Rietveld Landscape is a design and research office operating at the crossroads of architecture, science and art. The office is fascinated by city life and acquired an international reputation thanks to its unconventional ideas and interventions, which are often motivated by complex societal issues.

Rietveld Landscape developed the design approach of ‘strategic interventions’ (download PDF), which derives from the respective backgrounds of the partners: landscape architect Ronald Rietveld and philosopher/economist Erik Rietveld. Besides them the design team consists of architect Arna Mackic and Atelier de Lyon. Design research by varying multidisciplinary design teams consisting of scientists and other specialists leads to clear concepts, evocative visualizations, and radical novelty. A striking example of this is ‘Vacant NL’, the Dutch submission to the Architecture Biennale of Venice 2010, in which the potential of 10.000 governmentally-owned vacant buildings was shown and that now is central in the discussions concerning innovative re-use. Another example is the cut-through monument Bunker 599, which unorthodoxly questions the Dutch policies on monuments. At the same time, it makes people look at their surroundings in a new way.

Rietveld Landscape has won several prestigious awards, including the Prix de Rome Architecture 2006 and the Rotterdam Design Prize 2011. The various juries emphasized ability of the office to cross and stretch disciplinary borders. The Rotterdam Design Prize characterized this approach as “The new ingenuity: A serious new chapter in Dutch Design”.

Clients include the Ministry of Education, Culture & Science, the Netherlands’ Agency for Cultural Heritage, the City of Amsterdam, the Port of Rotterdam, House for Contemporary Art Z33 in Belgium, Project Office New Dutch Waterline, The Netherlands’ Architecture Institute (NAi), several provinces, Central Museum Utrecht and various international biennales of art and architecture.

Ronald and Erik Rietveld run their own Master’s program ‘Vacant NL’ at the renowned Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy/Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam. The office is often invited for international lectures and symposiums or as curator/designer of exhibitions. The last couple of years it realized several location-specific installations that combined the qualities of local public space with an international vision and ambition. The work has been exhibited at the Kunsthal Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, the NAi, National Museum Oslo, the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and in 2013 at the Istanbul Art Biennale.

Read here what others have said about our work:
Rotterdam Design Prize 2011 Jury report
Chief Government Architect at Architecture 2.0 [movie in Dutch]
Jury Prix de Rome Architecture 2006 [pdf] 

Curriculum vitae Ronald Rietveld [pdf]

Curriculum vitae Erik Rietveld