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...
I confess, I am a cycling enthusiast and every July – and since yesterday again, the Tour de France captivates me and many millions more as it snakes through...
Riyadh’s is rapidly expanding – in population and urbanized area. The Decision: Growth Riyadh announced that it was lifting the suspension on 33.24 square kilometres of land in the...
Unlike a war and unlike a terrorist attack, a virus does not destroy buildings, streets or infrastructure and it also does not use explosives. It affects the city in...
According to a felt 99% of all scientists the impact of humans on the global climate is a fact. An inconvenient truth that is responsible for the climate change...
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...
Urbanization today is a test not only of infrastructure but of institutional strength, professional competence, and societal readiness. Cities grow ever more complex, their challenges more interconnected, and their...
by a European Urban Planner Practicing on the Arab Peninsula I arrived in Saudi Arabia with a well-worn European planner’s toolkit—deep respect for history, a belief in incremental progress,...
Quantum computing promises a revolution in data processing, not simply by accelerating calculation, but by introducing a fundamentally different logic of reasoning. Quantum systems do not proceed step by...
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...
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...
It seems to be the time of doom scenarios again. Last month, the IPCC report on climate change was published, picturing a dramatic outlook. Climate change and the associated...
Carbon Confessions The architectural profession has recently discovered a new genre: the public apology. Not an apology in the sense of actually changing behavior, of course. That would be...
When in 1910 Adolf Loos gave his lecture and subsequently published his essay “Ornament and Crime” it was a reaction to the Arts and Crafts movement with its overly...
What Western Planning Misses About Urban Life in Africa For decades, African cities have been treated as incomplete drafts of somewhere else. They are measured against Paris, London, Singapore...
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...
Jürgen Habermas has died, and with him one of the last great figures of a generation of philosophers who still believed that thinking could help society understand itself. For...
Currently, I am preparing a lecture series which will look at the differences between the global north and the global south within the same continent. In Asia, you have...
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.
