UNDERSTANDING THE WORLD THROUGH CITIES
London is closing Oxford Street to traffic. Other cities should be asking themselves why they haven’t done the same. London has finally done it. Oxford Street, or at least a substantial part of it, is being handed over to pedestrians. No cars, no buses, no taxis. Not even cyclists...
London is closing Oxford Street to traffic. Other cities should be asking themselves why they haven’t done the same. London has finally done it. Oxford Street, or at least a substantial part of it, is being handed over to pedestrians. No cars, no buses, no taxis. Not even cyclists...
Why global climate targets are not enough — and why adaptation must start with the places and people actually affected. We have become accustomed to discussing climate change in...
Architecture as a method for confronting complexity. This thought piece is a reflection on the Education Symposium organised by IABR and OASE on 9 October 2026, during the Rotterdam...
The giga-project created the island. The next challenge is making the archipelago work. For the past decade, Saudi Arabia’s transformation has been represented by objects: NEOM, The Line, Qiddiya,...
Berlin needs collective housing. But buying the shortage is no substitute for building its way out of it. Berlin has rediscovered one of the oldest political responses to scarcity:...
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,...
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,...
London is closing Oxford Street to traffic. Other cities should be asking themselves why they haven’t done the same. London has finally done it. Oxford Street, or at least...
Over Christmas the architectural world was rocked by the plans to demolish Louis Kahn’s dormitories of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. How is it possible that even making...
Recently I have been on an excursion in the center of the Netherlands in an area that is famous for its natural beauty and even features one of the...
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...
The most important part of a stadium is not the stadium Watching the World Cup this month, I found myself distracted by something that had little to do with...
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,...
Today I gave an online lecture about the agglomeration of Saratov in Russia. When invited I thought – nice! Making a case for strengthening cities in the region and...
Anyone who has spent enough time in architecture, urban planning, development, or local government will recognize the genre immediately: A project team is “excited to announce” that it has...
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....
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.
