Design Approach Erick van Egeraat
During his over 30 years of successful practice, Erick van Egeraat (Amsterdam, 1956) has built a highly diverse portfolio containing ambitious and high-profile projects in The Netherlands, Europe and the Russian Federation. He has led the realisation of over 100 projects in more than 10 countries ranging from buildings for public and commercial use to luxury and social housing projects, projects for mixed use and master plans for cities and even entire regions. Each of these projects represents his very personal and expressive vision on architecture and urban development. Both Erick van Egeraat and his work have been the recipients of numerous international awards and citations such as the RIBA Award 2007 for the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art and the ‘Best Animated Architecture’ award at the 2014 Media Architecture Biennale for the Waste to Energy Plant in Roskilde, Denmark.
Erick van Egeraat graduated from Delft University of Technology, Department of Architecture, with honourable mention in 1984 and was the co-founder of Mecanoo – the renowned avant-garde architects. In 1995 he established (EEA) Erick van Egeraat associated architects with offices in Rotterdam, Moscow, Budapest, London and Prague. In order to better meet the demands of a portfolio as diverse as his, Erick van Egeraat successfully restructured his company in 2009 into what is now Erick van Egeraat.
Design Philosophy
The architectural philosophy of Erick van Egeraat strikes a visionary balance between analysis, context and beauty. He envisages an architectural future in which the currently prevailing reductive avant-garde philosophy is superseded by a new paradigm of complexity and richness. According to Erick van Egeraat, any project should be connected to and even blend into the network and identity of its location. Therefore, great attention to the cultural and historic makeup of the site is required for a project to become a natural part of its surroundings. This emphasis on context stems from Erick van Egeraats aim to maintain, accentuate and complement the uniqueness of each individual location. Without surrendering to nostalgia or revival, he finds familiarity in the location itself, not in his own portfolio or by way of a methodical or even generic approach.
“My work relates to cultural and historic contexts as a source of meaning. I aim to create a sensual and intuitive architecture that corresponds to a natural language while evoking new, emerging sensations.”
While Erick van Egeraat formulates unique architectural solutions for each individual project, his basic principles remain flexibility, sensibility and sustainability at social, economic and environmental levels.
Expertise & Services
Erick van Egeraat works on projects ranging from entirely new buildings and masterplans to interventions within historic structures. The common denominator in this diverse portfolio is our expertise which lies in striking visionary balances between the intended identity, level of ambition and overall quality of the projects. Known for formulating unique architectural solutions, Erick van Egeraat creates iconic identities which optimize property values while acknowledging the social, emotional and intellectual impacts on both their environment and users.
We provide both public and private clients with architectural and masterplanning services; as well as interior and product design. Erick van Egeraat is strongly committed to meeting the aspirations of our clients and delivering the promise. In order to achieve this, our services are executed according to the highest RIBA and Western European standards. With offices in 4 and projects in more than 10 countries, we work in compliance with local legislation and codes. We make sure that the practical side of each project, including assisting in getting planning permissions and passing expertise, comes together with our creative vigor, to yield remarkable and lasting results.
Services offered by Erick van Egeraat include:
• Architectural, interior and product design
• Masterplanning, including guidelines, planning, delivery and implementation
• Engineering
• Technical specification
• Support for planning permit applications
• Construction and site management
Sustainability
At present, the gen¬eral con¬cept of sus¬tain¬abil¬ity in archi¬tec¬ture and the build¬ing indus-try is largely depen¬dent on an ever-evolving under¬stand¬ing of typol¬ogy, tech¬nol¬ogy and the use of mate¬ri¬als. Erick van Egeraats broader vision on sus¬tain¬abil¬ity adds to this con¬cept the aim to cre¬ate and main¬tain archi¬tec¬ture with a time¬less value. This vision man¬i¬fests itself in build¬ings with a strong char¬ac¬ter that receive broad sup¬port and offer a high level of flex¬i¬bil¬ity in use. By this def¬i¬n¬i¬tion, the designs of Erick van Egeraat are built to last a mul¬ti¬tude of the usual 30 – 50 year lifes¬pan, thus result¬ing in a sig¬nif¬i¬cantly lower social, eco¬nomic and envi¬ron¬men¬tal bur¬den. More¬over, a high level of sus¬tain¬abil¬ity will at the longer term offer con¬sid¬er¬able com¬mer¬cial benefits.
The con¬stantly improv¬ing tech¬niques and mate¬ri¬als that make it pos¬si¬ble to lower, or even neu¬tral¬ize, the use of energy and the level of car¬bon emis¬sion of a build¬ing should nat¬u¬rally be applied gen¬er¬ously in any project with a sus¬tain¬able objec¬tive. How¬ever, Erick van Egeraat firmly believes that such solu¬tions only truly add value for the user, the pub¬lic and the city as a whole if they are fully inte¬grated in the sum of ambi¬tions and require¬ments of a project. Fac¬tors like den¬sity, spa¬tial qual¬ity, com¬pact-ness, mixed-use and acces¬si¬bil¬ity may be less quan¬tifi¬ably Green, but they do com¬pose a seri¬ous impact on the sus¬tain¬able char¬ac¬ter of a build¬ing. As such, they con¬sid¬er¬ably expand the cur¬rent per¬cep¬tion of Green Architecture.
To imple¬ment this ambi¬tious view on sus¬tain¬abil¬ity into projects, a team of BREEAM trained experts mon¬i¬tor all run¬ning projects. The results of stud¬ies, mas¬ter plans and projects under con¬struc¬tion are well illus¬trated by the Sus¬tain¬able Office Build¬ing study for the Dutch rijks¬bouwmeester. Another exam¬ple is the mixed use Colum-buskwartier project planned for con¬struc¬tion in Almere. Cur¬rently the team per¬forms design works on a zero emis¬sion office build¬ing in the Oos¬t¬er¬dok Island mas¬ter¬plan next to Ams¬ter¬dam Cen¬tral Sta¬tion, and on a sus¬tain¬able 5 mln m2 mas¬ter¬plan in Moscow, Russia.