Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
The World Urban Forum is holding its 13th session in Baku this week. Every time I travel to one of these mega conferences, I find myself questioning their purpose. To stop these thoughts from haunting me like that little angel and that little devil on your shoulders, I have...
The World Urban Forum is holding its 13th session in Baku this week. Every time I travel to one of these mega conferences, I find myself questioning their purpose. To stop these thoughts from haunting me like that little angel and that little devil on your shoulders, I have...
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...
The current Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has changed the city profoundly and in no time – at least measured by the standards of urban planning. That much is...
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...
An interpretive essay on the performative linguistics of contemporary planning practice Decoding the Dialect of Planning Urban planning is, among many things, a language. A curious mix of optimism,...
Beyond Peak Indifference #4 – Our time is often dubbed the Anthropocene – the earth age influenced by mankind in such a way that it profoundly changes our natural...
Yesterday I stumbled across a post of Nico Rosberg on Linkedin. There for former formula 1 world champion announced the starting of Rosberg Xtreme Racing. With his team he...
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...
In 2015, the United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – a set of 17 ambitious objectives meant to guide the global agenda on sustainable development until 2030....
The World Urban Forum is holding its 13th session in Baku this week. Every time I travel to one of these mega conferences, I find myself questioning their purpose....
For more than thirty years, China’s property sector functioned not merely as an economic engine but as a governing mechanism. Housing construction stabilized local finances, absorbed surplus capital, and...
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...
A celebratory – and not entirely serious – reflection for the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress Every year (or in ISOCARP’s case, for the 61st time), planners from around...
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...
In the vast desert sands of Saudi Arabia, an audacious experiment captured the imagination of urbanists, technologists, and futurists worldwide. NEOM’s “The Line” — a proposed 170-kilometer-long linear city...
For too long, politicians and planners have ignored or sugarcoated the housing crisis—with dramatic consequences. Not only have mainstream parties been punished for neglecting one of the most pressing...
Gaza, Reimagined as an Asset Class Gaza’s rubble isn’t a tragedy in this plan—it’s a business opportunity. The GREAT Trust masterplan treats the destruction of an entire society as...
Did you ever hear of quantum computers, and do you know how they work? Yes – great, then you can skip this paragraph. If not – here is a...
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.
