Forma
Architecture & research · Rotterdam
Est. 2016 · 14 built · 3 on site
The office publishes drawings, not renders.
Forma works on small buildings with long lives: a house, a workshop, an archive. Each is set out on a grid that stays visible after the building is finished, because the grid is how the thing was reasoned and hiding it would be a kind of lie about the work.
| No. | Project | Program | Place | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| House at Kissamos | Dwelling | Crete, GR | 2024 | Built | |
| Workshop for a bookbinder | Workspace | Ghent, BE | 2025 | Built | |
| Archive extension | Civic | Aarhus, DK | 2025 | On site | |
| Six houses at Elverum | Housing | Elverum, NO | 2026 | In design | |
| Chapel of the Quarry | Civic | Alentejo, PT | 2026 | In design |
| Space | Storey | Area | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| LIVING | 0 | 112 m² | 717 m³ |
| SLEEPING | 0 | 70 m² | 364 m³ |
| COURT | external | 48 m² | 14 m³ |
| Enclosed | 1 storeys | 182 m² | 3.2 m bay |
Dwelling · Crete, GR · built. Roof: pitch. Site falls 1:11.
Set out on a 3.2 m bay. Drag elevation to fold the plan up into the axonometric.
24.03 — House at Kissamos
Two volumes set against the slope, holding a courtyard between them. The stair is outside, so the house is entered twice.
The brief asked for 1,100 m² of closed storage and one room where the collection could be read. Stacking the storage and putting the reading room underneath it kept the footprint at the size of the existing yard, which is the only reason the tree stayed.
The slabs are precast and left exposed. Services run in the zone above the shelving, where they are reachable without a ladder and invisible from the reading room floor.
| In-situ concrete | 412 m³ | C30/37, board-marked to the reading room |
|---|---|---|
| Precast slab | 980 m² | 200 mm hollowcore, exposed soffit |
| Oak | 38 m³ | Untreated, quarter-sawn, shelving and doors |
| Glazing | 146 m² | Triple, timber frame, 0.9 W/m²K |
Eleven people, one floor, in a building the studio converted in 2018 and has been correcting ever since. Work is drawn by hand first and modelled second; the model is a check, not an idea.
The office does not enter competitions with rendered images. Where a competition requires one, it submits an axonometric and a materials schedule instead, and it has lost several this way.