Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
There was a time – not so long ago – when plastic was not only accepted, but enthusiastically celebrated as the material of the future: Imagine – the advertisement. A sunlit kitchen somewhere in the early 1970s, filled with soft colours and quiet optimism. A smiling family sits around...
There was a time – not so long ago – when plastic was not only accepted, but enthusiastically celebrated as the material of the future: Imagine – the advertisement. A sunlit kitchen somewhere in the early 1970s, filled with soft colours and quiet optimism. A smiling family sits around...
What Western Planning Misses About Urban Life in Africa For decades, African cities have been treated as incomplete drafts of somewhere else. They are measured against Paris, London, Singapore...
The current narrative of climate change is that of an inevitable development as a result of human progress that we can fix. Depending on the angle, the fixes can...
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,...
Recently the New York Times reported that there is a flight from the cities to suburbian locations in the wake of Covid19. This reverses a trend that has been...
In 1969, Richard Buckminster Fuller published his book Operation Manual to Spaceship Earth. It was at this moment that mankind landed on the moon and when it seemed like...
Riyadh’s ambitious municipal reform offers a rare chance to move beyond mega-projects. The city’s future depends on whether new districts and Madinty offices become engines of urban quality, not...
A Novel Paris Before the Line On the mornings when the light arrived softly over the Seine, Leonie Moreau believed the world might yet be persuaded. She lived on...
Last week the City of Rotterdam proudly presented its newest plans to pour 223 million Euros into greening seven important places in the city. Among them are Schouwburgplein, the...
There was a time – not so long ago – when plastic was not only accepted, but enthusiastically celebrated as the material of the future: Imagine – the advertisement....
There was a time – not so long ago – when plastic was not only accepted, but enthusiastically celebrated as the material of the future: Imagine – the advertisement....
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...
Every year on April 27 (this year marks an exception and King’s Day is celebrated on April 26th because it’s never on a Sunday), the Netherlands transforms into a...
For two weeks, I have been hiking in Germany with my sons. For once, not being in a car or on a bike but solely dependent on your own...
There it stands: brick by brick, half-finished, oddly proportioned, unmistakably itself — the ugly Belgian house. Its façade is a patchwork of mismatched bricks, a balcony added as an...
Recently, world leaders have engaged in a competition of who makes the bigger pledges when it comes to reaching climate neutrality for the respective country or world region they...
NIMBYism – “Not In My Back Yard” – has long been treated as a local irritation. The sort of thing that happens when a new building goes up, a...
At city planning offices around the world, weary urban planners turn to AI tools to help draft a zoning report. They feed it background documents and ask for a...
BMG, a Georgian news outlet interviewed me about my view on the City of Tbilisi and what problems need to be solved there. Comparing international urban development concepts like the 15 Minute City with what the urban fabric of Tbilisi offers lead to a discussion about the right concepts to use locally: learn – don’t […]
BMG, a Georgian news outlet interviewed me about my view on the City of Tbilisi and what problems need to be solved there. Comparing international urban development concepts like...
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.
