Amsterdam faces the challenge of accommodating 50,000 to 90,000 new homes in the next five to ten years. That is equivalent to 10% of the city’s current total housing stock. The new homes have to be built within the existing urban fabric. This will entail high densities and the construction of new ‘un-Dutch’ …

The culture of fear seems to be increasingly embedded in today’s society, especially on highly social unequal countries, such as Brazil. The rise of the “condomínios fechados” (gated communities) on recent years expose how this fear shapes our cities. People are sold by the idea of isolating themselves …

Due to a recent law from the Dutch cabinet (Actieplan Ammoniak) it is recently possible for pig farmers to sell their business to the state. In the Province of North Brabant, more than 300 farmers have subscribed for this rule, which means that many of the barns and farms will lose their purpose and …

This booklet shows the urban metabolism of five different cities around the globe. From small, Venice, to extra large, New York. We took the city as the human body; integral, dependent on multiple organs and based on comprehensive flows. Mobility, typology, nature and history go hand in hand in the total …

The coronavirus crisis has forced us to rethink the demarcation between the public and private space in the city. Individual homes – stages for domestic life – have become office spaces and places for unusual social interactions. As people started working remotely en masse, they were also forced to expose …

Large cities in the West respond to an ever-increasing shortage of affordable housing by accelerating the process of urban densification. Amsterdam, for instance, aims to increase its housing stock by 10 percent in the next 15 years as its population is expected to grow by 20 percent. As in other cities, …

The Exodus of rural settlers to urban centers with greater attractiveness of quality of life, has brought serious consequences to the rural environments all over the world. An example of this phenomenon is Spain, that has around 3,000 abandoned villages, half of them in Galicia. These settlements have …

Increasingly, adding trees to the city is a new goal on the urban agenda in order to fight climate change. There is an interesting contrast when looking at the average lifespan of trees in the city: 30 years. The reason is that trees are still being seen from a utilitarian perspective and as urban furniture …

Substantial changes in the Dutch health care landscape have led to new ways of funding and designing hospitals. Flexibility in the design of hospital real estate provides options to adapt to changing circumstances. FREM plays an important role in managing hospital real estate and the utilization of these …