Interviewe mat Frank la Rivière

After high school I went to study Architecture and Interior Design at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and received my Master’s degree (cum laude) in 1988.

It is the joy to express, through design and art, that motivated me than and still does even now.

It was my interest in old buildings like churches and houses in historic inner cities that formed one of the bases for wanting to become an architect. But also the experience of the refurbishment of our house is a factor that rose my interest at a young age. I also liked to go to my grandfather’s atelier to do oil paintings under his guidance. Working concentrated on a painting and after several hours stepping back to see the three dimensional appearance on the canvas was sort of experiencing a wonder. In all I knew I wanted to become an architect from the age of 12.

No, it was by my own deliberate choice, based on my interests and abilities.

Except for architecture and interiors, I endeavour in photography and Japanese brush calligraphy.

Great designs will stand the test of time. These stand the test of time because they have been created with much depth and determination. Great designs can’t be explained fully they also leave some mysteries unsolved. What type of person would able to become a good or a great designer, honestly I wouldn’t be able to say. God may know.

It is the effectiveness and the how affective the design is as a solution to the design problem. In other words, it is emotive and an eye-opener.

Good design is added value in the first place seen as a cultural asset.

I would like to design public buildings if I had the opportunity. That is to say the client could very well be private but the building would have a receptive function for a larger public.

A museum and concert hall.

I don’t think I have a secret recipe at all. I suppose I do what others do as well, but in my own way.

Aldo van Eyck, Carlo Scarpa, Renzo Piano, Louis Khan.

The Mother House by Aldo van Eyck is a great favourite of mine, as is the Brion Cemetery, the Castelvecchio, Banco Populare in Verona and the Olivetti showroom in Venice all by Carlo Scarpa. Scarpa was an architect who merged Italian and Japanese design idioms to create his own design language. A language that can still be read not as prose but as poetics. Aldo van Eyck’s work is also like materialise poetics with a strong social denomination and a beautiful spatial depth.

I find it dangerous to make a selection as this would mean I have reached my peak. I look at my executed work as starting points for new design endeavours so the next project will be as good or even better.

Looking back, it is obvious that I had to become an architect in spite of the fact that I have considered at the time to study a medical subject. So the answer would be I would have become a designer. The other question could be what I would do if I would stop working as an architect. The answer would be, I would become a photographer, graphic designer or artist. Still something creative.

For me design is the solving of design problems through design thinking.

It is inventing with an aesthetic sense

In the first place it is determination and some luck. Luck will bring you in contact with the people to help and stimulate.

Motivation and resilience.

I think it is very personal. Therefore, as they think it is the most appropriate. I prefer to have a level of clarity while showing at the same time a high degree of detail implying how things will actually be. Other designers may go for more abstraction.

To be relevant through both my design work and teaching.

Design quality.

Design and in particular design thinking is a great way to develop out-off-box solutions. This is not restricted to making objects and spaces but can be applied to any situation where inventiveness is an asset. This can be in any field and would work for the betterment of society.

Those projects that were to complete satisfaction of not only the client but also myself.

I hope that the prevalent design direction in architecture and interiors will be to move away from overly shaped designs as well as the use of a style as a starting point for projects. I hope design will be more seen as a problem solving way of thinking with an aesthetic and socio-historical core.

It could well be that social issues in combination with environmental ones will once again become important drivers for design.

This truly depends on the type of commission. If we take on the design of a house for example it might be a year, if it is a large building at least 2 years. But we also do smaller work and that might take from a couple of month to half a year.

Listen to the client. Furthermore, collect relevant information and trust my intuition.

To strife for design I have never seen before myself and be good for humanity through design.

I think good designs set the trend. If design follows the trend it will be less innovative.

High-tech is not better tech than low-tech. For me the role of technique is the enabler to make, to construct. But it is also a source of inspiration and a way of overcoming restrictions imposed by conventions, because, if you don’t have a technique to do what you want to do, the design solution is less convincing.

We use mostly AutoCad for 2D and 3D drafting, Photoshop and Illustrator for presentation and graphic design work. Modelling techniques are simply working with foam board and other readily available materials.

Natural ambient light is by far the most important aspect of architecture. It is the impact of light that enlivens the colours, textures, materiality of the space enclosure and animates the spaces.

Good and great design give me a sense of pleasure. A sense that I would like to explore it, whether it is an object or a building.

Yes, I do belief in co-design. It is difficult to describe the ideal partner, but anyone with talent an open receptive mind and anyone who is able to respect others input and opinion, would be pleasant to work with I would think.

