Cities and their making understood and sometimes imagined .
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 that punctuated daily life only a short while ago have disappeared, and on the surface the city has returned to...
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 that punctuated daily life only a short while ago have disappeared, and on the surface the city has returned to...
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...
The war in Ukraine and the Russian aggression are still continuing and most likely that will not change in the foreseeable future. It is horrifying to see this useless...
The year is almost over. No time to conclude but to reflect and a time to state where we stand. One of the most striking things to me was,...
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...
Every year on April 27 (this year marks an exception and King’s Day is celebrated on April 26th because it’s never on a Sunday), the Netherlands transforms into a...
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...
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...
Tbilisi is not the kind of city that politely introduces itself. It rushes at you all at once — a jumble of medieval alleys, baroque balconies hanging by a...
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...
City development is deeply intertwined with the economic and political system it happens in. It translates into how space is used, how infrastructure is provided and what role individuals...
BEYOND PEAK INDIFFERENCE #3 – Water is the currency of climate change. Increasing global temperatures heavily affect the global water circulation cycles. More heat means more evaporation, leading to...
Recently a new book was published, showing the “radical architecture of the future”. Architects seem to love the word radical. If we look at the less prosaic reality of...
Europe has been praised for its cities. Wherever I go in the world I get the same stereotypic answers when asking people for their favourite places: “Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin,...
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...
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...
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...
For several decades, globalization appeared to be an unstoppable force. Goods, ideas, and people moved across borders with unprecedented ease, and cities became the laboratories of this interconnected age....
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.
