Alexandra Sonnemans
Architect | Reflections & Actions
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Selection of Work
SPATIAL
Time Tower (2024) | A combined sculpture, viewing tower and exhibition space in the garden of Sonneveld House, on the occasion of 100 years Museumpark Rotterdam, bringing together the layers of past, present and future and making them spatially and sensorially experienceable. photo by Ossip van Duivenbode
Three Pavilions (2021) | A series of three colorful modular pavilions as the first gesture and stimulus to change the perspective and use of the central square in Aigle (CH), as a real place for encounters, a place for the residents.
Strito Studio (ongoing) | Four multifunctional modular small-scale studios that can be used independently and that can be assembled into one full-fledged home. The studios act as a platform for (new) natural, biobased and experimental building materials.
Pavilion Encounter Iced Sound (2023) | Highlighting the climate crisis through spatial and sonic experience. Bringing the story of melting Alpine glaciers to the public, urban space, with a wooden modular sound pavilion. photo by Alex Ochsner
Fragment Encounter Iced Sound. Model Fest. Barcelona (2023) | A transportable spatial and sound installation brought to three different places in the city creating a ’sonic route’, inviting passers-by to engage with the topic and listen to the compositions.
Pavilion La Dérivée (2017-21) | Activating and appropriating the waterfront area in Yverdon-les-Bains (CH) with a modular round pavilion, built with and by the community, and a cultural and educational program.
L’eau à la rencontre de la ville (2018) | An urban installation forming a new scenographic path along the former shoreline of Lake Neuchâtel (CH), combined with a curated programme with five invited artists to activate the area and stimulate ideas for the city's future. photo by Sophie le Meiilour
TRANSFORMATIONS
House PS1 (ongoing) | Finding space within the existing. Creating (splitting) and designing a separate apartment within a larger house in Maastricht (19th century and older), creating room for more (new) residents, in addition to current owners, who need less space.
House Gashouderstraat (2022) | Renovation and transformation of a 1900 Rotterdam house of four floors – ground floor used as a garage, footprint 3 x 6m – with particular attention to color, (restoring) original details, natural materials, insulation and natural light.
Sant Pere Mitjà (2021) | Transformation of a vacant 19th century building within the old city fabric of La Ribera, Barcelona (ES), into a workshop and studio space. A combination of new, restored and uncovered elements, such as the monumental wooden door.
Groen van Prinstererstraat (2023) | With the gesture of a collective corridor, five workplaces and a communal kitchen are defined, in this 1900 building in Amsterdam, which previously served a different function.
House Werengouw (2023) | Conversion of a 1960s house in Amsterdam into a more sustainable, lighter and more spacious family home, including a new extension with skylight, built in timber-frame construction.
Marseille Kitchen and Bar (2019) | Transforming an existing building – used as an office and for storage – in Rotterdam and activating a street corner by introducing a new function. An opportunity to create a place for encounters, full of warmth and color, with handmade furniture and elements.
RESEARCH – CURATORIAL
Evidence of the Absent (2019) | A year of interdisciplinary research and dialogue about the city in transformation, as Architects in Residence and on-site, through the (re)interpretation of real-scale architectural representations used to communicate future plans within the present context of the city.
Urban Transformation as Event - rr-dialogues (2018) | One-year experimental ‘rotative research’ project in various cities, with over thirty invited contributors from different (artistic) disciplines, on both content and method. A continuous expansion of perspectives on the same topic, as well as an experimental publishing project.
The Image of Promises, Simultaneity in Cities (2017) | In this fast-paced moment of transformations and homogenisation taking place in the world, we felt it was urgent to forge another consciousness about the impact of this rapid process of transformation on our cities, that affects how we know them, both their physical and cultural presence.
Space in-between London Festival of Architecture (2020) | Interactive exhibition & roundtable, following up and building on a one-year residency in Zürich in 2019. On the space of potentiality in the borderlands between present and future, and the importance of physical experience and imagination in architecture.
Conditions for Growth - Ministerie van Maak International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (2022) | A proposal aimed at preserving, renewing and diversifying the landscape and (re)valorising the existing built environment - with a step-by-step densification strategy and six ‘conditions for growth’ for the town of Margraten (NL) and the surrounding area.
