Interview with Christian van Reeden, project manager for Rembrandt Park One for Dura Vermeer

Transformation Organization

Christian van Reeden's blood always runs a little faster when it comes to beautiful renovation and transformation projects. So he can get his heart racing, because since February 2021 he has been project manager for Dura Vermeer on Rembrandt Park One, a transformation of an existing office building on Amsterdam's Rembrandt Park into a sustainable high-quality office building with public functions. Velox spoke to him about the temptations of transforming, the importance of soft skills and the reputation of construction.

"When Dura Vermeer came up with this wonderful project, I was instantly sold," Van Reeden looks back. He decided to transfer from Heembouw, where he had worked for seventeen years. Not an easy decision, because he enjoyed his job there very much. "Heembouw is a no-nonsense family business with short lines, where there is room for entrepreneurship and personal development. For people like me, with a loyal character, these kinds of social aspects are very important. Fortunately, I have found this again at Dura-Vermeer."

Like a true ambassador, Van Reeden talks about Rembrandt Park One and the transformation of the building built in the 1960s for Nedlloyd. It counted some 25 thousand square meters and is being transformed into 27 thousand square meters, of which the 25 square meters on the upper floors are intended for business tenants and the two thousand square meters on the publicly accessible first floor will house, among other things, a restaurant, a coffee bar and gym. The restaurant is right on the Rembrandt Park and will have a waterfront terrace. And on the south side of the building is an underpass that will take passersby from New West to Old West and vice versa. Van Reeden: "It will be really cool when the entire campus has become part of the park. I can imagine people would love to work here."

Van Reeden himself goes to work with a smile every day. Or well, almost every day, because of course there are days when tough challenges have to be faced. For example, quite a lot of asbestos was found in the building, which had to be removed first in order to be able to transfer it safely. Van Reeden: "That does not alter the fact that it is precisely in transformation projects that you can manage away a large part of the problem on the front end. In a project like this one, there are plenty of ways to make something constructively safe, keep the schedule close and meet the requirements set for it."

That, he says, is a big difference from new construction, where the opportunities to come up with cleverness are limited. Another difference, he says, is in the construction process: "In this project, construction, façade closure and rough finishing were started almost simultaneously, something you will never see in a new construction project. You have to use your work preparation organization differently because of this. At the moment you are engineering and modeling your structural shell, you are actually already working on the completion. That does require a different way of thinking and operating."

Whether it also requires a different type of people? Van Reeden: "Every existing building has its defects. You have to take stock of those in time and make sure they don't affect the planning. Whether that really requires different personalities, I don't know. But it does require people who have that inquisitive streak. That character trait fits well into the renovation and transformation profile."

Rembrandt Park One has suffered little from labor shortages because everyone wants to work on this prestige project. "We had our house in order from the beginning," van Reeden says, "All the important positions were filled, with a good balance between medior and senior. But just as we finished demolition and wanted to start the shell structures, our BIM engineer left. He wanted to focus on his own business." So it happened that Velox was able to bring on Erwin Snijders for this project. "There was a good click right away and it remained there throughout the collaboration."

Snijders started on the team as a technician from the BIM expertise. Soon he also took on coaching the medior and junior project preparers, so he now also holds the role of organizational expert and BIM engineer of the construction team for phase two. Van Reeden: "So he now has a dual role, as do I, because in addition to being a project manager in phase one, I am now a kind of project manager for the phase two construction team." That an external force has taken on such a crucial dual role is not surprising to Van Reeden: "He just fits well into the culture of Dura Vermeer; he is a social, family-oriented and loyal person. Velox obviously knows all the construction companies and the culture that prevails there well, so I can well imagine that this provides insight into the soft skills and character traits that best fit a project."

Of course, Van Reeden also sees that the construction industry is facing personnel shortages. Should we make young people more enthusiastic about technical professions? Van Reeden: "I prefer to focus on things I can influence myself. What is interesting to mention in this context is that I myself have retail trade as my prior education. By no means everyone has a very clear ambition at a young age, at least not me. Only between the ages of 20 and 30 did I start focusing on construction. I had found two job advertisements in the newspaper: the first from a small builder in Wassenaar and the second from an ICT company. I had such a good interview with that builder that I called off the interview with the ICT company immediately afterwards. Because of this job I went in the direction of construction and studied architecture, but for the same money the ball would have rolled the other way."

Van Reeden disagrees with the statement that construction is perhaps not very sexy for young people: "I do find construction sexy. It is a fantastic working environment, where you can do anything. In my time, construction did not have a good name at all. There was the construction fraud and the sector was in the shadows. Fortunately, projects like Rembrandt Park, as well as other leading developments, have really given the construction industry's reputation a positive boost."