Nathalie de Vries, ‘New Collectivities: Housing and the City’
Tuesday, 4 August 2015
B117 Theatre, Melbourne School of Design
In our increasingly privatized world, co-inhabited spaces are rather seen as sources of conflict rather than stimulators of interconnectivity, especially in dense urban contexts. Can we create new ways of connecting people, whether permanent or temporary, with the strength of the collective? Nathalie De Vries, co-founder of Nederlands-based design firm MVRDV, pursues a fascination for radical, investigative spatial research focusing on the urban landscape, the public realm, and the influence of architecture on the everyday lives of its inhabitants and users.
In this lecture, Nathalie de Vries will discuss MVRDV’s approach to contemporary housing solutions. Focussing on innovative housing design solutions for our cities in a globalized yet individualized world, she will also cover how to rally stakeholder support for completing these projects. Using examples of mixed communities such as the Silodam apartment block in Amsterdam, single-family villas for specific users such as the Barcode House in Munich, the participatory urbanism process Nieuw Leyden, as well as the recently completed Markthal in Rotterdam, she will illustrate how architecture and urban design can create spaces and places for these New Collectivities.
About the speaker
Nathalie de Vries. Prof. ir. FRIBA (1965, Appingedam, the Netherlands), is an architect and urbanist. She is director and co-founder of globally operating architecture and urban planning firm MVRDV she set up together with Winy Maas and Jacob van Rijs in 1993. She studied at Delft University of Technology from 1984 till 1990, and graduated as master of architecture (honours). Since 2013 she has been Professor for Architecture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Nathalie de Vries is currently member of the Supervisory Board of the Groninger Museum and has been for Het Nieuwe Instituut for Architecture, Design and E-culture, the Netherlands Architecture Fund, the NAI and Moti Museum of the Image. She is also board member of Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and has been for architectural journal Oase.
She has taught at several schools and institutions, amongst others at Harvard GSD, IIT Chicago, the Berlage Institute, TU Delft, Architecture Academy Arnhem and has been Professor of Architecture at TU Berlin (2002-2004) and Chief Railroad Architect of NS/ProRail from 2005-2008.
She has been member of the Gestaltungsbeirat of Salzburg and presided the steering group BNA-Research of The Royal Institute of Dutch Architects.
www.mvrdv.nl
The Dean’s Lecture by Nathalie de Vries is sponsored by Dulux.
source
