Fokke Moerel to speak about "Places for all" at the Architizer Future Fest

All right, thank you Paul, that was nice. Anyway, thank you very much for the invitation, of course, and thanks to all the voters for the popular choice of this award; that's of course amazing. When so many people actually like it, because that's what we try to do, it's not just places for all, but it's really places for all for everybody, for people. And of course, I will talk a bit about the Depot because that's the project that has won the award, but also to speak a little bit broader about how we as architects can help to improve our living environment. And I'm amazed by looking at the chat how many people from all over the world — I was going to say I don't know, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, I don't know — like everybody's there, so that's quite amazing to see. So I hope that there's going to be some questions there at the end. I'm going to sort of guide you, or I'm going to give like a wide range of projects, and they all have to do with this title of places for all, how we can improve the environment that we all live in. So there's like three topics here that are strongly connected to our DNA of the office: so how can we create comfortable cities for people, how can we really make use of other resources and the space that we have in a smart way for a future-proof environment, and also how can art or architecture actually really be a tool for inclusiveness, so places for all.

But first of all, let's start with a really short introduction. You can find all of this on the websites, of course, but it also shows a bit of how and where we work all over the place. And this is our slogan: we create social, innovative, realistic, green, remarkable, hopefully architecture and interior design and strategies and urban planning, etc. But especially for a changing world, I think that is the most important thing here, that we try to keep up and also be ahead of this changing world, and we see a lot of things of course happening around us every day. So these are our founders in the wrong order. To understand the name of our office, MVRDV, it's the initials of Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, and Nathalie de Vries. But of course they're not alone, so this is our leadership very proudly in front of indeed the Depot just before it was delivered, as you can see some pieces missing in the facade. But I'm probably one of those partners to steer with everybody the full office. And of course they are not alone, we're not alone, there are many people, and actually many, many more people. So at this moment we're a little bit above 300 people all in all. And this is one of the excursions just before summer to one of our projects that I will show a little bit later. And they come from many different countries because we work in many different countries all over the world, of course with the focus in Europe but also in China and more and more in the Americas. That's also why we have more presence in different countries. So of course in Rotterdam, that's our headquarters, let's say. So this is the place. Rotterdam is the place where most of the projects come about, but we also have a satellite in Shanghai, and then we moved into Paris, and then just a couple years ago into Berlin, and now indeed into New York actually almost as we speak. So it's not even in the slide because we don't have an office yet, but we do have a presence from the start of September, so we're very proud of that. That's indeed our new colleague who leads, Vanessa Gaseven, who leads the New York office from first of September. But of course we have been working in the States for quite some time, and actually today as we speak, the Radio Tower really up in the tip of Manhattan in New York is being opened, in between all these different communities, and that's also how you see it reflected in the facade. But also in San Francisco we have a project under construction there, Mission Rock, to be opened either at the end of this year or first quarter of next year, a mixed-use building. And there's many more, I just wanted to share a couple. So indeed, also today I'm at home, that's what we're getting used to, and this was my office for quite some time as long as the weather allowed for it in my little greenhouse. And what we figured out, I think indeed to do also these kind of moments, I mean it's not the nicest to be talking to your screen, but on the other hand indeed if you see the chat how many people are there and from all over the world, that of course is amazing. We should really keep on using that and seeing it as a benefit. At the same time, we're very glad to move into our office again. This is our headquarters as I said in Rotterdam, and there's a couple things that we really want to hang on to, so the lunch for instance. We have to do this in shifts now, but still it's very valuable for us to keep seeing each other and speaking to each other, and not just, you know, even if it's about the weather, a hot topic of course nowadays especially. One of our teams here at work, or the think tank as you can call it, where quiet production work and heavy thinking is being done, and at the same time we have a lot of different meeting rooms, gathering rooms, as you can see here, and not just collages but really to see how you know how to define the right spots for the right conversation. And I think that also resembles how we work, because we don't specify, we don't do things again and again. We have a wide variety of different projects in different countries and different skills and with different types of clients. So not to specify or specialize is not always handy or efficient, but it's a lot of fun. You need to reinvent your wheel actually every time, it's a must. And even from the beginning, indeed this is Berlin Voice, which was the first collaboration between the founding partners for the European competition which they won at that time, almost 30 years ago I think now. But these kind of research projects to see how you can live in a very dense yet individual world, how can you do this in a comfortable way, these kind of topics have been there from the start and remain so to this day. And through different types of publications or even installations, we keep on researching these kind of topics.

