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...
Unlike a war and unlike a terrorist attack, a virus does not destroy buildings, streets or infrastructure and it also does not use explosives. It affects the city in...
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...
Beyond Peak Indifference #4 – Our time is often dubbed the Anthropocene – the earth age influenced by mankind in such a way that it profoundly changes our natural...
If Shenzhen is the city that prototypes the future and Hong Kong is the one that invented it, then Dongguan is the quietly brilliant cousin who actually manufactured the...
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...
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....
A Desert Nation Confronts a Heating Planet As the world warms, few nations feel the heat as literally as Saudi Arabia. With daytime temperatures in major cities like Riyadh...
Urbanization today is a test not only of infrastructure but of institutional strength, professional competence, and societal readiness. Cities grow ever more complex, their challenges more interconnected, and their...
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...
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...
Learning and teaching in new world. Like many other schools, the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture had to switch its teaching and learning to online environments. In the beginning we...
‘Modern Architecture, a planetary warming story’ is the title of a book by architecture historian Hans Ibelings published recently. In his text, Ibelings builds evidence that modernist architecture is...
For too long, politicians and planners have ignored or sugarcoated the housing crisis—with dramatic consequences. Not only have mainstream parties been punished for neglecting one of the most pressing...
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...
Recently, Germany has been discussing new standards for the size of parking spaces. The reason: the old ones do not leave enough space for the most popular products of...
On a Saturday morning in the Netherlands, the story of public space reveals itself in the most ordinary of places. A square fills with the clatter of market stalls...
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...
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.
