BLACKPRINT: Ms Holländer, MOR Studio grew out of a student project at TU Delft in 2020. What was the impulse behind it?

Margot Holländer: We officially founded the practice in 2020 with seven partners at the time. We all studied at TU Delft and got to know each other there through the ‘Solar Decathlon’. In this international student competition, you design a building over two years, build it as a prototype and then compete against other universities. Our concept was a modular refurbishment concept for office buildings, originally intended for the Marconi Towers in Rotterdam – three high-rises from the 1970s, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Our aim was the most minimal, reversible intervention possible, so that the building would remain flexible in 10, 20 or even 50 years.

BLACKPRINT: You very nearly won the competition. How did that lead to your idea being realised in Utrecht?

Margot Holländer: We assembled and dismantled our prototype several times – first in Delft, then for the competition in Hungary and afterwards once more in Delft. This allowed us to thoroughly test disassembly and modular assembly. At the final presentation in Delft, we had also invited representatives of the social housing cooperative SSH, which at that time had its eye on a vacant data centre in Utrecht that had never been used after its completion in 2008 due to the economic crisis of the day. The managing director at the time, Monique van Loon, then asked us whether our concept could also be implemented for this building. And since the grid fit and there were no load-bearing walls in the way, we immediately started with an initial sketch design. Shortly afterwards, we had our first commission on the table and officially founded our practice in order to develop our design step by step. The building was later named ‘Baobab’, after an African tree, in keeping with the neighbouring residential buildings by the same developer.

BLACKPRINT: The building provides 206 student flats, divided into a mix of four-person shared flats and single flats. How are the floor plans laid out?

Margot Holländer: For the four-person units, we used the full storey height, which is five metres beneath the beams. In some flats, we inserted a mezzanine level in order to stack two bedrooms on top of one another. As a result, the shared flats each comprise four bedrooms and a large, communal living space that makes use of the full ceiling height. The communal areas lie at the centre, and on the narrow sides large windows bring plenty of light into these areas. In addition, there is a balcony directly next to the living room.

BLACKPRINT: And you were able to continue using a large part of the existing load-bearing structure and building fabric?

Margot Holländer: Yes, we were able to leave the load-bearing structure largely in place. And we also retained the escape stairwell to the north, as well as the north façade. Even before the conversion, the building already had a double façade, consisting of perforated steel panels mounted on a steel substructure. We dismantled the panels, numbered them, cleaned them and reinstalled them, partly realigned. We likewise retained the inner façade shell of sand-lime brick, but partially opened it up in order to insert large windows, which are required given the dense occupancy. In addition, on the inside we integrated prefabricated timber frames with insulation as a new thermal envelope; the windows are likewise set in timber frames. For the interior layout, we additionally used timber partition walls and did not clad or re-plaster everything with plasterboard, but instead left as much of the existing load-bearing structure exposed as possible, so that the building’s history remains tangible and as little waste as possible is produced.

BLACKPRINT: In addition to the perforated steel panels, you integrated black photovoltaic panels into the façade.

Margot Holländer: Yes, that was quite a puzzle, because we wanted to bring as much daylight as possible into the flats. In the end, however, we succeeded in realising the largest photovoltaic façade in Europe in social housing. So, further to the embodied energy saved during the construction process, the residents’ energy consumption is also reduced.

BLACKPRINT: Does the topic of roof waterproofing also play a role for you?

Margot Holländer: Absolutely! In an earlier student project with more than 30 people involved, I dealt intensively with the façade and roof and even helped build the roof myself. There, we used an inductively fixed waterproofing system that can be laid without an open flame. The advantage is that the membrane can later be detached and reused. We assembled our prototype three times and reused the roofing membrane each time. Only individual fixing plates had to be replaced. This shows that genuine circularity is technically possible if you factor it in from the very start.

BLACKPRINT: You have just described the unusual façade concept: what role does aesthetics play for your practice, or for circular architecture in general?

Margot Holländer: The subject of design is definitely important to us. Because sustainability first of all requires that buildings are liveable and that they are accepted and liked by their residents and surroundings. How rough something may ultimately look is, of course, also a question of perception. With Baobab in particular, it was important to us that the reuse does not come across as a compromise but remains legible as a deliberate design decision. And we received very positive feedback for this, including from the students. It was likewise a great honour to have been nominated for the renowned Abe Bonnema Prize. We did not win, but usually it is the larger, established practices that are named there.

BLACKPRINT: Elsewhere, in this context, you have used the term ‘aesthetics of the circular’. What do you mean by that?

