Profile

Sophie Valla architects is an architect based in Amsterdam

Interview with Marieke Hillen

Why did you choose the Netherlands for your traineeship? What made you stay here?

I came to the Netherlands to visit Amsterdam and I stayed being offered a traineeship in a nice office. I stayed because,it was a liberating in comparison with the still modernist education I had received in France.

Which offices did you work in?

I did work at Baneke en van der Hoeven architekten, at UN Studio and at de Architekten Cie.

For me the most relevant experience, was at UN Studio, where I discovered the power of the process and tools; how to work with diagrams, to integrate data without fixing the design; how to take geometry serious. I learned about the importance of collaboration with advisors, starting from day one of a new project.

How would you define your work, and your specific view on architecture?

I believe architecture is about narrative and atmosphere.