to go, but pay them enough or give them enough alternatives to make that acceptable. That is a technique that we have to work with.
I don't know if you could communicate about the alternatives, or is this the only way to go? I don't get yet a very clear picture of the necessity of it. And then I'm still a kind of scholar or a specialist on that. So what can I tell about people? Do they understand why this is happening? Can they go along with it? And that's a process. So to make it very open, fair, and to create alternatives also fair. I want to see why on that place it has to happen like that, or can it not be done another way? That is of course the question that I would love to get knowledge about and I would love to share that. I have no clue, I cannot judge, but I see it happening.
Of course there is also, besides our privacy, you see that people, what do we care? Our big data are on the street. And somehow I don't care, it makes me even more responsible almost because I know that I'm public in that way. There's a big generation that is somehow a little bit, and of course I'm skeptical, but living with it is also a reality. So it causes also maybe a tendency that you are suggesting, that your public appearance is much more there, could create also more responsibility, and it could create also more discussions. So let's see that. I think we are clever enough to deal with that. Of course I'm afraid of Google and of Tencent in that way. I'm happy to work with Tencent at this very moment to see what we can deal with it. I'm also fascinated by Facebook, what they're doing, and the visit that Mark is paying to all our leaders. So you can see that there's something going on on that, and that is fascinating.
Another aspect which I think is also very important: we move more than ever in our lives, or the younger generation moves maybe like twenty times per life, where in the past my parents moved three times or even one. And that's also a reality because the new middle class works on more places and finds out where to do. The issue of property is the only thing that I'm, that is the ultimate step, what you might say, that when we talk about surreal estate at a certain moment. That's still far away with our mortgage systems and with our pension fund systems. That needs slightly more time to think about. That's what I actually question.
I call it light urbanism. So when houses are light, they can move and change easily. Then you don't have real estate anymore, and where everyone has twenty Dutch houses in the city and you can take them with you like caravans, then that would be, it's far away. So I don't see that yet happening, but there are tendencies. The tiny house movement is a tendency in that way, to build up alternatives for your pension is a tendency.
Okay, thank you very much, time is up. [Music]