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...
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...
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...
Europe has been praised for its cities. Wherever I go in the world I get the same stereotypic answers when asking people for their favourite places: “Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin,...
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...
The 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress has come to a close. Time to reflect. What lingered with me was not the polished diagrams or the neat vocabulary of resilience...
Until a couple of weeks ago, Italy was dominating the news as one of the countries hit hardest by Covid19. We all saw dreadful pictures of overcrowded hospitals and...
When in 1910 Adolf Loos gave his lecture and subsequently published his essay “Ornament and Crime” it was a reaction to the Arts and Crafts movement with its overly...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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....
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 came across a recent UN-Habitat post on LinkedIn while scrolling past the usual mix of conference photos, policy announcements, and well-meaning advocacy graphics. This one stopped me. A...
Eight years ago Saudi Arabia embarked on a highly ambitious process to profoundly change the country within a short 15 years. They called it Vision 2030. With its three...
Greetings from Riyadh! It is 47°C outside, the asphalt shimmers, bus stops empty, and even a short trip on foot feels unreasonable. It’s tempting to declare the walkability debate...
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...
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.
