Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
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 realm that feels continuous, coherent and almost effortlessly connected. It wasn’t a landmark or a spectacular piece of architecture that...
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 realm that feels continuous, coherent and almost effortlessly connected. It wasn’t a landmark or a spectacular piece of architecture that...
The day Donald Trump was elected, I was attending the World Urban Forum in Cairo. Contrary to what many of us believed, it wasn’t just the white, aged countryside...
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...
Rediscovering urban China after Covid Since more than 20 years I have been travelling to China several times a year. In this time I have seen the country developing...
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....
Last week, travelling through Finland, I followed the footsteps of Alvar Aalto. From Helsinki to Rovaniemi, from Turku to Jyväskylä, I visited his sanatoria, civic centres, libraries, and houses....
About every second book about cities starts with the announcement that we are now living in an urban age with more than 50 percent of the world population calling...
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...
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...
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...
INBOX: “Results of the design competition ABD in XYZ”. This or similar is the email subject many of us are waiting and hoping for. Usually it is marking the...
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...
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....
Riyadh’s ambitious municipal reform offers a rare chance to move beyond mega-projects. The city’s future depends on whether new districts and Madinty offices become engines of urban quality, not...
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...
There has been an interesting debate going on in Dutch newspapers in the last couple of weeks. The government plans of building up to 1 million new homes were...
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...
and how to fix it I have to make a disclaimer upfront: I am a great admirer of Constantinos Doxiadis, a Greek urban planner that has literally groundbreaking work...
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.
