Kas Oosterhuis
Kas Oosterhuis is an innovator, a writer, an educator, and a practicing designer, leading the innovation studio ONL [Oosterhuis_Lénárd], which he runs together with his partner in life and business visual artist Ilona Lénárd. Oosterhuis has been a professor from practice at the chair of Digital Architecture [Hyperbody] at the TU Delft from 2000 to 2016, and a professor at Qatar University from 2017 to 2019.
The leading theme for the design studio ONL [established 1989] has been from the beginning the fusion of art and architecture on a digital platform, and the leading research themes at Hyperbody TU Delft, are complex nonstandard geometry, interactive architecture, and robotics.
Bespoke projects are the Saltwater Pavilion, the Web of North-Holland, the A2 Cockpit showroom in Utrecht, the Bálna mixed-use cultural center in Budapest, and the LIWA tower in Abu Dhabi. In these realized works, ONL has developed a unique and cost-efficient digital file-to-factory method, linking parametric design directly to the CNC production and assembly of the constituting components.
In his book “Towards a New Kind of Building, a Designers Guide to Nonstandard Architecture” [2011] Oosterhuis reveals the fundamentals of his personal design universe, embracing the paradigm shift from standard mass-produced to nonstandard mass-customized architecture and from static to dynamic environments. Kas Oosterhuis's latest book is titled “The Component, A Personal Odyssey Towards Another Normal”. Oosterhuis currently is a visiting professor at INDA Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.
Ilona Lénárd visual artist
Ilona Lénárd is a Dutch-Hungarian visual artist based in Rotterdam and Budapest. She studied autonomous spatial design at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Trained as an actress in Budapest, Hungary before, what she learned from acting was the importance of gestures and empathic intuition. Ilona Lénárd’s autonomous work is characterized by her Powerlines, strong fast, and intuitive gestures that translate into abstract 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional worlds. Having studied both acting and spatial art she has developed a natural feeling for cross-disciplinary work and has been active in such different fields as works of art in public space, intuitive sketching with the computer, autonomous sculptures, collaborations with architects on the grand scale of architecture leading to large sculpture buildings, interactive spaces, abstract calligraphic paintings, carpet design, and, more recently, robotic paintings. Her one-year stay in the former Studio of Theo van Doesburg - the famous multi-talented Dutch painter, writer, theoretician, and architect in the twenties of the 20th century - in Meudon near Paris in 1988-1989, together with her partner architect Kas Oosterhuis, has been the inspiration for intense cross-disciplinary work.
Ilona Lénard has created works of art in public spaces, among others the Musicsculpture in Oldemarkt and the TT Monument in Assen. Having co-organized manifestations like The Synthetic Dimension, the Genes of Architecture, and the Sculpture City event she has positioned herself at the forefront of international movements of the fusion between art and architecture on a digital platform. World-famous buildings like the Waterpavilion in Neeltje Jans - completed in 1997 - show the power and importance of sculpture buildings. From then on, a building could be a sculpture, a sculpture a building. Products that are representative of Ilona Lénárd’s recent autonomous work are her series of intuitive abstract calligraphic paintings and the series of robotic paintings that were produced during the Dubai Design Week 2015. More recently, Ilona Lénárd has developed a series of unique carpet designs called the FLOW carpets, based on her FLOW and PATTERN paintings. She has lectured and conducted workshops at Qatar University and has been a mentor for artists in residence at Doha Fire Station during her stay in Qatar from 2017-2019. Ilona Lénárd has exhibited acrylic paintings and Jacquard woven tapestries at the Doha Fire Station and the Faisal Bin Qassim Museum in Doha, and at galleries and art fairs in Budapest, Hungary, and Bratislava, Slovakia. Ilona Lénard currently teaches at INDA Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.
