About

This practice brings together a great variety of interest and methods that range from landscapes and architecture to narratives and literature. We are not restricted to a singular approach or perspective but address the spatial questions within multi-layered research and design methodologies. With our architecture, we aim at finding contemporary and relevant solutions for future problems, without neglecting the tradition and landscape in which it is rooted. 

Our projects focus on finding relevant solutions for spatial problems that range from domestic transformations, the rehabilitation of built heritage to the (re)-organisation of urban and rural landscapes. From the scale of renovating the facade of a house, to the larger assignments of renovating former industrial facilities, we pursue a similar approach.

Within each project special attention is given to the relationship between the program, the building and the landscape surrounding it. Either in an urban or rural context, a plural and narrative approach is favoured over currently dominating visual trends.

The result of a project is therefore the outcome of a dialogue between the client, program, and context. A dialogue in which research and collaborations are necessary tools within the growing complexity that mark the current architectural practice.

Restrictions in budget, regulations and the environment form challenges that demand an approach beyond the obvious. Therefore, our architecture is recognised by idiosyncratic solutions for the spatial problems we have faced during the collaborations.

Rooted within the region of South Limburg, and with an academic base at the department of dwelling at RWTH in Aachen, this practice offers a global and intellectual perspective on challenges that are relevant within the context of the Euregion and beyond.

With a special interest in spatial landscapes and the post WOII modernism of Scandinavia and North America, our referential framework is build upon architects such as Jørn Utzon, Arthur Erickson, Arne Korsmo, Christian TH. Sørensen, Vilhelm Wohlert, Finn Juhl and Sven Ingvar Andersen.

 

portrait_zw-2ir. Mark Proosten, architect 

Mark graduated as an architect in 2011 at the Technical University Eindhoven. Upon graduation he started working as an independent architect in the region of Maastricht, the Netherlands. Since October 2013 he works as an Assistant for Prof. ir. Wim van den Bergh, within the chair of Wohnbau at the RWTH in Aachen. He is a guest teacher at the interior Master of ArtEZ in Zwolle and lectures at the Maastricht Academy of Architecture.

Mark is one of the contributors of WRITINGPLACE, laboratory for architecture and literature. He co-edited the book ‘Writingplace, Investigations in Architecture and Literature, nai010 2016.

 

/My practice is based upon my academic interest in finding relevant solutions to spatial problems that transient the boundaries between landscape and architecture.

/My research focusses on mid-century modernism in Scandinavia and North America, in which I am pursuing a PhD upon the topic of the so-called Utzonian houses of the Danish architect Jørn Utzon.

/My teaching and writing is devoted to narratives in general and the relationship between architecture and literature in particular.

 

 

 

Education/ 

2011 /master

Technical University Eindhoven, Faculty of Architecture; Master Architecture.

Subject master thesis: Invisible Amsterdam, the spatial reading of characters and stone; research and design within the urban context of the ring of canals, Amsterdam (NL)

2007 /bachelor

Bachelor Building Technology with the differentiation architecture, Hogeschool Zuyd, Heerlen (NL)

 

Relevant work experience/ 

2014 /MMA+,  Maastricht Academy of Architecture, (NL)

  • Lecturer on dwelling and project critic 

2014 /ArtEZ, Institute of the Arts, Zwolle (NL)

  • Guest teacher, Master Interior Architecture 

2013 /RWTH Aachen

WOHNBAU, lehrstuhl und institut für Wohnbau und Grundlagen des Entwerfens (DE)

  • Assistant of Univ. Prof. ir. Wim van den Bergh 

2012 /Writingplace

WRITINGPLACE, laboratory for architecture and literature (EU)

  • Partner, editor and contributor 

2011 /mlpproosten/architecture theory|practice, Maastricht (NL)

  • Self employed architect 

2012/2016 /Studio Stad

Studio Stad, architecture, public works and urbanism, Maastricht(NL)

  • Partner, project architect

2011/2014 /LABFORYOU Ruumte

Architecture laboratory in collaboration with Rob Jansen and Rob Pohlen. 

  • Partner, project architect

 

Conference

2014 /symposium

Against the Grain, on the narrative characteristics of architecture,

  • Initiator and project leader for the two day symposium, in collaboration with Bureau Europa,Maastricht (NL) 

2013 /conference

Writingplace Conference, Literary Methods in Architectural research and Design, November 2013 TUDelft (NL)

  • Partner in the organising committee, contributor and chair 

2012 /symposium

Verhaal van Nederland, (Story of the Netherlands)

  • Literary contribution to three symposia, Dutch Landscape, October 2012 / Autumn in the City, November 2012 / Traces, December 2012 

2011 /conference

Writing, paradigms, power, poetics, praxes, 12-14 November 2011, Interdisciplinary.net, Prague (CZ)

  • Contribution and presentation Space is only Words, in collaboration with Mike Schäfer 

 

Awards/Grants

2015/ Victor de Stuersprijs

award for the renovation of the former fire brigade in Maastricht

  • Project architect on behalf of Studio Stad

 2015/ Adaptive dwelling within the family homes of Jørn Utzon grant of the Dreyers Fond (DK),

  • Self-initiated research into the early houses designed and built by Utzon, ongoing