Floor Frings: creating a sustainable society at the core

In every project, the studio Werkstatt, from The Netherlands, sees opportunities to contribute to a living environment that is sustainable in every respect. In Nieuwegein, a bus station is designed with a very light roof from which water is infiltrated into wadis via moss-covered concrete columns. In Eindhoven, the firm has devised various residential projects in which facilities are shared and space has been created for residents to meet one another. On Wednesday 9 September, architect Floor Frings of Werkstatt will give a lecture at ARCHITECT@WORK in Rotterdam. A preliminary interview.

“For the bus station in Nieuwegein, we were asked to design a green and sustainable canopy. That brief seemed to suggest that the bus station should have a roof with plants on top of it. But that requires a relatively large amount of material to build, and the vegetation on it can struggle during the summer,” says architect Floor Frings of Werkstatt. “We therefore took a step back and first looked at the core of the assignment: designing a canopy that would keep travellers dry at this location in Nieuwegein when it rains.”

“What is special about rain is that it can tap on a tent fabric, for example, or even create a rustling sound,” Floor continues. “Could we make that experience part of the bus station? And could that be combined with trees and plants growing directly in the ground?”

Werkstatt developed a very light roof consisting of tall timber trusses over which ETFE has been stretched. The roof rests on three wide concrete columns that allow rainwater to run down to the ground. By making the sprayed-concrete finish of those columns more porous, all kinds of mosses can grow on them. At ground level, the columns stand in wadis where both low and tall vegetation can grow. During peak rainfall events, excess water can be temporarily stored underground.

Designing from the project’s core values

“The essence of our work is the ambition to create a society that is livable in every respect and benefits people, plants and animals alike,” says Floor. “The aim of reducing CO2 emissions in construction is a natural part of that. But it also means striving to reduce inequalities in society: we want to support social dynamics, and we like to create space for nature. In that sense, we truly take a holistic approach.”

In its early projects, Werkstatt placed a strong emphasis on biobased construction. As the practice has grown, and with the increasing scale of the projects it works on, that focus has become somewhat more nuanced. “When designing a house for private clients with a larger budget, you can fully commit to sustainable materials such as timber and hemp-lime,” says Floor. “But with the CPO project meer&deel, we eventually faced a dilemma: do we opt for 100% biobased materials, which are somewhat more expensive and would mean losing a large part of the group; or do we make a concession by using concrete floors, allowing a larger part of the group to live there? The latter option was chosen, and I am proud that as many households as possible who participated in that CPO project are now actually living there!”

“At the start of a design process, we always determine the project’s core values,” Floor explains. “Part of that is asking ourselves: what belongs where, and what is possible where? It is always a matter of weighing interests.” Another factor is that Werkstatt sees low embodied-carbon construction becoming the industry-wide baseline. That transition is already underway. And that now gives them the freedom to focus on all the other aspects that make buildings great architecture.

Supporting community building

In the design of CPO meer&deel in Eindhoven – winner of the Dirk Roosenburg Prize 2025 – the challenge was to find the right balance between collectivity and autonomy, Floor explains. The aim was to make it easy for people to encounter one another and connect, while also allowing residents the freedom to be by themselves when they prefer.

The solution was a sequence of spaces, a gradient from public to private, Floor clarifies. Between the rationally arranged residential buildings, open corners face the city. The shared spaces are then located in the “hinges” of the complex. The homes themselves have deep verandas that are shared with neighbours and where residents sometimes need to walk past other homes to reach their own.

A little further on in Eindhoven, construction has recently started on Klein Strijp, which will include around 160 social rental homes and approximately 60 homes within a housing cooperative. As with meer&deel, one of the project’s core values was supporting community building through design. “At Klein Strijp, the access galleries have therefore become living galleries, where people can easily meet, have a chat, and sit outside.”

“That choice of living galleries led to the principle that bedrooms should not be located directly on them, otherwise they would be less effective over time. That required dual-aspect homes. However, the project contains homes of varying sizes, and that is particularly challenging with the smaller units. It would have been easy to compromise on that requirement for the smaller homes, but we persevered and looked for a way to make it possible. We eventually arrived at a structure of L-shaped floor plans that allowed dual-aspect orientation for all homes.”

“Another core principle at Klein Strijp was to connect all the roof gardens. That was also a challenge because they are located on different levels, but we succeeded,” Floor says enthusiastically.

While meer&deel is a small neighbourhood, Klein Strijp forms part of a large urban block. Yet even within that block, Werkstatt again designed a gradient from public to private. In this project, the shared space has been placed more towards the outside of the block, creating a connection with the surrounding neighbourhood and the city. In the sheltered inner courtyard, space will be created for children to play.

Beauty through materialisation

Together with her colleagues, Floor enjoys making models and mock-ups of the designs she works on. She does this in the workshop that the practice has in-house; the firm’s name – Werkstatt – is also a reference to this. “It is precisely in the materialisation of our designs that we search for beauty,” she says.

“The beauty lies in the honest application of detailing, with attention to relief and the texture of the façade,” she continues. “For the design of the bus station in Nieuwegein, we made a mock-up of the gutter at one point in order to truly understand it and get it right.”

When it comes to material choices, the practice has no taboos, but it does feel a strong responsibility towards all materials. Materials with high embodied CO2 emissions, such as steel and concrete, are treated as ‘expensive’ materials because, in terms of environmental impact, they are. “We use steel and concrete where they genuinely add value and in such a way that they can be reused later,” Floor explains.

Floor is most in her element when working with and developing new sustainable materials. “For Klein Strijp, we developed a plaster containing crushed second-hand bricks. This gives something of the appearance of a brick façade, but at a much smaller thickness and therefore with a much lower environmental impact. In the end, we were not yet able to apply it in Klein Strijp. But samples of the material are already waiting in Werkstatt’s workshop for a future project!”