Werkhof Architects and Engineers

General information

Werkhof Architects is noted for sensitive and humane design, ranging from residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Our philosophy as a design studio is to make buildings which people love. If we accomplish this, the building will become timeless and its lifespan will exceed the limits of a particular style or trend. We consider architecture to be a profession that should serve the public, whether it be a rational designed work space or a carefully considered family house.

Our design principles focus on restoring the relationship between the natural and the man-made. We always consider two clients; the place on which we build and the people whom we build for. The place is focused around external factors such as the slope of the land, the trajectory of the sun, the vegetation and/or man made infrastructure. The people are the end users of the building, we try to understand exactly what their needs are and how the building can contribute to that. Although these situations are only theoretical at first, we believe in applying them on a physical level. This is achieved by the joining of materials in order to make space. Materials have a massive influence on the spaces we use, consider a room solely out of concrete versus a room totally out of wood. Materials have the potential to move us and therefore should be carefully applied. We study the nature of materials which allow us to join materials the way they want to be joined.

We do not make buildings to merely look at, we design them from the inside out. Our approach is to envision what the person in the space would want to see, touch, hear, smell and experience. Our objective as a firm can be summarized as the following:
“to create pleasant places for people.”