Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
When ArchDaily published “What Is Metamodern Architecture? Between Postmodern Irony and a New Sincerity” on 24 July 2025, it offered an elegant reading of contemporary architecture. Drawing on the work of Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, the article argues that we have entered a metamodern condition –...
When ArchDaily published “What Is Metamodern Architecture? Between Postmodern Irony and a New Sincerity” on 24 July 2025, it offered an elegant reading of contemporary architecture. Drawing on the work of Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, the article argues that we have entered a metamodern condition –...
If you ask ordinary people but also many architects or urbanists what measures should be taken to make cities ‘greener’ there is a 99% chance that they will say:...
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...
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...
Time and time again, after returning from Hong Kong, Tokyo, Copenhagen, New York or Tallinn, I am appalled by the dirt and waste one is confronted with across 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...
How drones are redrawing our cities, our industries and our understanding of resilience. I am in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh and the city feels different today. The drone alerts...
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...
European cities are three-dimensional spatial constructs. But if we look at the plans we make, then the third dimension is strangely absent. Apart from the definition of building heights...
When ArchDaily published “What Is Metamodern Architecture? Between Postmodern Irony and a New Sincerity” on 24 July 2025, it offered an elegant reading of contemporary architecture. Drawing on the...
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...
Saudi Arabia is building at a pace and scale the world has rarely seen. Across its deserts and coastlines, extraordinary visions rise: NEOM’s The Line, a 170-kilometer-long city of...
Future life in extremely hot climate Four degrees are what scientists predict the temperature will rise in the Middle East by mid-century[i] – twice the global average. Record temperatures...
This week, I had the pleasure of attending the opening of this year’s serpentine pavilion by Korean Architect Minsuk Cho of Mass Studies. It was a beautiful event with...
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...
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 –...
It does not matter where you go these days. Everywhere, the lack of housing and the un-affordability are high up on the agenda. Platforms, workgroups, task forces, communities, societies,...
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,...
I had the honour to be invited to the What is the Future of Cities Podcast. “Are you interested in finding the real problem of the urban fabric? What do you think about robustness vs antifragility? How can we improve our feedback loops in the building industry?” and many more questions we covered in this […]
I had the honour to be invited to the What is the Future of Cities Podcast. “Are you interested in finding the real problem of the urban fabric? What...
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.
