Sander Monteiro

Sander Monteiro completed his Master’s in Architecture at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture in 2008. He gained experience at a number of highly regarded architecture firms, such as Claus & Kaan and Herman Herzberger, before coming to Paul de Ruiter Architects.

Sander: “I’m naturally curious. As a child, I was always studying, drawing and figuring out how things worked by taking them apart and putting them back together again. Becoming an architect was thus a natural extension of my need to understand, conceptualise and create.”

Sander was an architect on major PPP projects such as the National Military Museum, the sustainable headquarters of the RIVM/CBG, the TivoliVredenburg concert hall and Ricoh’s headquarters in the Netherlands. He was also actively involved in research on the influence of the built environment on human behaviour.

“When assigned to a project, one of the first things I do is identify the main areas of tension between seemingly contradictory requirements. The way I see it, great designs depend on getting the balance between these requirements right, such as that between serving the individual versus the community. How do you design buildings that encourage social interaction and make it easier for occupants to run into one another while at the same time allowing them their solitude and privacy?”

Seeking more opportunities to apply and further his understanding of sustainable architecture, Sander joined Paul de Ruiter Architects in 2020.

“This firm, in my opinion, is one of the few to have succeeded in making sustainability a visible feature of contemporary architecture. This aesthetic approach to sustainability makes the resulting works very distinctive, and I find this really inspiring.”

At Paul de Ruiter Architects, Sander is responsible for various projects from conceptualisation to completion. Some of these currently include several residential buildings, an energy-positive hotel and the transformation of an obsolete railway yard into a safe and vibrant new city entrance with a mix of shops, restaurants and apartments.

“I love working out how to incorporate simple sustainable solutions in contemporary designs. In regard to the way things are done here, the key to sustainability could perhaps be partly explained as producing well-conceived designs that make the best use of the available natural elements to capture and store energy. It’s an approach that, as much as anything else, explains why we’re so well suited.”