DOWN TO EARTH (2020-2021) | In the ‘antitypical’ 9th edition of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, we turned the biennale model inside out and focussed on unfolding the IABR–Ateliers’ research on how to use the energy transition and water issue as leverage to find concrete solutions to urgent societal issues. photo by Aad Hoogendoorn
The Artist Studio Revisited. | Research on the transformation of artist studios, from the first forms we know up until the present. On the relationship between the (art)work and its place of creation – the interaction between developments in the visual and performing arts on the spatial form of the studio and on the studio as a concept.
Arts & Architecture Magazine + the Case Study House Program | Archival Research at the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles) and site visits.
EDUCATION – WORKSHOPS
Along the Line (2017) | On the occasion of 150 years since the Jura water corrections, focussing on the transformation process of the waterfront in Yverdon-les-Bains (CH). By projecting the former (past) shoreline within the present, and walking along this ‘line’ together with the city’s residents, we analysed changes and reflected on opportunities for the future.
Exchange in Practice 2024 Nieuwe Instituut and Flanders Architecture Institute | For the fourth edition, seventeen promising designers from the Netherlands and Flanders/Brussels were selected to focus on co-creation in the reconversion project of the former Stuivenberg Hospital, located in the densely populated Seefhoek in Antwerp.
Intercultural Bench IDW2020 University of Antwerp | With a 35-meter long bench, we occupied a piece of public space in Antwerpen Luchtbal and claimed for more dynamic and interactive common spaces outside.
Learning from Venice – anticipating a constantly changing landscape Rotterdam Academy of Architecture (2021-22) | Making the future flooding of inner-city rivers visible in the present, to architecturally and culturally revisit public space and the value and meaning of urban elements by which it is formed.
Path of Play IDW2022 University of Antwerp | A sequence of interactive elementary structures – tactile transformable artefacts – that allowed students and residents to generate new places. Suggesting space through minimal means, infusing them with personal and cultural values, creating new common meaning.
Architectural Positions TU Delft (2021) | Imagining an entirely different development for a currently ‘vacant’ plot within the area of M4H in Rotterdam – one that is not market-driven, but that answers to local, national and even global questions, and that carefully considers all the site-specific conditions.
New Constellations IDW2021 | Creating ephemeral and imaginary spaces and trajectories to give new value and meaning to the ground floor (public) space of one of the Langblokken – 200 meters long – and to evoke new uses.
WRITING – PUBLICATIONS
Designing for the Endgame(IABR & nai010 publishers (2023) | Publication on designing in times of climate crisis, including an account of the 9th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam, results of the research-by-design in the IABR–Ateliers, and a series of reflective essays. photo by Rick Keus
Een onvolledig verhaal (2023) | Essay for De Witte Raaf (NL/BE) on the occasion of the publication Women in Architecture (nai010 publishers)
To Interact, to Play, to Appropriate (2024) | Article for the publication ‘On Public Space’, written within rotative studio, edited by Marianna Ascolese, Thymos Books Glifi (IT)
On-Site Explorations (2023) | Article for Lila Strauss Magazin #5 Dramaturgie (CH), on the method ‘On-Site Explorations’ that we developed within rotative studio.
Space in-between (2020) | Research and Exhibition Publication for London Festival of Architecture, and part of the Reading Room / New Generations Festival. What role can architecture play mediating between present and future, and what is the potential of this ‘space in-between’? graphic design by Sara Sidler
rotative research: Urban Transfromation as Event | Collection of the two acts, all contributions ánd correspondance of the project Urban Transformation as Event, as part of the research method ‘rotative research’
Imagine the Volume (2019) | How much do we need to imagine something? Using only the actions of removing and adding, the set of drawings imagines a new volume within a given contour. The only rule was that the whole should at any time remain recognisable.
Tracing Postmodernities Architecture Foundation (2022) | With rotative studio we were asked six questions by curator Job Floris. He asked a number of younger Dutch and British practices to discuss their relationship to the postmodern discourse.
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© Alexandra Sonnemans 2025