In university my interior design tutor was an amazing educator. I have never seen what he designed himself, but that didn’t matter. He made these very small analytic sketches of the different options for design solutions; a technique I still practice.

I very much like reading texts written by Aldo van Eyck for their erudite poetics, humility and human insight in architecture.

In university we were told to sketch a lot. I have always done that as the ideas boil up they need to find an initial place in the realm of reality. The best is to trust them to a sheet of transparent paper. From there new ideas emerge and the process goes on. Even now in the computer aided design era I still sketch a lot.

I would love to meet and talk with Carlo Scarpa, Aldo van Eyck, Alvar Aalto, Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.

An award is something like a token of appreciation decided by others and measures one’s standing in the professional field. They are something of a bench mark and a reference.

To be well sought after is to me a more preferred status rather than being famous. Fame can work as an inhibition on one’s creativity.

My favourite food is the food that fits the country and the place where I am. As for season I would say spring and autumn, in other words the in-between seasons, the transition between colder and warmer weather and vice versa.

One of the best rewards one could receive as a designer is a satisfied client and end user. A compliment from a client would make my day.

Not in particular until I was 12 and had set sights on becoming an architect. Also I had no idea of what kind of work I would be doing or what designing would be, just the image that I would be an architect.

I think the world will have changed dramatically. If we are lucky maybe some traces of our present will have been preserved as relics from the past. However, I am not too hopeful that any digital work will be that long lasting. It will most probably be the type of objects that are discovered at historic sites nowadays as well, objects made of material that last.

It was my interest in old buildings like churches and houses in historic inner cities that formed one of the bases for me wanting to become an architect. But also the experience of the refurbishment of our house is a factor that rose my interest at a young age. I also liked to go to my grandfather’s atelier to do oil paintings under his guidance. Working concentrated on a painting and after several hours stepping back to see the three dimensionality appear from the canvas was sort of experiencing a wonder. I knew I wanted to become an architect from the age of 12 and after high school I went to study architecture and interior design at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Except for architecture and interiors, I endeavour in photography and Japanese brush calligraphy. In all it is the joy to express, through design and art, that motivated me than and still does even now.

In our work we concentrate on architecture and interior design but we also take up graphic design work once in a while. The interior work is often the interior of the architecture that we design, so we can achieve a harmony of expression.

For me design is the solving of design problems through design thinking. It is inventing with an aesthetic sense.

I prefer designing projects with a cultural content as this stimulates to achieving a high level of design.

I try to work with the intention that the outcome will always be a favourite design for me.

I don’t think I can remember having designed so much by now over a more than 25 years’ career.

I feel the most creative when doing several projects at the same time. This apparently creates a state of mind that leads to greater creativity.

We focus a lot on the detailing and materiality of our designs. This is the most important aspect of the design work and the means that truly translate the design into realities consistent with the concepts and intend.

I need to feel concentrated. When the design direction starts to appear there is the Eureka moment that indicates that an important step in the process has been made. This is not necessarily the final design decision but is still a key moment in the process.

In the case of the design of this house it was the moment when I realised that creating a house with basically only 4 windows was the way to go, that determined the final solution. These are always very enlightening moment.

In architecture and interiors, the production process is quite long and we go on site for checking and adjustments regularly. This means that we can follow the production and construction process quite closely. It is quite exciting to go on site and see the progress made each time. To see that what until than only existed in one’s imagination and in drawings becoming reality is a great pleasure. Oftentimes we discover that certain effects, that we had imagined, to be even more effective than we had hoped for, which is like receiving an unexpected gift.

Effectiveness and how affective it is; are the main criteria I would think.

For me it is important that the design expresses the view of the designer in respect to how and what the designer needed to solve through the design. That it sorts of shows a clue to the design problem.

To help create a better world through the creative process of design thinking. This basically encompasses all the aspects of the design process under which socio economic issues to aesthetic to practical and functional, as well as environmental, safety and durability issue etc.

I hope that the prevalent design direction in architecture and interiors will be to move away from overly shaped designs as well as the use of a style as a starting point for projects. I hope design will be more seen as a problem solving way of thinking with an aesthetic and socio-historical core.

Throughout my more than 25-year career I feel that I need fewer and fewer sources of inspiration in the form of books, magazines, exhibitions, etc. However, my experience and social contact with others is becoming increasingly the most important source of my inspiration.

