Our cities have to be changed into circular environments, removing the causes of these environmental crises. At the same time we have to make our cities climate-adaptive, counteracting the harmful consequences of those crises.

This is a fragment of the book The Flexible City. Solutions for a Circular and Climate Adaptive Europe published by Maarten van Tuijl and Tom Bergevoet - architects and urban designers from Amsterdam. And also my phenomenal guests of this episode!

Maarten van Tuijl graduated from TU Delft and Columbia University New York. After working for couple dutch offices and collaborating with the Japanese architect Naoko Hikami, he founded (together with Tom) temp.architecture - office focusing on subjects as flexibility, transformation, circularity, climate adaptation. In addition to being a designer, Maarten is also a lecturer at TU Delft and an expert for the EU Programme URBACT.

Tom Bergevoet after obtaining his Master's degree at TU Delft, lived in Japan working for SANAA (Tokyo). Later he also worked for OMA, Architectenbureau Koen van Velsen and Architectuurstudio Herman Hertzberger. Tom is also a guest lecturer at TU Delft and Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam.

Last year Maarten and Tom published the book The Flexible City which presents a toolbox with which circularity and climate adaptation can be implemented successfully. The book compares European cities, identify similarities and trends and create a very valuable source for information for designers, policymakers, developers, builders and users.

Links:

“The Flexible City” book:

https://www.nai010.com/en/publicaties/the-flexible-city/246150

Nature-inclusive project designed by temp.architecture:

https://temparchitecture.com/architectuur/natuurinclusieve-woonbuurt-groei/

Cool digital platform for research, knowledge and innovation about Amsterdam:

https://openresearch.amsterdam/

May the cities be flexible!

Klaudia Lachcik