And connected to that is indeed as I said, how can we create comfortable, green, and livable cities for people, of course. So there's a couple of projects that I would like to show you, and they might go back and forth from different types, but that's I think what I was seeking anyway, that's also how we work as I said. Market Hall in Rotterdam is actually the biggest project we did, and quite recently in Rotterdam, so we have been present there for a long time but only more recently started to work there. This is more or less an extension of the streets if you will, because if you see what it looked like from the start, it was an empty space, like really in the middle, a landing lane in the middle of the center of Rotterdam, only used once or twice a week for a market. And on the right hand side you see how many people actually wanted to get into this building since it is publicly accessible. It's an open street where food is celebrated, which was quite uncommon before. In Rotterdam people didn't really have that much interest in leisure and food, it was really a working place. But we're celebrating life much more, which is good, and we're also trying to add more comfort to this street, an extension but yet a window to the city as we know it here on the library and a very old but iconic building, the Pencil as we call it, and celebrating art as well in this way, so making it more comfortable, making it extended, and making more places accessible. And a valley where we just were with the whole office on the stairs, three towers for high-end residential apartments, and in the plinth there's a mixed-use program: commercial but also offices and also a museum satellite. And as you can see here, we wanted to create this commercial projects really to have more and more green from the bottom to the top, so not just around the place and make it a little public square, but really that it's green all over and publicly accessible as you can see on the right. So bringing people into projects makes a sort of city that is not just two-dimensional but also becomes more three-dimensional, and being more inviting it can inspire hopefully people to indeed make use not just from the outside but also from the inside, that connection between the lobby and the towers and creating more views from there. And the green as I said, of course this is heavily planted, so it's going to be more and more luscious over the years, that's the intention. On the other side of the world, I saw some people from India, Pune. We have a very big project there, was in a team, and if you see on the side you have the more standard projects for that region where outdoor space or common space or publicly accessible space is just hardly there. And that is the debate that we, or the discussion that we started off with the client from the start, like how can we make these huge developments, 3,000 apartments and that was just phase one, how can we make that more livable, a little bit more green but especially more comfortable, and add so many different amenities and common spaces for people who actually live there? Then also we of course hope they get to meet each other in an informal way on a higher level, on the lower level. A bit like the Sky Garden, where a vacant highway for cars, not for trains, was turned into a garden, but most of all a pedestrian access from one side of the city to the other, where before that was completely impossible, and of course to create a bit of an oasis right inside of this hyper-dense city, and connecting to the city where you already have a lot of different types of program. How can you combine all this and connect it in a very simple way with an object that was already there? We just have to punch down here and there to make the connection to ground level. As you can see here, you can walk in between the botanical garden on top and almost disappear if you want. And of course make it fun, have some pleasure, and for all generations. And that's also done here in the Thailand Spring, a different city but similar climate, similar density. And what we did here is just sort of carve out a little piece of a city to actually bring it back and give it back to the people in here, especially with water of course, trying to get some comfort during the sunny days. So on the left hand side, it's opening up a plot which was taken before and giving back green and leisure and fresh air basically. So here you can see the block that was there before, and starting to carve, we actually left some of the remains and we carved deeper into the parking garage, so you actually have, you know, you really disappear let's say from the cityscape and have your own atmosphere right in between. So giving that back to the citizens, that was the whole idea here.

