Apple is busy building a new campus in California. Their soon-to-be headquarters costs several billions of dollars, is set to be net-zero energy and is designed by one of my favourite architects, Sir Norman Foster. It’s gonna be a remarkable…
My summer holiday of 2012 was a 3000 mile road trip in the United States. It was one of my best holidays ever. So, how come I never wrote about it here? The answer is simple. Since I arrived back…
A while ago, a friend and I participated in an international architecture competition. The task: Design a new capital for Australia. Unfortunately, we didn’t win (oh well, it was a longshot anyway). Nonetheless, I’d like to share our thoughts about…
I’m concerned about something for quite some time now. Currently, there’s a discussion in the Netherlands about the so called ‘superprovince’. The Dutch government is planning to merge three provinces into a single big one. This so called superprovince includes…
The European Parliament is situated in the center of the European Quarter in Brussels. Adjacent to the main entrance are several steel framed EU office buildings clad in aluminum and glass. On a rainy day, this will look depressing for…
I read an interesting article the other day. Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket franchise of the Netherlands is busy developing a new strategy for selling groceries online. To date, online grocery delivery services are generally more expensive and aren’t viewed…
Wednesday I wrote about the need of a new urban model. Today I offer three of my solutions. When people start to work from home more often and distance becomes less relevant, we should rethink the way our cities (and…
In the 1920s, experts estimated Amsterdam would grow to 960.000 people 80 years from then. They were wrong by a big margin (2000: 740.000 people). In October, experts again calculated Amsterdam (the Randstad) will continue to grow rapidly while the…
If twenty percent of the Dutch labor force spends one day a week working from home, it would generate some two billion euros a year. If people spend two days a week working from home, the benefits would go up…