JDWA
Johan De Wachter Architects is a design practice for architecture and complex urban development in the existing city. Designing with and for people in the neighborhoods is a very important aspect of our work. Generic concepts and standard typologies are never applied directly but change according to the project’s context. This approach results in an intense working process that demands a lot of communication and interaction between the client, future users and the design team. The real needs are often beyond written briefs and become apparent through discussions.
Constantly on the lookout for those niche projects that form a conceptual challenge for the design team, either because of their programmatic complexity, their location in the city or their technical constraints. Starting from these contexts we offer challenging concepts through a combintation of architectural and urban design. Our Rotterdam based office works on projects in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Portugal and China.
Our clients are housing corporations, developers, local governments and private parties. We are interested in the opinions of future users. The implementation of design strategies in close collaboration with those users is a very important aspect of our work.
Johan De Wachter - Bio
After his studies at the Catholic University of Louvain (KUL) in Belgium, Johan De Wachter worked for the Office of Metropolitan Architecture of Rem Koolhaas from 2000 until 2004. There he contributed to a large number of projects and competitions.
In 2003 Johan founded the Fün Design Consultancy and was partner until 2005. In 2005 he founded JDWA - Johan De Wachter Architects.
He has been teaching at the Delft Technical University and the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design.
