While still a student at Delft, in the era of Herman Hertzberger, Carel Weeber and Rem Koolhaas the Belgian Willem Jan Neutelings (1959) started working for the Office of Metropolitan Architecture. After 5 years with OMA, Neutelings opened his own studio, which he has shared as a partnership since 1997 with Michiel Riedijk (1964), another old Delft student. The architects divide their time between the two branches of their office in Rotterdam and Antwerp, and collaborate closely with the Bureau Bouwkunde of engineers in Rotterdam. Neutelings became known for `Patchwork Metropolis’ (1989) a revealing study on The Hague-Rotterdam area, and for his project (with F. Roodben) for the European Patent Office, but his international launch came with the publication of his dwellings in Sittard and Tilburg (see Arquitectura Viva 50 and AV 67). The practice began by projecting urban plans, several fire stations and some residences (illustrating Neutelings´s keeness to renovate old domestic models), but its portfolio has considerably expanded in the area of public buildings, which show an interest in defining the exterior, and in housing, with block designs sculpted out of basic shapes...[+]