Photography by Urshika.
(Click images to enlarge)
Designing the interior of the 154-foot Heesen Yalla, the
members of the Art-line team started with the skylounge and worked their way
down. They used the panorama of the outdoors as their starting point, with the
mullions of the windows creating their own smooth rhythm along the skydeck. An
open central staircase invites traffic and unites upper and lower salons.
Daylight penetrates all three levels. A single palette of soothing colors and
textures—a beige base, brown leathers and cottons, a rough marble mosaic,
solutions from Bos-de Vaal’s studio—decorate the entire vessel. On other
projects, bright contrasting colors signal refreshing, youthful energy. In his trademark gray trousers and open-collar white shirt,
Diederik Fokkema, of Fokkema Architecten in Delft, is a young architect on the
move. In September 2006, Fokkema won an award in Monaco for his interior design
of Feadship’s SL 39-meter semi-custom yacht line. Fokkema’s day job, so to
speak, is designing large office spaces for multinational firms based in
Holland. However, as a sailor and occasional racer, Fokkema gets the nature of
yachting: water, wind, sky and boat.
Decorators, Fokkema says, take space for granted and start
looking for curtains right away. By contrast, architects see a space and want it
to do double and triple duty. They use sliding walls, pivoting couches: One side
of the wall serves for a PowerPoint screening while the family gathers to watch
a film projected on the other side.
 Photograph by Urshika.
(Click image to enlarge)
The U.S. office-building model is all about bays, rows,
cubicles and changing arrangements to increase productivity. "Coffee
machines in the U.S. office typically take up three square feet, but in Holland
we give them a hundred square feet because, as designers, we know that a lot of
creative conversations will take place around coffee machines. Dutch office
workers enjoy a lot of freedom, but they respond with initiative and
self-discipline. It’s a matter of trust," Fokkema says. On the Feadship yacht,
he says, he emphasized freedom and interaction as well, but this time it was in
the service of relaxation as opposed to the increased productivity desirable for
office spaces.
Diederik Fokkema, won Feadship’s
design competition on the strength of his multifunctional spaces for the SL
39. (Click images to enlarge)
When he worked with Pritzker Prize–winning architect Richard
Meier in
the United States, Fokkema says he learned about finding the "bare
meaning" of an architectural program and teasing out its
"secrets."
This
approach is very much in touch with his Dutch
sensibility as well,
and his focus
is always turning to the
"bare essence of the program."
On large yachts, many of
the
programs are about ease of adaptation to
various uses: personal,
friends and
family, corporate, charter.
To make the Feadship as
multifunctional as possible, for
example, Fokkema designed wide,
sliding doors that open to its upper bridge. Now
it’s possible for
everyone to participate in the sailing of the boat, and
when those
doors are closed, there is room for a bar and buffet. Fokkema sees
the
sun deck working for cocktails with guests on Saturday evening and being
just as useful Sunday morning when the partygoers are ready for strong,
hot
coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice.
Diederik Fokkema's multifunctional spaces for the SL 39. (Click images to enlarge)
Too many of today’s megayachts, Fokkema asserts, are more like
floating houses than boats—the action of the boat cut off and the bridge hardly
approachable. A boat should be more flexible than a house, he insists. Even a
big boat has limited space—space that is needed for a variety of purposes,
family and business. "You can’t," Fokkema says, "put everything into one space."
So he develops his designs to show that flexibility can significantly alter
atmosphere and serve as a space maker.
Today’s Dutch modernists—architects such as Fokkema and
designers such as Pieterse and Bos-de Vaal—are no longer out in the cold, on the
outer walkway, as it were, of the megayacht design world. Yacht enthusiasts are
embracing the solutions of these visionaries, designs that emphasize fun,
participation and comfort in well-planned, flexible spaces.
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