InsideOut captures the philosophy with which I entered the world of architecture.
Architecture is not my first love. A desire to travel led me to study development economics, culminating in a PhD degree on modeling village-level impact of rural-urban migration in China . Doing one thing at a time is not my strongest point so in the mean time I had started to work as a trade and development economist at LEI, an institute for policy-oriented research in the field of food, agriculture and the natural environment. Since then I have worked on a range of topics varying from support of Dutch trade negotiators to large EU projects dealing on global sustainable development with international colleagues from a wide variety of backgrounds.
Although working internationally on relevant topics like global sustainable development while honing my skills as an economic-modeler is something I enjoyed and thrived in, I got more and more restless at the same time. Something was missing, it started to bother me so action was needed. I took the career choice program of the Rockport Institute and with the coaching of Anthony Spadafore I figured out the problem. Being very strong in spatial reasoning (3D thinking) while working in a completely non-spatial field as economics I essentially was only using half my brain, making me feel bored even with a huge workload.
To make a long, and at times difficult, story short I took a well-researched leap of faith and went back to school. I managed to enroll in the Interior Architecture program at the Utrecht School of Arts while still working part-time as a researcher. Now at the end of my second year I have enjoyed (almost) every moment so far. The only drawback is that doing what you love to do makes time fly by.
Eventually I want to combine my two loves, research and design to attempt making the world a better place to be. My aim is to combine research on how people react and respond to their environment in design - design from the inside out. Translating knowledge on how we as people, shaped by or biological and cultural roots, react to our surroundings, into spatial designs that support and enable us. Being trained as a scientist and having worked in the academic world for almost 15 years I know many valuable insights never get outside of academic journals. Knowing my way already in the academic world and now starting to find my way in the world of architecture I eventually want to build a bridge between the two by designing InsideOut.
Marijke
