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How can you keep the high ambitions for an urban plan until it is realized?

This question was the central topic of an atelier organized by Utrecht Province on improving nature inclusive building and climate adaptation in March 2025. The case discussed upon initiative of Bunnik Municipality was their urban extension plan ‘Kersenweide‘ with 1.200 houses (Masterplan by Loos Van Vliet).

This green field extension is part of a 60% (!) growth of this city within the coming years. As an expert I was happy to contribute next to Jip Lauwe Kooijmans and Bart Cardinaal, and wonderfully hosted by our colleague Marieke de Keijzer.

Together with viusal artist Marius van Zandwijk we developed a spatial intervention for the Dutch outdoors in the East of the Netherlands. This folly made of industrial fencing in custom greens discusses our relation with landscape and nature in general.

Entitled ‘claim’ the installation explores the roles of nature and men in the Anthropocene. Do we understand nature? Can we capture nature? Who is included and excluded when it comes to this ambigous relation?

The design of this folly is entirely made of second hand industrial fences and can be reused after the installation. We developed the design for a small art festival in Norg (Drenthe) in summer 2025.

Upon invitation by Dr.in DIin Rita Mayrhofer of the ILAP departmentof BOKU University Vienna and the international network Biotope City I am honoured to lecture about our work on the urban development plan of Zaanstad Municipality.

Join us online when I am responding to the question whether the urban development plan for 2040-2050 for Zaanstad, neighbouring city of Amsterdam with 160,000 inhabitants that is set to grow rapidly to 200,000, can enable a good life for everyone within ecological limits.

I am happy to introduce the spatial vision for the future Zaanstad, entitled ‘Creating Space’, which was adopted by the municipal council at the end of 2024. It describes the city’s future qualitative development on the basis of five principles, that address today’s challenges and transitions.

The short lecture followed by discussion can be followed via a Zoom link on the 18th of March, 17:00 -18:00hours.

Within the 2025 executive training program ‘Nieuw Zaanstad’ of Zaanstad Municipality I was honoured to host the first Master Class with supervisor and urbanist Roy Bijhouwer of Quadrat, Rotterdam. On 25th of February 2025 the premiere of a set of three sessions took place as a lunch lecture in the town hall.

Speaking about the the ‘morphology’ and the landscape elments that informed the villages of Wormerveer and others in Zaanstad Noord, Roy introduced the live audience (and those who will watch the recording online at a later stage) to the beauty, the history and the drama of the particular Dutch peat landscape in this area along the river Zaan below sea level.

Wonderful workshop session in January 2025 with multidisciplinary group members including Catharina Vaendel (presenting the results). In this pressure cooker organized by Amsterdam Green Campus we came up with a proposal for a connection of the Amstelcampus of Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences across Wibautstraat. A modular wooden trellis spanning the boulevard a as a habitat for many species. Also, it  increases quality of live for humas with extra shade, fine dust absorption and noise reduction. Elevated paths enable the students to criss cross there campus in the greens while clearly marking the entrance of the Amsterdam city centre. Why not just do it?

Thanks for the inspiring lectures by Maike van Stiphout, Gideon Spanjar, Heidi Kamerling en De Onkruideniers organized by Roos van Manen and her colleagues. Photographs by Simon Pasveer. 

Maybe we can meet at the Real Corp conference ‘Boldly go where no cities have gone before’ on urban innovation in Graz from April 14th to 16th! I am honoured that my paper “Making Space for Work in Urban Growth: The Case of Zaanstad Municipality” about the Zaanstad Spatial Vision 2040 ‘Making Space’ has been accepted. The focus will be on the need to make space for work within the existing city, and explaining how we think that can de realized.

Yes, the future generations are thinking out of the box! Inspiring final results of the multidisciplinary student teams earlier this week. Next to almost professionally crafted and sleak presentation videos (!) with a lot of drawing work even wonderful maquettes were delivered.

Very cool to have contributed to the design studio of the Future Cities Studies at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in my role of commissioner, critic and lecturer. Thanks Mariska van Walsum and Erik Anton de Graaf for guiding the course and inviting me to work with the students!

New year – #NewZaanstad: The executive Program for the Knowledge of Space, successfully run for the past four years with hundreds of participants, has been upgraded! With its new name ‘#NewZaanstad there is new content, too: #NewZaanstad will be part of the implementation of both, the Spatial and the Social Vision of the municipality towards 2040 and beyond. We focus on learning how to practically integrate these visions in the daily work in this rapidly growing city. While we continue to promote multidisciplinary collaboration and sharing knowledge across departments, there is more: The program is now also open for strategic partners who want to co-create the future of Zaanstad with us. This week #NewZaanstad was launched at the festive New Year’s reception. It includes master classes, workshops, excursions, trainings and much more. We start off with a session by Tim ‘S Jongers on ‘explaining poverty to people with money’ at Zaantheater. This year’s wonderful editorial team includes Koert-Jan Van Hees, Rianne Kleine Koerkamp, Lennart Graaff next to Lisa Schouten, Meike Westers and Hilde Bloemers. The original Program for the Knowledge of Space was set up together with Marc den Hertog, Frits Palmboom, Bregt Balk and others in 2021 when I joined Gemeente Zaanstad. Looking for forward to great learnings and collaborations in 2025!

This is a truly Happy New Year! ‘Making Space’, the vision for the urban development of Gemeente Zaanstad until 2040 and beyond has been officially agreed upon by the Municipal Council in the end of 2024.
‘Making Space’ is a spatial vision for the future that is firmly rooted in 5 basic principles that ensure spatial quality and address the contemporary urgencies and transitions a growing city faces.
This is the first time that Zaanstad, famous for its many windmills of Zaanse Schans and the cradle of the European industry made an integral vision for the entire municipality. Today the 170.000 inhabitant city is rapidly growing to 200.000+ in the Metropolitan Region Amsterdam. The vision is part of the portfolio of elderman René Tuijn, who, next to our team, proudly wore the t-shirt I let made (and is shown above) in the council gathering. It shows the map of the vision and its essence: The 5 principles. The vision was commissioned by director Lennart Graaff.
It was a great ride to co-author, inspire and take care for the continuity of this poject together with Anne Langenesch and the team of professionals finishing this job included Joyce Goudschaal MCD, Lisan Adolf, Marian van den Brink, Mirjam Hoetjes-Witjes, Tijs Rothweiler and many others. The beautiful maps based upon my workshop atelier results and a draft by Urban Synergy were made by Lisa Schouten, Jasmijn Hofman and Esra Esen. The friendly impressions of the key projects were made from my rough sketches by blau.

This week the students of the P1b studio at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam led by Mathias as their tutor presented their final designs. The students of urbanism and landscape architecture developed proposals for the train stops in Zaanstad Municipality. A rich harvest of new ideas for these future nodes for transit oriented development. Images of the work for Krommenie-Assendelft by Arjen Brinks (feature) and above by Matthijs Breunissen for Koog aan de Zaan.