Working in the Netherlands?

Every country has a process. Ours has a few things that catch international teams out. The bestemmingsplan, the zoning plan, decides more than you would expect, and it decides it early. The welstandscommissie, the aesthetic review committee, has opinions with teeth and vooroverleg, the informal pre-consultation with the municipality, is where projects are quietly won or lost months before anything is formally filed.

We are a small architecture studio in Amsterdam. We work with international architecture, interior and brand studios who have a project here and would rather not learn the system on this one.

What we do

Before you commit:

  • Feasibility and constraint mapping: what the bestemmingsplan, monument status and welstand actually allow on this site

  • Municipality strategy: the vooroverleg, who to speak to, what to bring

  • Sequencing: which decisions the Dutch process forces now, and which can wait

Through delivery:

  • Permit applications: omgevingsvergunning and Bouwbesluit compliance

  • Technical drawings and design development to Dutch standards

  • Site visits and site reporting

  • Contractor sourcing, tender support and coordination

  • Construction supervision and directievoering

  • Local representation for international design teams

  • Retail and hospitality rollout support

How it works

Most partnerships start small, a feasibility read on a site, a conversation with a municipality, a permit set. If it goes well, we stay on through delivery. You keep the design. We handle the country.

Who you would be working with

Bart Lans has spent over 17 years managing projects across hospitality, retail, high-end residential and members clubs - the extension and renovation at Park Centraal, The Hague; the pool renovation at Sir Joan, Ibiza; retail, wellness and the members club renovation at W Amsterdam among them.

That range means he’s worked both sides of a brief: construction and fit-out, luxury and volume, heritage buildings and new builds. What carries across all of it is ownership from brief to handover — holding the budget, the timeline, and the relationships between contractor, designer and client as one job, not three separate ones.

The part most people underestimate is sequencing: knowing what has to happen before what, and why projects that look identical on paper can take wildly different amounts of time. Understanding that order is most of the job.

Get in touch

Send us the site and the brief. We will tell you within a week whether it is straightforward or not. No charge.