Marrit van de Vijver

Interieurarchitectuur - bachelor - Zwolle - 2026

As an interior designer, I believe that the feeling of longing, just like in other art forms, can play an important role in designing more socially livable spaces.

The word longing can evoke different meanings and associations. However, in my designs, longing has a very specific meaning. It refers to a deep, inner, and melancholic sense of longing. This elusive and elusive type of longing receives very little attention in modern-day society because it does not directly correlate with consumption or achievement.

Throughout my studies, I have researched which spatial elements can give form to this feeling of undefined longing. Just as in an Edward Hopper painting, where longing is expressed through, for example, framed compositions and contrasts between light and dark.

Within the context of my work, longing stands as a constant, unsolvable, and ever-changing feeling. Something that you carry with you as a person. In my daily life, I recognize this feeling, especially as an ever-changing need to be with others and yet also to be alone. From this experience, I became inspired to develop my graduation project through this question: How can you live together, yet apart?

At present, there is an evident trend in the need for single-person living spaces. At the same time, among other problems, there is a very large housing shortage that results in an economically and rationally driven design process. This means that in many design proposals, the push for profit and time efficiency is much greater than the attention given to the shaping of socially livable spaces.

The way in which single-person living spaces are currently being designed does little to support both the human longing for contact with others and the need to have a place to retreat to. To respond to this ever-changing longing as an interior designer, I want to both blur and emphasize the boundaries between public and private functions within the plan, without compromising these functions themselves.

I assessed both at the scale of an apartment complex and within the interior of a home whether a space possesses the qualities of a cell (small and the most intimate), a courtyard (semi-public), or a domain (large and the most transparent). These terms were also used by the architect and monk Dom Hans van der Laan. Starting from the most intimate space, the bedroom, the various rooms were then linked to one another.

Within the transitional space between one space and another, I have added elements that can express longing. For example, by adding translucent/diffuse materials, working with changes in elevation, or by creating an opening in the exterior wall. Through this, the resident is continuously motivated to move through their home from one room to another, from their home to other areas of the residential building, and from the building to the outside world and back again.

Longing as an inner, ever-changing, and unsolvable feeling can be expressed through art forms like architecture. In my design, this is spatially translated through the deliberate shaping of transitions between private and public spaces, through which space is created for both withdrawal and meeting others within modern-day society.

vijvermassa@gmail.com