About Recorastro

01 — Rotterdam Origins

Recorastro was founded in 2011 when planner Maarten van Essen left a corporate real estate firm to focus exclusively on workplace strategy for creative and tech sectors clustering around Witte de Withstraat. The studio name derives from a Portuguese word encountered during a research fellowship on Iberian co-working typologies that influenced his thinking about shared workspace rituals.

02 — Studio Philosophy

We reject catalogue-driven office design where furniture salespeople dictate layout outcomes disconnected from organisational behaviour. Every plan begins with how people actually collaborate, concentrate, and transition between modes during a working week measured through observation and structured interviews rather than assumptions from industry fashion.

03 — Team Composition

Fourteen planners, interior architects, and acoustic specialists work from our ground-floor studio with view onto the street gallery district. Senior planners each carry maximum three active projects ensuring partner-level attention rather than handoff to junior staff after pitch success leaves clients explaining requirements repeatedly.

04 — Research Practice

Quarterly workplace research reports published openly cover topics including Dutch hybrid work legislation impacts, ABW adoption failure modes, and meeting room utilisation benchmarks from our post-occupancy database spanning 140 completed projects across Randstad municipalities.

05 — Industry Memberships

Recorastro holds membership in the International Facility Management Association Benelux chapter and contributes case studies to the Centre for People and Buildings at TU Delft for academic workplace research programmes examining long-term productivity outcomes.