Nonstandard architecture is bespoke architecture. The buildings of today are designed with digital tools and produced by digitally controlled processes. This opens up a revolutionary new perspective on the nature and realization of design and calls for a whole new debate about what is beautiful in architecture. In his new book Towards a New Kind of Building Kas Oosterhuis describes his approach and discusses his designs in the context of recent social developments, especially in information and communications technology. Two paradigm shifts take centre stage: from architecture based on mass production to architecture based on customized, industrially produced components, and from a static architecture to a dynamic and interactive architecture

Architect Kas Oosterhuis and visual artist Ilona Lénárd founded the ONL (Oosterhuis_Lénárd) agency in 1990. They specialize in the construction of large-scale sculptural buildings. Kas Oosterhuis is a professor at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and established the independent Hyperbody research group. He also directs the recently opened protoSPACE laboratory for immediate design and engineering.

Oosterhuis describes the agency’s high-profile built projects from the designer’s perspective, in which vision and practice, theory and reality, and intuition and logic are closely linked.

Al Nasser Headquarters, Abu Dhabi
CET Budapest, Hungary
Space Xperience Center, Curacao
Saltwater Pavilion Neeltje Jans, Netherlands
Cockpit, combined car showroom and acoustic barrier along the A2 motorway, Netherlands
Web of North Holland, Architecture Mode, Floriade, Netherlands