What motivates us?
V8 Architects is a firm of architects that allows itself to be led by wonder, inventiveness, and improvement. It is a firm that acts as a creative director in a profession that juggles art and science, that takes the lead in a collaborative process, and finds and develops answers.
Wonder
We love buildings with character. Buildings that tell the story of their surroundings. Buildings that serve their surroundings, give more than they take, and create a balance between people and their living environment. This love for identity and authenticity on the one hand, and service on the other hand, is the essence of how we approach design. But this does not determine everything, because we want more than that.
We aim to create designs that are pleasantly surprising due to the way that they blend aesthetics and innovation and make architecture the innovative discipline that we believe it should be. Design that treats the world to an unexpected gift of wonder, packaged up as an interesting building. Or as a place that is so complicated, that the hidden qualities are visible, usable, and add value for everyone.
Improvement
We think that architecture is a lucky profession to be in. We are able to operate at the exciting cutting edge of art and science, we are able to compare rational considerations with dreams and fantasy. Furthermore, we make something that exists. We are able to give a sustainable shape to cities and regions of the future.
When we do this, we also take on a great deal of responsibility. Every single design that we use to answer a question must be literally and figuratively rock solid like a house. Each design has to be able to stand up to reason, be explainable, verifiable and uncompromising. Above all, each design has to be an improvement.
In the way we think and act, we have framed these conditions in Sustainable Strategies, Social Spaces and Sensible Structures. Each built intervention must offer unlimited meaning and have long-term added value for the people who will use it and in the way it is manifested.
Inventiveness
You create a building together with others. With clients, landscape architects, structural engineers, contractors, installation consultants, urban biologists, fire safety specialists, and so on. We know that the secret to getting the maximum from the project is to work together closely and have open dialogue. We know our role as a creative director is to guide and facilitate.
Having an open dialogue means that you have to speak each other’s language. You have to want to understand, inspire and spur each other on. You need to encourage each other to look further, to see possibilities, to go off the beaten track and come up with the best, often unexpected choices, together.
In this universal language, you consistently speak to each other about three things: Functionality, Build feasibility, and Identity. Sometimes one will be present to a greater degree than the other, and not everyone places the same importance on each of these, but you always find FBI.
That is valuable, as FBI allows us to make all aspects of the development, design, and technical elaboration of a building individually understandable and measurable. This allows us to precisely define the end goal with all parties involved and to work in an extremely specific manner on achieving the maximum ambition. The result is surprising, intelligent and distinctive architecture.