Margot Holländer: I have the feeling that, with many consumer products, we have long since become accustomed to a circular aesthetic – with bags or furniture, for instance. In architecture, by contrast, we are still in a learning process. One only gradually gets used to something not looking flawlessly new. For us, that means rethinking details with reused materials and repeatedly asking ourselves: what do we actually perceive as beautiful? What do we deliberately want to show – and where might it become too radical? We regularly have such discussions in the practice; internal dialogue is very important to us. On the Baobab project, my colleague Anna Tsagkalou was responsible for the aesthetic design, while I concentrated more on sustainability, execution, detailed planning and coordination with the construction firm. At the same time, we are open to impulses from outside. In this respect, Rotterdam is considerably less conservative than my home city of Vienna. The city encourages you to think beyond the mainstream. The exchange with other practices, such as Superuse Studios, is also inspiring in this regard.

BLACKPRINT: Another project is the Sjatoo010 Clubhouse in Capelle aan den IJssel. There, you created storage and meeting rooms for a voluntarily registered urban vineyard, rather unusual for the Netherlands. What is the story behind it?

Margot Holländer: The building is very small, more like a tiny house; it serves as a communal room and storage space. The project emerged from a neighbourhood initiative of wine enthusiasts. The municipality made a sloping area available on which they began to cultivate wine. Over time, a fairly large vineyard developed and there was a need for a storage option for tools. And it was likewise meant to be possible to hold small events on site. For the façade, we chose cork to suit the wine, which comes from Portuguese cork oaks. The material is new, but it was cultivated sustainably. In principle, we had also considered using second-hand materials, but in the end we opted for the cork.

BLACKPRINT: An unusual choice of material…

Margot Holländer: Yes, but we nevertheless found a few precedent projects. One of them was realised by Studio RAP in Leiden, the other is the Corkscrew House by rundzwei Architekten in Berlin. There, the cork façade was made from CNC-milled elements that fit precisely into one another and are built up in several layers, with a total material thickness of around 15 centimetres. For our budget, however, such a solution was not feasible. We therefore opted for a considerably reduced variant and used just four centimetres of cork as an outer layer. In principle, it is a timber-frame construction with wood-fibre insulation, onto which the cork was applied. In terms of energy performance, this build-up brings us very close to our target value.

BLACKPRINT: What is interesting is that, despite its newness, the material has almost something of a second-hand look. It comes across as very natural and somehow circular.

Margot Holländer: Yes, I think so too. Cork has a very distinctive aesthetic – warm, slightly rough, almost a little ‘used’, even though it is new. In combination with the timber windows and the hatches, this creates a very coherent, natural effect.

BLACKPRINT: You are currently working on the renovation of the ‘De Appelaer’ court building in Haarlem. What requirements arise there?

Margot Holländer: At its core, it is about reorganising the entrance area. The building dates from a time when there were not yet security checks with luggage scans. Today, this means that visitors are held up and sometimes have to wait outside. That is why we want to redesign the entrance area so that the processes become smoother and both visitors and staff encounter more pleasant conditions. In all of this, we want to produce as little waste as possible. Everything that is newly added should be reusable or fully recyclable. For example, we are having glass from the existing structure recycled into a stone-like panel material, which we are using for the surface of the reception desk. In addition, existing timber cladding is being dismantled and processed in a workshop into new, acoustically effective elements for the central desk.

BLACKPRINT: That means the material is thought through even for the wall opening?

Margot Holländer: Yes, instead of simply cutting a large opening and disposing of the material, we are planning several precise cuts. The elements removed are being reworked into benches in the waiting area. With the new partition walls in the security area, too, we are taking a different route: usually, metal stud walls with a steel plate and plasterboard are used there. Instead, we use pure timber constructions without a steel insert. Technically, this is feasible, but the certification is more involved and requires both thorough research and a courageous client who is willing to take new paths.

BLACKPRINT: How did contact with the project come about?

Margot Holländer: We were invited to a competition together with two other practices. The Dutch state and the Rijksvastgoedbedrijf (RVB), the property organisation of the Dutch central government, deliberately organise such procedures so that smaller, younger practices can also realise public projects. Construction is scheduled to begin in the summer. Completion is planned for 2027.

BLACKPRINT: Looking at your projects and this competition win – the intensive material research, the engagement with CO₂ figures, working with existing buildings: what does this mean for the profession’s self-image? How has the professional profile of architects changed in recent years?

Margot Holländer: One very important change is that today there is an enormous variety of building products. At the same time, the topic of sustainability opens up new opportunities. Through reuse and bespoke solutions, we are once again engaging more intensively with materials. We likewise have to grapple much more with the impact of our building, in particular with CO₂ emissions. In the Netherlands, it is mandatory to calculate the carbon footprint for a building application, but this often only happens after the fact. I think we should already address it in the design phase – as a matter of course, just as we think about how light falls. With simple methods that enable well-founded decisions early on, rather than having everything calculated later by engineers.

BLACKPRINT: Ms Holländer, thank you for this conversation.

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