Jurriaan van Stigt

Jurriaan van Stigt graduated with honours from the TU Delft in 1989. In that same year, he founded Loof & van Stigt Architecten in Amsterdam with Marianne Loof, which in 2005 continued as LEVS architecten together with Adriaan Mout.

For Jurriaan, an architect is a professional with wide-ranging interests and a comprehensive understanding of the full scope of the discipline. Architecture must offer possibilities and create space, whilst at the same time setting boundaries. He draws inspiration from the context in which architecture emerges and the significance it can have in realising ideals. For Jurriaan, the connection with creating, materialising and building with and for people plays an important role, but he also has a broad interest in the many aspects of the social debate. This is reflected, for example, in his involvement with initiatives such as the Gideon Material Tribe and Building Balance, as well as various publications including Carbon Based Design, Hoog Hout Haalbaar, Low Carbon Urbanism, TIM-r and, most recently, the LEVS sustainability report.

His love of art has already inspired several LEVS projects to incorporate works of art, such as the entrance area of Podium in Amsterdam.

Jurriaan has been chairman of the Partners Pays-Dogon foundation since 2009. The foundation works in western Mali and in collaboration with the Dogon on projects in the fields of education, desert greening, clean drinking-water, empowerment of women, health and culture. LEVS architecten has made numerous pro bono designs for the foundation, and is co-developer of the compressed earth blocks used in most of them.

From 2011 to 2017, Jurriaan was editor-in-chief of the AetA’s FORUM magazine, placing emphasis on the role of architecture towards current societal debates. In addition, he has been a writer for the magazine My Liveable City, about the circular urban economy, since 2017. Jurriaan is a regular guest-lecturer at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture and jury member for various professional awards.