Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
Across Saudi Arabia and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, green has become the color of ambition. National programs promise billions of trees. Developers present shaded boulevards and generous parks as proof that a new urban chapter has begun. In cities long defined by sand, stone and heat, greenery...
Across Saudi Arabia and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, green has become the color of ambition. National programs promise billions of trees. Developers present shaded boulevards and generous parks as proof that a new urban chapter has begun. In cities long defined by sand, stone and heat, greenery...
Alert: Unlike what many claim, it is not the end of consultancy! Broken Promises in the Land of Vision Saudi Arabia has long been a magnet for the world’s...
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...
How snow, sabotage, and sudden silence expose the fragile systems behind urban life—and why moments of failure may be our best guide to building resilient cities A few centimeters...
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...
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 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...
It is odd: Whenever architects show pictures of climate adapted buildings they first tend to pick the igloo, the mountain hut in Switzerland or the wind catchers and the...
In 2018 I organized a study trip to Moscow with students from the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. They all felt it was an adventure and all of them had...
Across Saudi Arabia and the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, green has become the color of ambition. National programs promise billions of trees. Developers present shaded boulevards and generous...
When Noor, a 28-year-old nurse in Amsterdam, was finally offered a full-time position at the University hospital of the University of Amsterdam, she should have been thrilled. Instead, she...
Ein Interview mit Markus Appenzeller im Berliner Tagesspiegel geführt durch Christian Hönike. Herr Appenzeller, Sie sind mit Ihrem Planungsbüro in Städten weltweit aktiv. Sind wir Berliner besonders von der...
When discussing climate change, we – Architects and Urbanists – most of the time talk about materials that should be less carbon intensive, and we talk about processes that...
A Novel Paris Before the Line On the mornings when the light arrived softly over the Seine, Leonie Moreau believed the world might yet be persuaded. She lived on...
As artificial intelligence grows more capable by the month, societies everywhere are wrestling with a question that feels both futuristic and strangely ancient: what will be left for human...
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...
Recently I came across an article in Nature magazine about the annual global consumption of concrete. Worldwide, we use about 30 billion tons of concrete[i] every year. That comes...
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...
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.
