ABOUT // Jitske Torenstra

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The designs I make, are made for people, conscious of its environment and rooted in it’s location.

As an architect, I’m aware of the public role an architect can play. The main focus for me is the people who will use or live in the designs I work on. As Jane Jacobs once said: “People make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans”.

With an open mind, research driven, placing the users in the center, I’m  designing on many different scales. 

I’ve developed my design skills over the years by working for renowned architecture offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, China and Iceland. These experiences contributed to my open minded and research driven design attitude. 

The projects I've worked on include an office- and research building in Genk (Belgium); the Surgical Centre of UMC Utrecht (Netherlands); holiday homes in þingeyri (Iceland); a city centre redevelopment project in Turnhout (Belgium) and currently I'm working on an inner city redevelopment project in Amsterdam for architecture office XML.

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On this website you'll find a selection of my own work. It's a combination of private assignments, competition entries, and research projects. The projects show a wide variety of scales and fields of design. It reflects my attitude towards architecture: adaptable; sustainable and rooted in its social and urban context, always putting the users in the centre. Materiality is another fascination of mine, via the making of jewelry and other smaller designs I'm exploring the possibilities of wool; leather; metal and wood.

In my spare time I'm often volunteering as a watch-leader on 3-mast schooner Eendracht, sailing international waters ranging from places such as Helsinki, the English shores, the fjords in Norway, the Caribbean sea and its hometown Rotterdam.