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On July 12th 2023 Mathias was speaking at the Re-Building Europe conference organized by international real estate consultancy group Drees & Sommer in Stadstimmerhuis Rotterdam.

Other speakers included Emiel Arends (municipality Rottterdam and Amsterdam), Vincent Taapken (New Industry), Niklas Veelken and many others.

The Re-Building Europe series is organized by DreSo in collaboration with Schneider Electric, E.ON, Georg Fischer Piping Systems, Schindler, New European Bauhaus, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Ghelamco, City of Warsaw, MVRDV, Hines, Lendlease, SwissLife Asset Managers, KPF, Foster + Partners and UNStudio.

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Within the Program of Integral Knowledge of Space for Zaanstad Municipality Mathias chaired the last session before the summer break. On the 4th of July 2023 this event about the spatial problems in the soil took place underground, a more than 800m long space underneath Beatrix Bridge.

The session exchanged knowledge on the various spatial claims in the underground, such as cables, pipes, sewage, city heating and of course soil life and roots for the trees. External expert Jos van der Wersch from Leiden Municipality gave an introduction and reported of a pilot of new vertical order of installations in the soil.

(c) Daan van der Veen

On 31st of May Mathias chaired a design atelier intended to accelerate nature inclusive development. This atelier was requested for by developers Dura Vermeer and Habeon. The Utrecht Province established these ateliers with a group of renown experts in the field. The experts included Erik Bijsterbosch (Ruimtelijk Netwerk), Jan Henk Tichelaar (Rooftop Revolution), Harry Boeschoten (Staatsbosbeheer), Bart Cardinaal, (HUNC, Human Urban Nature Connected) and David van der Veen (Utrecht Province).

(c) Floor Films

The second season of the Kennis Programma Ruimte (KPR, Knowledge programme ‘Space’) at Zaanstad Municipality was kicked off by Mathias on the 21st of March 2023 with a Master Class featuring Rotterdam based urbanist Franz Ziegler of Ziegler Branderhorst addressing the topic of ‘Drawing Essentials’, the competence to make sketches of spatial conditions by hand (or on a tablet) by reducing the huge amount of information to it’s essence.

(c) Elsevier

Finally the article ‘Social housing as focus area for Nature-Based Solutions to strengthen urban resilience and justice: lessons from practice in the Netherlands.’ originally conceived by Robbert Snep, Judith Kloosterman of Wageningen University, Ineke Weppelman and Mathias got published by the manuscript number ENVSCI-D-21-01468R1  at Elsevier publishers. 

The article can be found online on Science direct here or via Elsevier here.

(c) BDA

Together with Jörg Gleiter, Hartmut Böhme, Eric-Jan Pleijster, Heike Hanada, Sophie Kimmig, Gernot Weckherlin, Thomas Hauck & Wolfgang Weisser and Michele Porcelluzzi Mathias contributed to the thematic magazin by Bund Deutscher Architektinnen und Architekten (BDA) in March 2023. Entitled ‘The urban habitat’ (OSSN 0003+875X) Mathias elaborates in his article about the lessons learned in the past 10 years of his work with nextcity.nl, and what can be hands-on strategies to employ in all architectural and urban projects to create benefits for biodiversity, nature in the city and quality of life for all species. The article was conceptualized with Mathias’ nextcity partner Maike van Stiphout.

On november 29th, 2022 Mathias was giving a workshop as part an the climate adaptation network (KAN netwerk) expert session. The network organized by the Dutch real estate sector NEPROM has almost 50 project developers as members, and is run by Claudia Bouwens.

The case study of the workshop was Zaandam Oost, an area in Zaanstad that boasts a lush post-war green and blue infrastructure, but also major social challenges.

On October 27th, Mathias was speaking at the conference on urban development and the importance of the discipline of urbanism, which he was also setting up together with Gert Grandiek, head of Area Development. After a grand bow towards the urbanists Sjoerd Soeters and Frits Palmboom who worked more than 20 years for Zaanstad Municipality the second act of the show presented in Zaantheater focussed on the coming 20 years. Indira van t Klooster and Esther Agricola gave their inspiring and critical take on the role of governments and the importance of staying connected with the citizens, followed by a discussion with the speakers and Mathias, led by host Jacqueline van der Sande on how urbanism is a crucial tool for the Vision upon Urban Development for the long time.

In his position as Strategic Advisor Urban Development of Zaanstad Municipality Mathias was invited by the architecture centre Babel on October 13, 2022 to speak about the Vision upon the Built Environment 2040. This document sets out five crucial principles for the future development of the city in the immediate vicinity of Amsterdam, and that is rapidly growing from now 155.000 inhabitants.

The city is famous for its heritage as first European Industrial City along River Zaan, green wooden houses and it’s formerly ‘1000 windmills’ now illustrated by the international tourist attraction Zaanse Schans. The city faces major (spatial) challenges when it comes to climate adaptation and its ecosystems, transitioning energy and mobility, while working on equality and inclusivity. All growth growth for houses and spaces for future-proof work will be realized within the boundaries of the urbanized agglomeration and sparing the protected green landscape.

The Vision will be finalized in 2023 and co-authored with Simone Huijs, Marieke Ros, Marian van den Brink and others.
The presentation took place in cultural centre Bullekerk, and Mathias was interviewed by Leontien de Koning, former head or Urban Development.

In autumn 2022 Mathias teaches a design course at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture that deals with the human planetary claim as a series of spatial claims.
Turning our human impact of the Anthropocene into a positive force, students design a district that has its Earth Overshoot Day exactly then, when it should be: on December 31st. The design will combine the spatial claims for the entire district housing, work, production and recreation, but also for energy, food, carbon absorption and other spatial claims within the given area. It will be highly based upon local and decentralized principles.