Ingrid van der Heijden - Brick Award 22 Jury Member
© CIVIC Architects
© CIVIC Architects
Ingrid van der Heijden

CIVIC Architects (NL)

Ingrid van der Heijden, Member of the Brick Award 22 Jury

 
 

Civic is an internationally operating firm for public architecture, working from Amsterdam. We design libraries, bridges, cultural buildings, town halls, squares, educational and residential buildings, streets, sculptures and stations.

Architecture is not an autonomous discipline for Civic, but a public task. We anticipate with our designs on the spatial, but also on the social, cultural, economic and ecological context. Civic looks far back and far ahead in time. We pay a lot of attention to the atmosphere of our architecture and to the development of materials and their aging process.

Civic was founded in 2015 by four architects, who studied together and consists of ten architects. We approach the design from different scales and work for each assignment with specialist builders, thinkers and practical experts. Research plays a crucial role in our design process and we develop variants at every stage. New ideas and proven solutions reinforce each other. For experimental techniques we build models and test fragments (mockups) in our workshop to test the technique and the experience.

Born in 1968 in The Netherlands. After a career in marketing (Transavia airlines, SNS bank) and a professional training as a cabinetmaker, she discovered that she had the spatial skills, drive and stamina to find her way in architecture. Ingrid co-founded Civic to deepen her all-round background with specific qualities. Her work focuses on architectural form, sensoric qualities of materials and production processes. She studies the evolution of building types, materials and their context and experiment with its possibilities. She seeks a sustainable architecture that is just as interesting in 50 years as it is now: poetic pragmatism, timeless and pioneering.

Ingrid was lead architect in the LocHal project and will share the inspiration and approach that led to this award-winning library.