Our mixed portfolio
is the engine
that generates
inventive solutions
What makes our daily life as designers interesting, fun and rewarding? For us at Benthem Crouwel Architects it’s working on a wide range of projects large and small, functional and expressive, cultural and commercial, local and abroad, private and public. This is what keeps us motivated and on our toes. An impressive and diverse mix ensures that our knowledge is continuously updated and improved, and also boosts our multidisciplinary way of working.
WE'VE DONE EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE NEXT PROJECT
We feel fortunate to have the chance to connect and collaborate with many different people from all lines of work, with different backgrounds and interests, and see this as an opportunity to learn and be inspired. This open mindedness expresses who we are as architects and individuals and how we approach our profession, while a broad portfolio has the additional benefit of attracting the most outstanding talent. Young architects know they will be able to gather a lot of experience working on so many different assignments.
Tailor-made solutions
Society is forever in flux, and therefore the nature of architectural assignments is always changing. Workspaces and living spaces are no longer strictly separated. Airports turn into business districts, train stations become shopping malls, offices act as vibrant hotspots for the community. And even buildings designed for one particular function have to be flexible enough to adapt if needed, to make them resilient and future-proof. Our inventiveness and wide range of interests, as designers but also as a firm, helps us to tackle the increasingly complex demands of our assignments. Our employees are all-round professionals, creative specialists working in strong and versatile teams that meet any job with enthusiasm and ambition - highly motivated by the variation and broad range of their work and inspired by any new challenge.
A foundation of knowledge
A varied portfolio not only helps us to accumulate knowledge that we can subsequently use in other projects. With clear views on the different aspects and demands from various fields of architecture - from complex transport hubs to living spaces, from museums to office buildings - our generalized specialism is fundamental to our unique approach: we search for the essence of every new assignment so we can find the perfect, often unexpected, solution.
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From intern to partner
I started working as an intern at Benthem Crouwel in 2003, an eager 21-year old who had never worked at an architecture firm before. Even as a young, inexperienced intern I was treated as full-fledged team member. I got to work on projects that varied vastly in scale and complexity: from an urban planning project in Amsterdam to a small bus drivers building, from a design competition for Munich’s Central Station to the adjustment of the entrance gate at Museum de Pont. It was this variety that made my internship both a steep learning curve and a lot of fun. It was one of the main reasons I came back to work at the firm fulltime in 2007, and was proud to join as partner in 2017.
It's my personal ambition to keep learning from every project, tapping into existing knowledge while also pushing the boundaries to find daring, innovative solutions for the issues our clients present us with. My job may have changed from intern to partner: it’s still every bit as exciting.
