our house
where
oudezijds achterburgwal 78a amsterdam
what
a team of 50 curious people from a range of creative fields.
why
concrete believes in people before buildings
since
1997
where
oudezijds achterburgwal 78a amsterdam
what
a team of 50 curious people from a range of creative fields.
why
concrete believes in people before buildings
since
1997
concrete thinks that form follows life.
whatever the brief, we begin by considering the lives of the end-user. we move from small (an individual) to large (the building). people are changed by their buildings.
concrete is a group of people.
a team of 50 curious people from a range of creative fields. we’re flexible and multidisciplinary. travellers, because new ideas are found on far horizons and change happens when cultures collide.
concrete wants the best answers, not the easiest solutions
from our perspective, the world is the ultimate interior, which is why we aim to work with sustainability & circularity experts on our projects. In order to balance humanity with the wider natural world. concrete provides results.
concrete believes in people before buildings.
concrete welcomes like-minded thinkers: clients, experts, future colleagues, creatives. concrete wants the best answers, not the easiest solutions. If that sounds like you, then you sound like someone we’d like to meet.
the house of concrete
It's based in a listed building in the middle of the red light district.The building is an annex of the Oudezijds Voorburgwal 101 and dates back to 1880. The entire team is distributed over the 4 storeys of the building.
the lab
The lab is the place for the concrete team to get their hands dirty. Concrete designers make scale models to see and try out their designs on a practical level. Teams gather here to design together freely, play around with materials, make samples and transform their 2D designs into 3D. Whether it is for an entire building, a single space, or for bespoke furniture: we test it all.
the material archive
Concrete owns a large in-house material library. It contains all the materials you can think of; wood, stones, fabrics, metals… The concrete team makes a selection of materials that put the wishes and needs of people first, thinking of comfort, quality, durability and aesthetics. For each project, our designers browse through it and put together surprising combinations, playing with contrast, colour and texture. The team regularly visits material events and fairs, and invites suppliers to the office, to stay up-to-date with the latest material innovations.
het team
rob wagemans founder | creative director | partner
erikjan vermeulen head of architecture | partner
lisa hassanzadeh head of interior | partner
associates | senior project architects sofie ruytenberg, melanie knüwer, maarten de geus, bart de beer, tobias koch
specialists | volkert vos, susanne schanz, hilka ackermann, mark haenen, iwan hameleers, rene kroondijk, daisy koppendraaier, ruud davidse, juliana cintra do prado mul, angela solis jara, nick vullings, manon pol, laura levy, elías arenas nara, max mehl, denés kiss, romy warnars, arjan schoneveld, frederique van vuure, beatriz pero, nikki brandenburg, angela kortstam, oskar lubera, clara torregrosa gomis, emmanuelle blanc, karolina konieczna, florence cuvilliez, joan doyer, günce cavusoglu, nicola roso, cato van haren, miguel munoz godino
Concrete develops concepts. We develop them in architecture, interior, urban design, branding and conceptual programming. Whatever the brief, we begin by considering the lives of the end-user. We move from small (an individual) to large (the building). People are changed by their buildings. Concrete’s goal is to design spaces that prod human minds in a happier direction.
Life, spaces, buildings. In that order. We call this way of thinking ‘form follows life.’ It applies whether we’re considering the smallest interior or the grandest metropolis. For Concrete, the two are intimately connected: a city is a whole, a unified space in which buildings are woven together by public spaces. An interior with millions of rooms.
Build well, and beauty comes free. Concrete believes that functionality has no style. Speaking of negations: our philosophy is no philosophy. We reinvent ourselves, adapting according to every project’s needs. After all, what works for one country or client doesn’t work for another.
Concrete designs spaces for people to live together. “Samenleving” is the Dutch word for society. Literally it means “living together”. A sustainable “samenleving” begins with how people feel, their social wellbeing. Are they happy? Do they feel connected to one another? If “yes”, they’re more likely to contribute to more happiness, more connection, more long-term solutions. A virtuous circle.
From Concrete’s perspective, our world is the ultimate interior, which is why we aim to work with sustainability
Concrete redefines typologies to fit humans. In this rapidly changing world, we understand the need for new solutions and want to create the difference for people. Not quite torching the old to build the new – but certainly unafraid to barbecue the occasional dogma. The toasting of dogmas has led us to develop new typologies in hotels, residential buildings, restaurants, libraries and even medical care.
New categories don’t have to be complicated. Often, they just mean following your gut, boiling concepts down to their essence, then boiling the essence...
Concrete provides results. No grand theories or abstract ideas, just things that work.
Concrete welcomes like-minded thinkers: clients, experts, future colleagues, creatives. If that sounds like you, then you sound like someone we’d like to meet.
No shortcuts on materials or ambition. After all, we’re on a quest for the best answers, not the easiest solutions. “Ambition” doesn’t mean creating spaces that dominate people. It means: creating spaces that serve people. “Serving people” means aiding interactions: buildings as engines of serendipity, where people find one another, and ideas are born. We make sustainable spaces, useful spaces, beautiful spaces that welcome, not overwhelm.
That’s because every space requires a bespoke solution, not off the shelf answers.
