UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD THROUGH CITIES
AI appears weightless. Its urban footprint is anything but. We experience artificial intelligence as a small blinking cursor. We type a question; an answer arrives. The exchange seems instantaneous, placeless and almost immaterial. But every prompt enters a physical world. Behind the screen stands an expanding landscape of windowless...
AI appears weightless. Its urban footprint is anything but. We experience artificial intelligence as a small blinking cursor. We type a question; an answer arrives. The exchange seems instantaneous, placeless and almost immaterial. But every prompt enters a physical world. Behind the screen stands an expanding landscape of windowless...
Every month, I experience the same small shock: I check my bank account and discover that another collection of subscriptions has been deducted: transport, newspapers, cloud storage, entertainment, software,...
Elia Zenghelis has passed away. And it does not come as a surprise that Rem Koolhaas remembers him. But what he wrote in his obituary made me think. Koolhaas...
Urban designers have a peculiar habit: we draw the city we would like to have. We draw streets, blocks, parks, buildings and transport lines. We discuss density, mixed use,...
The next phase of climate planning is not simply about cooling cities. It is about redistributing growth, resources and opportunity before crisis does it for us. The familiar climate...
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...
I arrived in Vilnius with no particular expectations. I left wondering why so few European cities manage to do what Vilnius does with such apparent ease: create a public...
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...
The exhibition halls of the Global AI Show in Riyadh I visited last week were full of certainty. Every stand promises better predictions. Better optimisation. Better decisions. Better control. ...
AI appears weightless. Its urban footprint is anything but. We experience artificial intelligence as a small blinking cursor. We type a question; an answer arrives. The exchange seems instantaneous,...
AI appears weightless. Its urban footprint is anything but. We experience artificial intelligence as a small blinking cursor. We type a question; an answer arrives. The exchange seems instantaneous,...
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...
This week, a quote of me was posted on Instagram: “Good urbanism is about making cities for humans in balance with nature”. I was happy with it – and...
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....
Recently, world leaders have engaged in a competition of who makes the bigger pledges when it comes to reaching climate neutrality for the respective country or world region they...
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...
Take a journey. Not a comfortable one.
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...
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.
