In Soho in London prallen zwei Welten aufeinander: die des Überflusses und die des Mangels. Für Luxusverwöhnte gibt es hier nahezu alles, von handgefertigten Schokoladentrüffeln bis hin zu Matcha-Lattes und maßgefertigten Lederschuhen aus nachhaltiger Produktion. Was es nicht oder besser gesagt kaum gibt: Läden des täglichen Bedarfs…

Stadtentwicklung in Köln bedeutet, ein ums andere Mal nicht fassen zu können, wie Politik und Verwaltung die Stadt gegen die Wand fahren und gleichzeitig nicht mehr im Geringsten überrascht zu sein. Seit Jahrzehnten gehören Pleiten und Pannen ebenso fest zur Domstadt wie der Dom selbst.

The final conference of the Horizon 2020 project SMARTDEST, which will take place in Barcelona from 14 - 16 September, will be packed with exciting guests, inputs and discussions.

From "artists’ dream" to "real estate scheme" - this is how one could sum up the recent history of the Tacheles site in Berlin-Mitte - thus also encapsulating the city's overall trajectory post-reunification. A new piece for City Monitor in view of the upcoming opening of the much anticipated Am Tacheles project.

For decades, city leaders have been preoccupied with making their cities "cool" in the sense of being trendy. However, with the climate crisis becoming ever more pressing, a different, more literal meaning of "cool" is increasingly taking centre stage in debates about the future of cities. In a new article for City Monitor, I explore how cities can and, in many cases, already do take practical and sustainable steps to cool down the urban environment and mitigate the negative effects of rising temperatures and, especially, the occurrence of extreme heat.

A collaboration between SERIA__, initiated by artists Dasha Podoltseva and Elena Orap, the London Borough of Hackney, and Johannes Novy on the occasion of the 2023 London Festival of Architecture.

A new study claims that London is the "best city" in Europe. Really? Make no mistake, I love London - I have made it my home for a reason - but as I explain in a new opinion piece for City Monitor, I'm nonetheless not convinced.

Susan Fainstein (Harvard University) and John Forester (Cornell University) have put together a series of exciting essays on "Resistance and Response in Planning" for an Interface in the journal Planning Theory & Practice and I am pleased to have been able to contribute to it.

An op-ed for Illuminem Voices on what we can learn from New York's planning czar Robert Moses about the current struggle for sustainable mobility and liveable cities.

What does store closures for Germany's largest chain mean for the future of city department stores? I explored these and other questions in an op-ed for City Monitor.

In einem Artikel für das Feuilleton der tageszeitung (taz) habe ich mich mit der anhaltenden städtebaulichen Misere in meiner Heimatstadt Köln beschäftigt.

A guest article about the controversies surrounding the future development of Berlin's oldest square for City Monitor.

I will be giving a talk in early December at the international conference “Overtourist City” at the Escuela de Arquitectura de Málaga on "Tourists in the City. From conflict (back) to sociability and mutual benefit".

An article for The Conversation on the benefits of co-housing as (part of) a response to the global housing crisis.

An article for City Monitor on the rise, decline and emerging signs of a comeback of urban manufacturing and what cities can do to strengthen it.

Could International Building Exhibitions (IBAs) give urban planning in the UK a boost and help it address some of the pressing built environment challenges before us? In an opinion piece for the Royal Town Planning Institute's magazine The Planner, I suggest it's worth a try.

I was happy to co-author a chapter with Deike Peters - "Turning streetscapes into public spaces" - for Shyam Khandekar and Vinayak Bharne’s new book Streets For All.

This article for the European Journal of Spatial Development came about in response to the intensifying discussion about a return of manufacturing (and production in general) to cities in advanced capitalist countries and the many benefits this is said to bring to urban economies and communities.

Ein Bericht über den Stand der städtischen Produktion in London für die Reihe “Beiträge aus dem IBA’27-Kuratorium”.

Ein Plädoyer für weniger Marketing und mehr Tourismuspolitik in der tageszeitung (taz) anlässlich der Internationalen Tourismusbörse (ITB) Berlin 2022 (zusammen mit Christoph Sommer)