Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
The World Urban Forum is holding its 13th session in Baku this week. Every time I travel to one of these mega conferences, I find myself questioning their purpose. To stop these thoughts from haunting me like that little angel and that little devil on your shoulders, I have...
The World Urban Forum is holding its 13th session in Baku this week. Every time I travel to one of these mega conferences, I find myself questioning their purpose. To stop these thoughts from haunting me like that little angel and that little devil on your shoulders, I have...
Geneva’s conference halls fell silent last week as the United Nations’ much-anticipated negotiations for a global plastics treaty collapsed in disarray. Three years of painstaking diplomacy unravelled in a...
Next to being a practising architect and urbanist, I am also an educator. One of the things I love when dealing with students is, that you get a preview...
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...
The world is part baffled, part outright dismissive of the projects that are all over the media. They present an urban vision that starkly contrasts with conventional expectations, challenging...
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:...
In January 2020, ANP – the Dutch Press Office reported that again more retail space is standing empty. This is a trend that has been going on since several...
It all sounds so smart and its vision is seductive: the smart city. Imagine a place where traffic flows seamlessly, waste disappears efficiently, energy is optimized, and safety is...
Laat ik bekennen, ik ben een liefhebber van Vlaamse hedendaagse architectuur. De culturele relevantie ervan werd 20 jaar geleden al erkend met de oprichting van het Vlaams Architectuurinstituut en...
The World Urban Forum is holding its 13th session in Baku this week. Every time I travel to one of these mega conferences, I find myself questioning their purpose....
Urban planning is often described as a technical discipline, a creative endeavour, and a guardian of long-term societal interests. Yet decisions about cities ultimately rest in the hands of...
Urban planners arrive in cities with a quiet sense of professional optimism. We believe that if we look carefully enough, systems will reveal themselves. Traffic will follow logic. Streets...
I have to confess – I am a big lover of Japanese Metabolism. It was a movement in the 1960s and 1970s that imagined a better future and firmly...
Tallinn does not announce itself. It does not rehearse its virtues or choreograph your admiration. You discover it slowly, almost accidentally, and then—somewhere between the sea and the forest,...
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...
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...
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...
In January 2020, ANP – the Dutch Press Office reported that again more retail space is standing empty. This is a trend that has been going on since several...
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.
