Luxury Architecture

Luxe architectuur

Authors

  • Olv Klijn Fabrications
  • Eric Frijters Fabrications

Abstract

It’s fair to say the architecture of the French architect duo Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal is striking. Striking not because it relies on grand gestures, but in fact striking in its simplicity. Their approach to form and material is equally remarkable. In the work of Lacaton & Vassal, form and material are not allusions to deeper meanings, but the result of a clear balancing of cost against performance. A superficial interpretation would be that the architecture of Lacaton & Vassal is cheap architecture. In reality the architects are after the opposite. They argue their goal is an architecture with extra possibilities for use – extra potential, as they phrase it. But what constitutes this ‘extra’ in this seemingly so simple architecture?

For us, housing, and therefore life, starts with the interior, with being in a house. The design of the floor plan is the most central element in the design. In preparation for our conversation I read through the issues of DASH I received in the post, and I’d like to take this opportunity to back-order the issue on the luxury city apartment. I happen to be convinced that in architecture we should not be talking about sustainability, but about luxury. Luxury for everyone!

Author Biographies

Olv Klijn, Fabrications

Olv Klijn is Principal at FABRIC – architecture, urbanism, regional strategies and Assistant Professor at the chair of Dwelling at the Technical University Delft. He studied architecture at the Eindhoven University of Technology and graduated Cum Laude. As an artist in residence Klijn studied the impact of current urbanization patterns at the American West Coast stayed at the Banff Centre in Canada. Klijn is (co)author of several books such as ‘VMX Agenda’, ’10 x Den Bosch’, ‘Station Centraal’, ‘Architect by accident’ and ‘The making of ...’ and published in various journals. In 2007 he founded FABRIC together with Eric Frijters and as of then involved in the design and research of architecture, urbanism and regional strategies. In 2010 they won the Prix de Rome, the price for architects up to 35 years. In 2011 Klijn was recognized as one of the 40 emerging European architects under 40 years old. One year later he was nominated for the Iakov Chernikhov International Architecture Prize ‘for designers, that stand in the field experiment with innovative architecture, education and research in architecture and urbanism’.

Eric Frijters, Fabrications

Eric Frijters, founding partner and principal at FABRICations, Professor (Lector) Future Urban Regions (FUR) at the Dutch Academies of Architecture. Eric has over 15 years of experience in designing and executing projects in architecture, urbanism and consulting in regional strategies in the Netherlands and abroad. He has a background in architecture at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam and graduated Cum Laude at the Eindhoven University of Technology. His research is being published in several books and various journals and Eric received recognition for his work with several prizes (Prix de Rome, Iakov Chernikhov International Architecture Prize) as a designer, that stands in the field and experiments with innovative architecture, education and research in architecture and urbanism. As of June 2013 he is leading the research group Future Urban Regions focusing on healthy urbanization, design thinking methodology and testing results for productive strategies on urban metabolism in studios at Academies of Architecture.

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Published

2018-06-01

How to Cite

Klijn, O., & Frijters, E. (2018). Luxury Architecture: Luxe architectuur. DASH | Delft Architectural Studies on Housing, 4(07), 56–61. Retrieved from https://journals.open.tudelft.nl/dash/article/view/4716

Issue

No. 07 (2012): The Eco House: Typologies of Space, Production and Lifestyles

Section

Interviews