Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
Imagine opening the news tomorrow morning to find that a major city or region has been struck by a catastrophic earthquake. Thousands of people are feared dead. Entire neighbourhoods have collapsed. Roads have become impassable, communications have failed and emergency services are overwhelmed. Whether the next disaster happens in...
Imagine opening the news tomorrow morning to find that a major city or region has been struck by a catastrophic earthquake. Thousands of people are feared dead. Entire neighbourhoods have collapsed. Roads have become impassable, communications have failed and emergency services are overwhelmed. Whether the next disaster happens in...
This week, Vinkham Mansharani, a Harvard researcher, published a book, titled “Think for yourself”. It emphasizes the need for generalists – people that know a lot about many things...
Last week, travelling through Finland, I followed the footsteps of Alvar Aalto. From Helsinki to Rovaniemi, from Turku to Jyväskylä, I visited his sanatoria, civic centres, libraries, and houses....
What that could mean to urbanism in Saudi Arabia Last week, news outlets reported about the cutting back of ‘the Line’, Saudi Arabia’s most iconic and controversial mega project....
An interpretive essay on the performative linguistics of contemporary planning practice Decoding the Dialect of Planning Urban planning is, among many things, a language. A curious mix of optimism,...
It seems that everywhere in the world, billboards along motorways, in public transport or glossy lifestyle magazines do not advertise only perfumes, mobile phones, cars or fashion anymore. A...
For more than a century, architectural education has wrestled with its own insecurity. Suspended between art and engineering, between cultural speculation and technical necessity, it has often sought legitimacy...
Since more than twenty years, I am regularly coming to China. Ever since I went there for the first time, there have been talks that the real estate bubble...
How snow, sabotage, and sudden silence expose the fragile systems behind urban life—and why moments of failure may be our best guide to building resilient cities A few centimeters...
Imagine opening the news tomorrow morning to find that a major city or region has been struck by a catastrophic earthquake. Thousands of people are feared dead. Entire neighbourhoods...
A public space is generally open and accessible to people is how Wikipedia defines public space. Based on this basic definition, different societies have developed their own understanding of...
Until a couple of weeks ago, Italy was dominating the news as one of the countries hit hardest by Covid19. We all saw dreadful pictures of overcrowded hospitals and...
Tbilisi is not the kind of city that politely introduces itself. It rushes at you all at once — a jumble of medieval alleys, baroque balconies hanging by a...
Why Social Media Feels Like a Monofunctional City The pattern is always the same. You scroll through a social media platform or a video platform, or you buy something...
Recently a new book was published, showing the “radical architecture of the future”. Architects seem to love the word radical. If we look at the less prosaic reality of...
Riyadh’s is rapidly expanding – in population and urbanized area. The Decision: Growth Riyadh announced that it was lifting the suspension on 33.24 square kilometres of land in the...
Cityscape Global 2025 in Riyadh felt different this year — not less ambitious, not less glittering, but certainly more grounded. Gone were some of the ultra-shiny NEOM mega-models that...
When most people hear about artificial intelligence reshaping cities, their minds leap to sci-fi visuals: robot traffic controllers, AI-designed skyscrapers, or virtual reality planning simulations. Those headlines are eye-catching,...
At RIXARCH 2026 in Riga, I my lecture [LIV]-[IN], the Hyphen between housing and living, I spoke about the expansion of living beyond housing and the architectural question of public space. The lecture explores how living developed from a single location housing into a multi-location practice where we use different places during different times of […]
At RIXARCH 2026 in Riga, I my lecture [LIV]-[IN], the Hyphen between housing and living, I spoke about the expansion of living beyond housing and the architectural question of...
On 05 October 2023 I bid farewell to the role of Head of Urbanism at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. In my speech, I looked back on six years in that role and what has been achieved, but I also looked forward to what the future of urbanism and urbanism education holds. After that my […]
On 05 October 2023 I bid farewell to the role of Head of Urbanism at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. In my speech, I looked back on six years...
I have spent my career moving along the boundaries of architecture, landscape, and urban planning—spaces where disciplines overlap, cities evolve, and new ideas emerge. From London to Shenzhen, Semarang to Accra, my work is driven by a fascination with how places grow, adapt, and shape the lives of the people who inhabit them.
Writing, speaking, and teaching are essential parts of that journey. They allow me to question assumptions, share what I’ve learned, and learn from others in return. I write to make sense of the forces shaping our cities, to communicate ideas clearly, and to provoke thoughtful debate. I teach because every new generation of urbanists brings perspectives that push the field forward. And I speak publicly to connect practice and policy, bridging the gap between technical expertise and the broader conversations cities need.
Today, alongside my work with MLA+, I serve as Chief Technical Adviser to a nationwide spatial planning reform in Saudi Arabia with UNDP and UN-Habitat. When time and context allows, I am also teaching and have been heading the Urbanism Department at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture and at the Shenzhen International School of Design.
Cities are constantly changing; my motivation is to help steer that change – in words and deeds – toward more resilient, thoughtful, and inspiring futures.