So connected to that again is of course how can we also make use of our resources and our space first of all for this future-proof environment. How can we make smart use of the planet that we have? And of course one of the first projects, well not the first but the first international project, is the Expo 2000 in Hanover. Actually today we're doing a makeover of this project. It was all demountable because that was of course very sustainable. And but it's still there and we're now giving it a new purpose, so yeah, how sustainable can you be? I think that is the first thing as architects that we should have a look at: how can you use what is already there and reuse it? But of course this was a symbol. Have a look at that emoji, sorry, somebody getting scared. So this was really a symbol of how the Dutch, I would say, treats their land, and it's all to be used and used again and to be formed in the way that we want it to be. And of course we're very low under the sea level, so how can you make and create your own country? And this is stacking all these different landscapes that we have on top of each other to make the smartest use of the plot in this sense and try to be sustainable. So why not indeed have a forest on the fourth floor? Why not have a building without a facade? And how can we have a building just to be generating its own power? Which is very common today but still a question mark back then. So here you can see a sketch of that, right. We wanted of course to even go higher but there were limitations there. And having the forest, it's no longer there, that's a pity, but we have the picture, we have the remembrance. But completely different scope. For Bulgari we made a facade only a year ago in Shanghai where we actually reused the bottles that they produce in the first place, and still in line with their retail and commercial way of thinking of course, and making it beautiful and trying to attract attention in the busy retail streets of Shanghai, but still being very sustainable, having a different type of message from there on. Again a total switch in type of project. This is in the Netherlands actually, a new, it's a landfill from a long long time ago already, but we call this Freeland. Here this is an urban design without a design. So basically it's giving some rules to people who would like to live in a free way and make up their own rules. But therefore they have to collaborate, and that's what this project really is about: how to collaborate on this field of agriculture, which is of course less and less really in production mode. So how to make a collective with people and determine what you need, and then collectively make sure that your roads and your energy and your water filtration, etc., and more use is organized. So nothing is there, but you have to do it with the collective, and that creates these kind of spaces. People start to buy plots and start to develop them, and then they get closer and closer and they have to collaborate more and more. And you see beautiful developments bottom up starting up here. People can just build their own house in whatever style they want, so it's indeed in that sense it's their Freeland. And again a very different type, but I just wanted to show also the wide diversity of how you can approach this sustainable subject. Now this is important: we have just been starting to work on this large area which was the oil refinery. It's been vacant for about a year I think now, and I cannot really show you more because we have just started. But it looks like this, but nothing is happening now. So how can you end? But it's very close to the city which is about to explode and needs to expand. So how can we make use of these kind of areas and turn them into a residential area, a leisure area, mixed use neighborhood, so close to the city? And you can see here the fine borderline between heavy industry and the coastline, which of course is a huge benefit for new development. And here just a brief catalog of all the potentials that you can have: using what is there and adding what you need for future development and making it green. And that is actually what we try to do here: not just master plan everything with roads and infrastructure, but really with adding green and nature and letting it go its way. And here you'll really see a little bit of that, so it's definitely possible. So that's for the next lecture to show more. Again installations for us very important: not just to build, but also to show people what you can actually do in a very small means and temporary installations like this one only a couple months ago. We had a festival to celebrate our roofs in the city, and here indeed to be able to walk up a roof and show that to people, that it's not just for pebbles, but really you can do so much and you can have such a beautiful view from there. This is next to the Depot, but we had another one which showed the more inner city site. People relaxing there, so they feel comfortable. That's the good side.

