The design story of Marker Wadden is unique. This man-made group of uninhabited islands in the Markermeer mainly comprises marshes and shallow waters, which makes them perfect bird habitats. Only the main island is accessible to the public.

This newest piece of the Netherlands – its landscape, the urban design of the settlement and the architecture – has been designed with care and attention. An impressive approach that leaves the shaping of the landscape largely to nature. By realizing M...

> The 100 best buildings of Amsterdam

> Including maps and the best things to do

> Over 10,000 copies sold of the previously published Rotterdam edition

From the world-famous seventeenth-century Canal District to the striking new buildings of the Zuidas: Amsterdam is home to many architectural treasures, dating from the Middle Ages to the present day. This guide shows the 100 must-see highlights, including the Royal Palace, Rijksmuseum, the Anne Frank house, Artis Zoo, the Amsterdam School ho...

"Nikos Salingaros is a mathematician who's also a brilliant thinker about architecture and urbanism. 'Solid' doesn't begin to hint at his virtues and talents, but isn't it nice when you encounter 'solid' in the world of the arts? Salingaros has worked closely with Christopher Alexander, and has become a major architecture theorist in his own right." -- Ray Sawhill.

"This is an interesting compilation of some of the important roots and evolutions of modernism and its latest development, the De...

The editors of this themed issue of SPOOL place the discussion on the possibilities and impossibilities of criticism within the field of the design disciplines at centre stage. We are especially interested in how criticism can make an active contribution to taking a position vis-à-vis what we have called, in earlier issues of SPOOL, the contemporary condition of 'the landscape metropolis'. Criticism is an important means of reflection on the creative processes and interventions that are part...

Anne Lacaton has been a visiting professor at the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment during the Fall Semester 2016-2017, hosted by the Chair of Heritage & Design. In the professional field of Heritage & Design the starting point for design is not just a functional brief and a blank sheet of paper but the challenge of an existing spatial setting and cultural-historical context. It is a dynamic and innovative field in architecture that deals with the architectural re-int...

Since the economic shifts of the 1990s, New Towns have become an increasingly popular approach to urban development across the African continent. While New Towns are not a new development model, their contemporary materialisation often targets middle- and high-income buyers, leaving no space for low-income residents. Strict regulations in these exclusive developments often impede spatial appropriations by the informal sector such as fresh markets, unregulated housing, street kiosks and ‘pub...

Recently, Chinese Public Rental Housing (PRH) provision has witnessed a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’: policy making shifted from government steering to mixed forms involving government, market and civic actors to pursue effective and fair policies. In the meantime, this new-era PRH governance is credited with mixed results. However, the existing studies fail to describe the mechanisms underlying this new-era governance of PRH with the rising involvement of market actors and...