Kas Oosterhuis

Kas Oosterhuis (1951) is a Dutch architect, professor and co-founder of the innovation studio ONL together with visual artist Ilona Lénárd.

Kas Oosterhuis studied architecture at Delft University of Technology from 1970 to 1979.

His final studio project, the "Strook Door Nederland" under the mentorship of Rem Koolhaas was a proposal for a radical urban scheme concentrating all future building activities in the large 5 km wide and 200 km long strip, leaving the rest of holland to develop into a jungle.

His first commission was to design a 1:20 scale villa with LEGO bricks.

Between 1988 and 1989 Kas Oosterhuis and Ilona Lénárd lived and worked one year in the Van Doesburg studio-house in Meudon near Paris.

In that year they decided to bring their art and architecture work together in a joint practice, under the motto of “The Fusion of Art and Architecture on a Digital Platform”.

Between 1990 and now Kas Oosterhuis has delivered hundreds of lectures worldwide at universities and conferences.

In their early years of coöperation they organized the events Artificial Intuition (1990, Gallery Aedes, Berlin), The Synthetic Dimension (1991, De Zonnehof Amersfoort), Sculpture City (1994, Ram Gallery Rotterdam), and realized 20 public art and architectural projects: the inflatable weblounge ParaSITE (1996, Rotterdam Festivals), the Musicsculpture in Oldemarkt (1998), the TT Monument in Assen (2002), housing projects Patio Housing The Hague (1991, Dedemsvaartweg) and De Kassen (1991, Kattenbroek Amersfoort), where Ilona Lénárd mapped colorful dazzle paintings on the entire facade, the housing project Dancing Facades (1992) in De Hunze in Groningen, the Waterpavilion (1997) at Neeltje Jans, featuring the complex Hydra structure on the basis of an intuitive 3d computer sketch, and later the housing project Fside (2007) in Amsterdam.

In 1991 he completed his first housing project the Patiowoningen at the Dedemsvaartweg, and urban design scheme by OMA.

From the beginning of their practice Kas Oosterhuis worked closely together with his partner in life and business visual artist Ilona Lénárd, their artistic and architectural DNA strings would regularly interlace in joint projects.

Kas Oosterhuis aims at "changing the building industry from within" by his digital design to manufacturing approach, which was developed with the design of the Waterpavilion (1997, Neeltje Jans).

Kas Oosterhuis and his team teamed up with the steel manufacturer and invented a direct file to factory procedure, producing only those data that the CNC machines of the steel manufacturer needs to produce the building components from the raw material.

Autolisp routines were used for the data exchange.

Before the term parametric design became popular in the last decade as propagated by among others Patrik Schumacher of ZHA, ONL practiced parametric design as from the design to production procedure of the Waterpavilion in 1997.

One of the advantages of the digital design to production procedures is that it allows for an affordable complexity, whereas the constituting components have their own unique dimensions and shape.

Design to production methods facilitate mass customization of the building components, producing series of one.

He was a professor at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) from 2000 to 2016 and has been a professor at Qatar University since 2017.

In 2000 Kas Oosterhuis accepted a 0.4 fte professorship at the Faculty of Architecture at the TU Delft.

Kas Oosterhuis has become known internationally for his radical digital approach to architecture as from the earliest design stages up to the computer numerical controlled production of the building components, of which process the A2 Cockpit in the Sound Barrier is a prime example.

Kas Oosterhuis has won and subsequently built two important international competitions: the Bálna Budapest and the LIWA tower in Abu Dhabi.

Kas Oosterhuis accepted in the year 2000 a 0,4 fte professorship (professor from practice) at the Faculty of Architecture at the TU Delft.

He renamed the chair of Digital Architecture into Hyperbody.

Hyperbody specialized in Nonstandard Architecture and Interactive Architecture.

Kas Oosterhuis has written and/or edited 16 books explaining his visionary view on digital architecture, the most well known books are Programmable Architecture (2000, L’Arcaedizioni), Architecture Goes Wild (2001, 010 Publishers), Hyperbodies, towards an Emotive Architecture (2003, Birkhäuser), ONLogic, Speed and Vision (2008, Images Publishing), and Towards A New Kind of Building (2011, Nai Publishers), a designer's guide to nonstandard architecture.

Kas Oosterhuis is editor in chief of the scientific journal Next Generation Building (founded 2001, Baltzer Publishers, TU Delft), and has organized a series of Game Set and Match conferences at the TU Delft (GSM I in 2002, GSM II in 2006, GSM III in 2016).

His office, ONL, has realized a number of innovative, contemporary architecture projects including the Salt Water Pavilion at Neeltje Jans, the Web of North Holland at the 2002 World Expo in Haarlemmermeer, the A2 Cockpit in the Sounder Barrier at Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht and the Liwa Tower in Abu Dhabi.

For the Web of North-Holland (2002) ONL used a variety of programs, including 3d digitizing the handcrafted model, Maya for the digital 3d model and the construction of the complex geometry, and Autolisp routines for extracting the data needed for the cutting of the steel plates.

The A2 Cockpit in the Sound Barrier the step was fully scripted, therewith replacing 3d modeling as the leading design tool for computer programming.

Hyperbody has accepted a dozen PHD candidates between 2002 and 2015, among them Dr Henriette Bier and Dr Nimish Biloria, who joined Hyperbody as assistant professors in 2007.

Hyperbody alumni found their way into internationally renowned offices like Foster and Partners, Zaha Hadid Architects and Heatherwick Studio, and nationally into the offices of UN Studio, Jan_Pesman_(architect) Cepezed] and ONL, or founded their own practices.

Ilona Lénárd, born and educated in Hungary, was also instrumental in setting up the ONL Hungary office (2007 - 2017) in Budapest to realize the Bálna Budapest, originally named the CET Budapest, and to enter a number of competition projects among others the City Hall competition Budapest (2008, third prize).

Kas Oosterhuis was editor in chief of the Game Set and Match books, edited the book Hyperbody, First Decade of Interactive Architecture (2012, Jap Sam Books), and edited the book series Interactive Architecture iA#1, iA#2, iA#3, iA#4, and iA#5 (2006 - 2012, Jap Sam Books).

As from September 2017 Kas Oosterhuis has accepted a full professorship at the Qatar University in Doha.

Up to 2017 Hyperbody has run a master design course delivering students with hands-on design programming skills.