So the last question I had was, and that we work with as an office, is how art, of course mostly architecture, can actually be a tool for inclusivity. And so no matter what location or skill or budget, how can we make use of this as architects to make sure that everybody is welcomed? An older project in Matsudai, Japan in 2004. It was a very simple project, a community center and also a center for the arts. And because it snows a lot of months throughout the year, we said why don't we just raise this very small center and make sure that you create this space underneath, so it's not just used inside but also to be used outside. And so this kind of opening up, making, or getting rid of the threshold in that sense. And here you can see there's also the interior, it was really a collaboration of artists and designers and architects. And in a different way, Concordia project in Poland, just delivered two years ago. We tried to open up this basically commercial project for co-working space to try and open up on the left hand side you see opening up to the park as it is there. And on the top, during discussions with the city and with a lot of people who actually make use, as you can see them on the grass fields right in front, make use of this island, and adding therefore an open roof garden to make it more fit into its surrounding. So you can see it sit on the island and how the top roof is used in different ways. And other people actually still, well they use it as scenery, and there you see the mural on the inside, see it here as well, which relates to the history of this island and really connects, I would say, for the people, and be opening up to the public. Also here in Mumbai, The Green Mile. It's very simple means: open public space never used or in a bit of a shady way, and now just with some graphics, with some planting, with some very simple means of furniture, etc., and some light, you really open it up and you make places for people where they can gather. So let me then quickly go to the Depot, what this whole thing was about. Indeed, public space and art can play a connecting role to create these places for all. A couple of months from now, the Depot. The museum is right on the left-hand side here, and the depot is very close because before there used to be really outside of the city, dispersed over like eight or nine different depots like this storages, which nobody knew where they were, which was the whole intention. But of course also nobody knew what the collection was about; you couldn't see it, you couldn't reach it, you couldn't get there. Even curators wouldn't really know what beautiful collection they would have. And of course in the meantime they did open up the archive in a digital manner, but now they wanted to open it up also in a physical manner. And how to do that right in the city center? As you can see here, the little tower is the museum. It's in a museum park, so it was quite a debate from start like how to make use, how to not ruin the public space and still give it a huge volume, and how to work together with all the institutes around and how to not create a background. So how do we go about this? The plot with the different institutes around. It was big, it was a large large volume, so we made it round to make it less oppressive, less defensive, but also not creating a background or a back side, and to squeeze the bottom so we leave as much open space as possible, and to have a big panoramic rooftop where everybody could enter with an express elevator, and as I said to leave as much of the public space open. The mirroring facade makes you feel like the park is actually twice as large. And also putting the trees that were there before really on the roof, adding a little public space but then on a different level, the 3D city as I mentioned before, making it almost fade away into the clouds and making an inversion during the night. And so it goes from here to here to here; you can almost, you can all of a sudden see that it's indeed inhabited, that there's people there and not just storage. You can see the atrium here, so it's a big pot as we call it from the start, and we made a slit in between so people could easily go from the bottom all the way to the top and around with making these circles over the stairs, see all the art depots along the way. And here you can see, well, it's a panoramic photo where you can see all this coming together and creating a bit of chaos almost, but you need to invite you to explore yourself to see what's there. So that is indeed the experience that we wanted to add: from minor public space before, to 95% of the building being publicly accessible on all different levels. I'm going through the floor plans a bit quickly. Ground floor was the biggest hurdle because everything comes in here: the truck, the people, the art, the container spaces, and the lobby of course. And this is what it looks like today. It's your background exactly, so Paul is

At the right spot, being invitive, but still at the same time it's not a museum. This is the back of house of the museum. This is the other side showing different types of exhibitions also, and with collaborations with different artists and designers like here for the entrance. They didn't want to touch the building, just leaving the skin as pure as we made it. And here you can see the previous vendors going through, opening up the depots, looking through the glass, but also being able to enter the depots. And looking from up close, of course that is the real brilliant series showing the back side, the back of house, how to restore and how to maintain, showing a little bit of how they restore, to celebrate that part as well. It's just as important as hanging pieces in the museum, opening up to the city where we can. And also making super large spaces, the spaces that they did not have in the museum, to make these crazy big installations. And showing art from all sides, not just from the front in a white space, but really from the back, from the front, and you can look from the top and the bottom. And then on the sixth floor we have the restaurants, even in the ceiling reflecting the additional Race Park on the roof. And this is indeed what it looks like today, although this is just before opening of course. Adding trees which we were prepared already long before to have flat roots, creating a little bit of an oasis. And again, just like in Seoul, you can disappear in a green. This was with the opening. The objects or the architecture was almost an object of art itself. Quite scary to see these people dancing on your facade, but it didn't help. And these kind of pictures I think are very important to show not just the podium, but really that people are starting to inhabit and embrace the building as part of the city, seeing it as a scenery, let's say new scenery for the city. And pieces of art like here people have at least really made it complete as a piece of art, and also to show the public space is part of that. And that is what I wanted to share. So thank you for that. I saw a lot of emojis coming by. This is a new dynamics of a lecture, that's very nice, thanks. Yeah, it's a nice way for people to give a little bit of reaction. Oh, there's a lot of them coming in right now.

