Hofman Dujardin Architects was founded in 1999. Since then, the company have been working on a wide variety of architectural, interior and product design projects with a team consisting of fifteen architects. This wide scope of projects has been a well considered decision. The diversity in design issues entails an enrichment of any project. The team switches easily from innovative product development to e.g. pragmatic dwelling floor plans. Hofman Dujardin clients are developers, housing corporations, multi-nationals, law firms and private clients.
See also – TOP INTERIOR DESIGNERS | DAVID GUERRA
The main goal is to create inspiring buildings, interiors and products that enhance life at large. A surrounding in which people can live and work in an optimized way and where the investments made are fully effected.
For office buildings Hofman Dujardin design creative working environments in which the employees can work highly efficient and they are inspired continuously. Condominiums and dwellings Hofman Dujardin transform into interiors with maximum comfort and fully adjusted to ideas and wishes of the clients. And by executing product designs such as the Bloomframe balcony, the company express the relentless effort to innovate, surprise and challenge.
See also: Top architects| Jean Nouvel
Biography of Barbara Dujardin
Barbara is French and is living and working in Amsterdam since more than ten years.
She studied Architecture at the Ecole Nationale Supérieur d’Architecture in Versailles where she graduated in 1998. Her final project, which was nominated with honour, had the theme to connect the North of Amsterdam with the ancient centre.
Parallel to her studies in Versailles Barbara studied Building Right at the Faculty Paris ll Pantéon in Paris and graduated with her final thesis with doctor professor Michel Huet.
In the period Barbara lived in Paris she worked for professor engineer Gérard Blachere. Together they did research and wrote articles concerning the importance of sustainability in architecture. In the magazine Sycodes, a publication from l’Agence Qualité de Construction, they published several articles. A research of the high quality of the build environment they executed for ADEME (Environnemental Development and the Energy Control Agency).
From 1996 until 1997 Barbara worked for an architecture firm specialized in French monuments. In this period she gained a lot of experience in the renovation strategy of historic buildings.
When Barbara started her career in Amsterdam she worked as a freelance architect. After receiving several commissions in France and The Netherlands Barbara founded with Michiel in 1999 Hofman Dujardin Architects.
In the office Barbara has an important role on the field of innovation and new design. She has a clear and solid opinion on the design and the process. Her critical eye guarantees a continuous improvement of each project.
See also – TOP INTERIOR DESIGNERS | LIZA RACHEVSKAYA
Michiel Hofman
Michiel Hofman studied Architecture at the Delft University of Technology from 1990 until 1997. In 1997 he graduated with the design of a housing complex in combination with an expressive entertainment district in the historic centre of Paris. The project has been selected for the prestigious Archiprix 1998.
Parallel to his studies in Delft Michiel studied for a period of one year at the Politecnico di Milano in Italy. The design for the housing complex in Pavia in Italy which was realized under the supervision of professor Remo Dorigatti was nominated with honour at the international OTIS competition. After his studies Michiel worked for the renown architecture firm Meyer en Van Schooten in Amsterdam. The firm’s professional and consistent attitude towards architecture was of important influence. During a period of two years Michiel also worked for the Amsterdam based architecture firm Maaskant en Van Velzen where he participated in the large renovation of the visitors centre of Zuid-Kennemerland, a large ecological landscape near the Dutch coast.
Most Iconic Project – OYES Chair
Urban Charity for Cape Town
“The German magazine AIT invited 100 selected architecture and interior design offices across Europe to redesign the ‘ONO’ chair produced the Dietiker company. The newly designed chairs will be exhibited in the context of a road show in the AIT-Architektur Salons Hamburg, Munich, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Stuttgart. The main auction of the chairs will talk place in spring 2010. The revenues generated through this auction will support the Langa Township in Cape Town, South Africa.
After we received the beautiful ONO chair designed by Matthias Weber we asked ourselves why would we transform a beautiful chair? Why would we start cutting, pasting, painting, sewing while the product is good the way it is? We decided to change the approach, in stead of transforming the chair we decided to transform the context. The chair stays the way it is, we only create a new surrounding stimulating the fantasy of the observer. After studying various options the final choice was to upscale the chair a 1000 times and place it in Cape Town, the final destination of the Charity project.
The chair becomes a model of a building with a height of 760m, an urban icon for Cape Town. The transformation lies within our own fantasy. The mental change due to the overwhelming scale, entirely compensates the absence of physical changement of the chair itself . While the ONO chair can be used by a maximum of two people, the OYES chair with a surface of 800.000m² can host about 50.000 people. An extremely generous chair!! Four slim feet of 25x30m will touch Cape Town in the business district and the harbor. These four new locations will be connected through identical towers with a height of 460m. Each foot will intervene in the existing urban fabric, connecting people from different areas.
The 800.000m² building will act as a social housing icon. Inhabitants of the Langa township can move to the city centre. Compact apartments are created in the slim feet of 25x30m with a height of 460m. The level of the seat becomes an open space of 450x450m suitable for a public park and soccer fields overlooking the ocean. The back support of the chair will be filled with apartments until a height of 760m. In between there are shops, offices, sport facilities, cinema, bars, restaurants etc. The OYES chair becomes the iconic symbol of charity, the second tallest building of the world is the shelter of the homeless people of the townships. High-rise for the poor on the South point of the African continent with a view at the Atlantic ocean. A charity project with an impact on humanity.
Power to the people, the skyline used to be dominated by churches, than the financial institutions took over. The time has come that charity and humanity determine the skyline of the future metropolis.
Magritte in Urbicande is the subtitle of the extreme structure. The chair as shown on the carpet is not a chair. As Magritte would say ’……ceci n’est pas une chaise……’ So what is it? It is a model of the worlds second highest building. It is the urban chair which joins to the Table mountain. It is the structure connecting four open plots in Cape Town and thus creating a splendid green park at 460m height offering a stunning view at the surroundings of Cape Town. The OYES chair seems to be a building copied from the city of Urbicande where the marvelous cubic structure enables the city to function better than ever before. The structure emphasizes on human contacts and creates new relations. The OYES chair shows us a dream, a beautiful thought, a structure which seems outrageous but also refined, appealing and exciting.”
Awards
• Nomination AR12 interior Eneco headquarter
• Nomination MKB Innovation Top 100 2009
• Nomination Index DesignAward 2009 Denmark
• 1st prize Wallpaper Design Award 2009 most life enhancing product
• 1st prize Audi Design Award 2008
• Nomination Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany 2009
• 1st prize Red Dot Design Award 2008 Germany
• Nomination Welstandsprijs Noord-Brabant 2008
• Nomination VMRG innovation prize 2007
• 2nd prize International competition Das Neue Holzfenster Austria
• Honourable mention Bloomhouse Europan 7 Amsterdam The Netherlands
• Selection top 10 Dutch architects under 40 by New Italian Blood
Top Projects Gallery