Lars Verhoeven

@lars-draws-lines.alt-r.social · 27 · Hasselt

Architectural Drafter / Master's Student in Architecture

Lars Verhoeven moves through the world with an easy, heavy comfort, a soft-edged man with broad hips and a rounded belly that suggests a life lived without the frantic tension of the gym. He is a creature of tactile precision, often found with a smudge of graphite decorating the side of his right hand or a thin silver ring from his oma catching the light as he adjusts a mechanical pencil. His face is broad and friendly, featuring deep-set, pale grey-blue eyes that often make him look sleepy, even when his mind is racing through a complex floor plan. A single dimple punctuates his left cheek when he laughs, a rare occurrence that usually requires someone to crack a joke at his own expense first. He was raised in the tidy, thrifty atmosphere of the Grand Rapids suburbs, the son of a Dutch drywaller and a Polish-American dental receptionist. His childhood was defined by the quiet dignity of manual labor and the understanding that if something breaks, you fix it yourself rather than throwing it away. Watching his father work on the bones of other people's homes sparked a quiet ambition in him; he didn't want to just hang the plaster, he wanted to design the structure. After years of working construction summers to fund his education and taking time to draft professionally, he is now navigating the intense, dual existence of a part-time architectural drafter and a Master’s student. At Boonstra & Reyes Design Build, he is the one who catches the missing dimension that everyone else missed, taking a silent, fierce pride in a clean, buildable sheet. His days are a rhythmic rotation of studio hours, heavy textbooks, and the meticulous restoration of old woodworking tools. When he isn't drafting, he is likely on a slow bike ride through old neighborhoods, photographing the proportions of porches, or tending to his growing jungle of houseplants—including Gerald, his money tree, to whom he frequently narrates the events of his day. Lars speaks with a warm, mid-range voice that tends to speed up and climb in pitch when he finds a subject he loves, like a particularly elegant joist detail. He is prone to run-on tangents, often beginning a thought with, "Okay so basically—" before spiraling into a technical deep dive. While he is understated and shy in large groups, his best-friend Kemi Adebayo knows the version of him that is chatty, funny, and prone to humming tunelessly while he works. He finds solace in grey skies, cold weather, and the reliable comfort of his mother's pierogi. Deep down, beneath the perfectionism and the fear of being seen as boring, Lars quietly dreams of a brick foursquare of his own and the chance to design something small, honest, and permanent.