Yeah, well, if the client doesn't do so, then we will. So that is a bit... how so? Normally of course you get a brief and a budget and a planning, etc., but we try to always read in between the lines and to see what is missing or what is redundant, or where can we add a bit more of unpredictable, but especially more public. So there were some like I showed Concordia, which is important, the one with the rooftop. As I said, the rooftop was not in the program, and actually the client didn't... it didn't occur to them because it is in fact a commercial program, it's rentable space. It has a public or an exhibition area, it has restaurants, but still the building itself is meant for commercial use. But throughout the discussions with the city, and they were very much against because this building was vacant for a long time, and so throughout the discussions with the city and the people making use of this island, we actually proposed like why not make the roof semi-publicly accessible so you can actually have the view, you can give it back. And so in the end it was indeed realized and therefore really embraced by the people there. So it was a mind changer. And in other projects, it was already with the client they wanted to have this mix. For the valley, maybe that was the project that was referred to. It needed to be a mix of program, but to make it actually publicly accessible and the green all over, that really comes from our end, because this is a neighborhood just outside of Amsterdam where it's only the financial district, there's nothing there. There's some football, some soccer fields, etc., but there's hardly any residential. It's really starting to become more of a neighborhood, but it doesn't really have all these kind of amenities and public spaces. So therefore that was indeed our addition, I would say, to make sure that it's indeed as a building, as a complex, a neighborhood in itself. So sometimes it's a debate, sometimes it's just a nice discussion, and sometimes it's already in a brief.

Yeah, for sure. No, this has been a long, not just a debate, it's been a research from different sites. And we've tried many different things. For instance, there's indeed sort of what is called bird safety glass, as you just mentioned. But it doesn't actually... the results are not that good and it's really expensive. At the same time, we could also imagine like you have in airports to have... I don't know what you would call them, but to come over like once a month or so, that could happen. We didn't go for that either. In the end, what reports showed us, not from this building but in general, is that actually the fact that it's really mirroring, so it's not just reflective but it's really mirroring, makes the birds actually fly away because they really see another bird coming towards them. So they fly away. So that was for us very comforting to make. And of course we monitored afterwards, and actually right on the other hand, a museum or the museum park there you have the control of... but also the museum of natural history, and there the director is keeping a small collection, or actually getting bigger and bigger, of dead animals in the city. And up to now he has one dead bird of the depot. So that comforted us that it's indeed... we looked into it, yes. It's not an easy topic. But yeah, in the end we see that there's actually not that it's not really happening, people. So I think it's really more reflective buildings rather than mirroring buildings. But so these numbers I could not represent.

Well, we try to do as much as we can, but per project, per client, that of course makes a huge difference. What kind of projects? If it really is a residential development for instance, or office space, then you can look in different fields, right? So it's not going to be really publicly accessible most likely. Although, for like the silos in Amsterdam, a very old building that we did, it has a lot of neighborhoods for instance within... so it's all social housing, or most of it is social housing. But so the prices are quite low, the budget was a challenge, let's say. This is really 25 years ago I think. But still, to add public or common space makes the building and project really rich. So it's on different levels. I mean you can do it within the building for these people for instance, or for the... also DNB in Oslo, a large bank. Now this is normally as a typology building that is very closed and very introverted headquarters. In the bank of a country, of course they don't want to show anything, especially the dealing room. That is normally sort of enclosed, nobody can see it. But there we introduced also a walkway over the building and partly through. And a lot of people, and it's seven or eight floors tall, so a lot of people actually who work there actually use it so they can look into these normally completely enclosed environments. So even for people who work there, it's not for all public, but even for people who work there it can really be an added value. So it just depends with who your client is and what his agenda, your agenda is, of course.

Nice question, yeah. Well, the whole structure, the same for the pink roof as I showed you, but also there was an orange one at the same time going into the city center. And a couple years ago we had the big stair right next to the main train station going up to one of the monumental buildings right there. These installations are built up out of scaffolding, so it's just rented material. And that's like 90% of all the material that we use, so it's going to be reused and reused. The cladding on top... I have to think because there's wood and there's like a type of carpet, and the carpet is being reused I'm quite sure, but I couldn't really give you the exact details. But these are things that we do look at also for exhibitions. For instance, we had an exhibition right in the new institute next to the depot, as you can see in this image, and that's where the pink roof was on top. And we also used a wood that they had in their workshops, we used the furniture that they had in their office space. So we're very... and of course there's always new material that you need to buy, and that cannot really be reused or it's not really clear at that point what it's going to be used for afterwards. But it's definitely a topic that is a hot topic for us, to be thinking about these kind of afterlife, let's say. It's definitely on our agenda and we try to do as much as we can there, yeah.