I want my designs to be contemporary. I am not so keen on designing in a style as this predetermines the design vocabulary which is not one’s own. I prefer to develop a design aesthetic and vocabulary specific for each project.

I live and work in Japan, which is not my country of birth. Japan is a country with a strong cultural identity and this has an obvious impact on my design work. Some influences come unconsciously while others are dictated by conventions that need to be followed because of client, legal and structural requirements. However, I do see the influence through the glasses of all my life experiences from the time I was born in the Netherlands, the time I lived in Paris, London and Tokyo.

Working with private clients is oftentimes more informal than working with companies, in particular where it concerns the official documents and reporting needed. However, working with companies means working with professionals in the same field but with other positions in the process, which is quite stimulating and rewarding.

I think it is important that companies who like to work with designers, get on board of the process of design thinking. Good design ideas may appear as fragile in the beginning, so they need a lot of care to grow to strong successful design strategies. The support of the client in creating an environment in which this process can take place is vital.

By getting to know the prospective designer personally and do research on their portfolio before selecting is a good way. Too often competitive bidding is used, but this exhausts quite a bit of resources and it creates quite a bit of disappointment with those who are not selected.

The initial phase is both dominated by receiving the client requirements, gathering information, analyzing the design problem and responding intuitively to find a design direction. After this planning phase we enter a phase we call Basic Design, during which we further check the hypotheses we developed in the preceding phase and further work out the design. The next phase is concerned with detailing materialization, solving the last legal aspects, drafting the building permit drawings and tender documents. During the construction phase we follow the site progress while giving additional instructions, making adjustments and checking that all is constructed conform the drawings. Overall, during the design process there is a lot of creating, testing, adjusting and changing going on, instigated by changing parameters, conditions and requirements of the project.

My favourite design items would be my Japanese lacquer bowls in a deep red colour showing a depth because of arduous work of applying all the layers. Also my Japanese tea ceremony bowls are favourite items. My two chairs design by the late Bořek Šípek. But also just simple objects such as a pair of scissors designed by Philippe Starck.

Stay focused on what you set out to do i.e. being a designer. Don’t give up easily when meeting resistance, because your design skill will help you find solutions for the problem.

That is the nature of the practice of design thinking, which is much about being creative in finding solutions and being resilient. Also be a good listener. After all we have to translate real life problems into working design solutions.

The positive aspect of being a designer is that there are always new adventures awaiting with each project. The starting from scratch, not yet knowing which direction the project will go to the excitement of enjoying the final buildings spaces, is a process full of little surprises. However, not all people on the project are always so endeared by the idea that a design assignment is an adventure. In those cases, when this ethic intend gets overpowered by business interests it can be hard to do satisfying work. This I would think is one of the downsides of being a designer. In particular, in architecture there are always many parties involved so it is hard to keep all on board.

Striving for designs that I haven’t seen before myself and evoke a sense of joy and liberation.

To imagine, dream and to be resilient. I am not sure if these are skill or talents or that they can be learned.

We use mostly AutoCad for 2D and 3D drafting, Photoshop and Illustrator for presentation and graphic design work. Modelling techniques are simply working with foam board and other readily available materials. Otherwise I sketch a lot to order and develop my thoughts.

Yes, designing is quite time consuming and many clients do not realize how much extra time and effort we often put into the design and management of our projects.

The extra hours on design work or the development of a design strategy are often spent late into the night, when there is not too much distraction. Otherwise the time management is straightforwardly working towards meetings and deadlines during normal working hours.

This truly depends on the type of commission. If we take on the design of a house for example it might be a year, if it is a large building at least 2 or more years. But we also do smaller work and that might take from a couple of month to half a year.

I think my most important job experience was working with Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Rena Dumas Architecture d’Intérieure on the flagship store for Hermès in the Ginza district in Tokyo. This was an invaluable experience.

We mostly work for private clients. However, we have also been involved in a public works project commissioned by the city of Aomori.

I very much like the detail design phase and the construction phases of a project as it holds true for these phases that “how you design it so it will be”. I feel the most effective and productive in these periods, however these are also the hardest labour wise.

For the building projects that we undertake we always form a team with a structural engineer as well as a mechanical engineer. For larger projects the number of consultants will be larger. The team could be strengthened with a collaborating architect, landscape architect, lighting consultant, acoustic consultant, etc.

We can always be contacted through the e-mail address provided on our website:

http://www.frank-la-riviere.com

Patronage is the most important driver for design and we are very grateful for the trust placed in us by our clients.