Section first
Every tower is one section before it is anything else: plinth, datum, crown, fixed early and defended late. If a decision doesn't report to that drawing, it doesn't belong in the building.
04 / StudioRotterdam, NL — since 2014
VANTA designs high-rise workplaces for the one Dutch skyline that builds upward. Twenty-eight people, one studio, foundation to crown.
ScrollWe only build where a city means to grow up.
Rotterdam is that city — the skyline here is a policy, argued in drawings, and we argue inside it every week. We work only at height, where structure, daylight, wind and the life of the street all have to resolve in a single section.
Concept to keys. Nothing outsourced that decides the building.
01 / The storyFounded at ground level
Founded at ground level.
VANTA began in 2014 with two architects, one borrowed drawing board and a conviction that sounded naive at the time: Rotterdam was going to keep growing upward, and somebody local ought to get very, very good at that. Our first commission was a plinth renovation under someone else's tower. We have been working our way up ever since — literally.
The breakthrough was Helix HQ: our first full tower, won against studios three times our size, delivered in 2025 with its gardens climbing the building. Today six towers stand, rise or wait on our boards, all of them within cycling distance of the studio — we believe you can only draw a skyline you walk under weekly.
We work from the second floor of a former oil warehouse in the Merwe-Vierhavens, at a single long table with the river at the window. Clients are developers, corporates and the city itself — anyone with a site that means to grow up, not out.
02 / ConvictionsThree agreements with ourselves
Three agreements.
The street decides
Height is judged at eye level. The lowest ten metres get our best people, our best stone and our longest meetings — a tower earns its skyline at the pavement.
Honest numbers
A tower that doesn't get built is a drawing. We price early, share bad news the week we find it, and never promise a metre the budget can't carry.
03 / PeopleThe leads, of twenty-eight
Eight leads, one table.
- Mare OudkerkFounding partner
- Hidde VermaasFounding partner
- Sofia RamakerPartner — planning & consent
- Timo WeststrateDirector — structure & wind
- Anouk van GelderDirector — façades
- Jesse BlomLead — concept & massing
- Dilay KaracaLead — delivery
- Frans de RuiterLead — site supervision
Come up for coffee.
The studio sits at Keileweg 26 in the Merwe-Vierhavens, in the former oil warehouse, second floor. The models are out, the river is at the window, and we like showing what's on the boards.