Yeah, sure. Now about the weight. Very often, for instance, we also, if it's in transformations, then you can find a point where you can actually have more load. So right on top of a column you can most of the time easily add more weight right there. So you have to be careful of where you position your greenery. But in case of the depot, of course, it's new build, so it does have some impact on the structure, but basically you already have to deal with the water that it can capture. So the impact is not that big. It's not that you have to increase your structure with a large percentage. That's quite minor, I would say. But what we did there is first of all... one of the reasons I didn't show it here, but one of the reasons why the museum wanted to collect all their parts of the collection in one building was not only to move it into the center and close to the museum, but also to keep it safe. So what you see here is a fridge, and it's safe at the same time. And of course one thing they didn't want to have is water. So there's no sprinkler system at all. So all the water that you catch on the roof needed to be directed to the shafts and go through the shafts and up to any other space. Which also means that we actually made, you could say, a computer floor, a raised floor above the structural floor. So basically you just make a regular roof on top of your structure, you just make a watertight roof, and maybe normally that's where you stop or you put your pedals. But then here indeed you have a raised floor where there's insulation as well, if they need to be dispersed over the space you have. And there is where we have like 80 centimeters of space for these roots. And indeed the bigger trees, they've been there for two years now and they do really great. It's been super hot this summer, there's been storms one after the other, so they're coping, they're surviving really well, and the green is really blossoming. So I'm happy to see that there's actually sort of community of birds up on the roof. So it's quite nice to see. But they have been prepared or chosen these trees two years before they would be placed on top of the roof to indeed squeeze the roots in that sense and make sure that they would be growing horizontally instead of going deep. And of course there's an irrigation system on top of the roof that makes it maintain slow. And there's actually they're being monitored by experts on that sense. Of course we get a lot of inputs from people who are indeed consultants on this topic. So they choose the type of tree together with us. Not every type of tree can survive with the wind etc. on such high levels. So there's a whole team around this. And especially for the depot, we see that it survives really well. So I think we... yeah, the sandwich flooring etc. is one thing, but the results at the end is definitely worth it.

Yeah, no, very true. And of course it's a huge team. And indeed, well, how long that's going to take I cannot tell you because we just started. And we did more transformations of former industrial or harbor areas, but this might be more polluted indeed. So that is a part that I think at this point I'm not deeply involved in this project, but I am following it because it's indeed a very intriguing one to see how that can be realized, to live in that neighborhood and how much of nature would be there and how much control. That is sort of the slider that we're looking at. Like now it's all tarmac, how can you put that further to indeed nature? And of course we're going to make sure we're going to draw a line like where is it going to be green and where do we need developments? Because the brief is indeed it's a neighborhood basically, so it's residential, there's everything that a neighborhood needs, so it's mixed in that sense. But there's still a lot of additional space that we can indeed sort of give back to nature by simply taking away the tarmac. I mean that is what's covering the whole area. So identifying the remarkable spots and the reusable spots and buildings and structures in the area, that's one of the first things that we're now working on. And then adding of course new program is the little catalog, the data that I showed, but nature always being the big parts or equal parts of that program, and trying to always combine the two. And yeah, you need a lot of specialists for that. I mean the ground, I couldn't really speak to specifically for this project, but I'm sure there's a large team who is right on top of getting the pollution out before people start to move in. I'm sure that's going to take a bit of time, but it's fine. It's also a master planning project, and that always needs more time also to define the brief exactly: what type of housing, what type of amenities, what type of public space that needs to be developed over time.

Well, keep on doing it, thank you. No, it's really nice to see that it's more interactive, so thank you for the invitation. And have a lot of fun of course with the next speakers. Indeed, the High Line is really been a very good example, it's beautiful. So enjoy the next lecture. And thanks for all the comments and the smileys and emojis and the questions, it was very nice. Thank you so much. All right.