Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
There is a peculiar ritual that plays out with remarkable consistency across the world’s capital cities. A government, freshly energised by a new administration or a once-in-a-generation development mandate, commissions an international benchmarking study. Consultants are hired, flights are booked, PowerPoint decks multiply. Somewhere in the resulting report, Singapore...
There is a peculiar ritual that plays out with remarkable consistency across the world’s capital cities. A government, freshly energised by a new administration or a once-in-a-generation development mandate, commissions an international benchmarking study. Consultants are hired, flights are booked, PowerPoint decks multiply. Somewhere in the resulting report, Singapore...
If Hong Kong is the city that invented tomorrow, Shenzhen is the one that looked at tomorrow’s blueprints, said “Hold my tea,” and went ahead to build it by...
As the year draws to a close, our cities brighten. Streets shimmer with seasonal lights, façades glow, and even the most ordinary corners flicker with small gestures of illumination....
It seems to be the time of doom scenarios again. Last month, the IPCC report on climate change was published, picturing a dramatic outlook. Climate change and the associated...
For more than thirty years, China’s property sector functioned not merely as an economic engine but as a governing mechanism. Housing construction stabilized local finances, absorbed surplus capital, and...
It definitely was a grand opening – the Ministerie van Maak’s exhibition at Ferrodome in Rotterdam. It reminded me of the techno temples of the 90s in Berlin –...
The definition of cities often swirls around the complex overlay of systems that together form the urban fabric. In this logic transport networks, utilities, buildings, people, open spaces and...
When Noor, a 28-year-old nurse in Amsterdam, was finally offered a full-time position at the University hospital of the University of Amsterdam, she should have been thrilled. Instead, she...
The day Donald Trump was elected, I was attending the World Urban Forum in Cairo. Contrary to what many of us believed, it wasn’t just the white, aged countryside...
There is a peculiar ritual that plays out with remarkable consistency across the world’s capital cities. A government, freshly energised by a new administration or a once-in-a-generation development mandate,...
In the vast desert sands of Saudi Arabia, an audacious experiment captured the imagination of urbanists, technologists, and futurists worldwide. NEOM’s “The Line” — a proposed 170-kilometer-long linear city...
Why new cities can be engines of growth, symbols of ambition, and expensive disappointments all at once NEW Tashkent is taking shape! Recent reportings of a new city in...
I confess, I am a cycling enthusiast and every July – and since yesterday again, the Tour de France captivates me and many millions more as it snakes through...
Lately, I came across a data set on OurWorldinData.org that was mapping the projected urbanization increases between now and 2050. It made me uncomfortable when comparing where most urban...
It is odd: Whenever architects show pictures of climate adapted buildings they first tend to pick the igloo, the mountain hut in Switzerland or the wind catchers and the...
Recently I came across an article in Nature magazine about the annual global consumption of concrete. Worldwide, we use about 30 billion tons of concrete[i] every year. That comes...
Yesterday the results of the international ideas competition for Berlin and Brandenburg 2070 was announced. The competition was explicitly branded as a tool to develop a future vision of...
In the vast circus of urban marketing, nothing says exclusivity quite like a definite article. Forget affordability, forget inclusivity — all you need is The. “The Edge.” – “The...
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.
