Paul de Ruiter Architects

We are Paul de Ruiter Architects. A group of unconventional designers with a passion for sustainability and architecture.

True beauty lies within. What matters to us is whether a building can make a positive contribution. Primarily to the people who live, work, and study in it. But also to the environment it inhabits; the air, the plants and animals, the city, the planet.

Our practice was established in 1994. It took its inspiration from the body of ideas expressed in the PhD research by Paul de Ruiter “The Chameleon Skin” from 1992, arguing that buildings should produce rather than consume energy.

Our architecture not only generates energy in technical terms, but also in terms of the human factor. Values like happiness and inspiration combine with measurable factors such as daylight optimization to make intelligent, sustainable buildings. This enables us to design buildings with a pleasant indoor climate in which health, interaction and human communication take centre stage.

Sustainable design is part of our DNA. Our buildings are designed to allow the façades to respond intelligently to sunlight, enabling us to maximize energy gain and storage. This is what gives our architecture its unique, recognizable and innovative appeal. At the same time, we capitalize on local conditions and climate in a way that is both logical and explainable.

We have been creating buildings that supply energy since 1994 and are trailblazers in the development of sustainable technologies. By combining research with the use of 3D software simulations, such as BIM and Sefaira, we continually improve the performance of our buildings and are pioneers in the design of circular (C2C) buildings.

We aim to add value to sustainability by making it measurable. This is why we contribute to the development of building certification methods. As record-holders with the highest scores in the Netherlands for BREEAM, LEED, GPR and GreenCalc+, we ensure that our own buildings meet the highest, proven standards of sustainability.

Aesthetics and sustainability are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they complement each other. For us, embracing sustainability is all about making groundbreaking and innovative architecture that has an intrinsic beauty of its own. Appreciating the beauty of buildings is ultimately an essential ingredient in creating a sustainable world.