Design & Build
Strategies only matter when they become places. Design is where Natural Intelligence becomes visible, usable and meaningful in everyday life. We translate ecological principles into landscapes, public spaces and urban environments that people can inhabit, experience and identify with.
Our work integrates ecology, technology and spatial quality from the outset. By coordinating natural systems, infrastructure and architecture, we create places that deliver environmental performance while strengthening social and cultural life.
From regional landscapes to public parks and building-related environments, every project is designed to generate ecological, social and economic value simultaneously.
Every project is part of a larger urban landscape. The wider landscape provides the ecological, hydrological and spatial logic that informs strategic choices and guides design decisions. By understanding how a place functions within the broader urban system, we create interventions that strengthen both local identity and city-wide resilience.
Triple Dyke coastal strategy, Shenzhen, after
Triple Dyke coastal strategy, Shenzhen, before
Where nature becomes culture
Cities are where natural systems acquire cultural meaning. For centuries, landscapes were often designed to demonstrate human control over nature. Today, the climate challenge asks a different question: how can cities express a productive relationship between human and natural systems?
We see this transition as a cultural opportunity. Natural Intelligence becomes tangible when ecological processes are not hidden underground or treated as technical infrastructure, but become visible, valued and embedded in daily life.
This happens differently in every context. Each landscape is shaped by its own ecological conditions, history and cultural environment. We create landscapes that emerge from the specific relationship between nature and culture in a particular place.
The result is not only greater ecological performance, but stronger and more distinctive places. Landscapes that reinforce local identity while contributing to larger environmental ambitions.
Technical from the start
Contemporary urban landscapes are layered and complex. That complexity is the starting point.
Our projects integrate strategic ambition, design quality, and technical knowledge from the first sketch. This means coordinating above and below-ground systems, aligning landscape with architecture and infrastructure, and making informed decisions about what technology to deploy and where. In built environments especially, the goal is to minimise technical installations while maximising ecological performance. That requires deep technical knowledge. The tension between reducing complexity and maintaining control is central to how we work.
Projects
What we design
Our work spans large-scale landscape systems, public realms, and environments that surround buildings.
Landscape systems. From coastal strategies to forestation programmes, we design resilient frameworks that grow over time.
Public realm. Squares, parks and neighbourhood spaces commissioned by public authorities, where ecology and social use reinforce each other.
Building-related landscapes. Integrated with architecture and area development, from high-end residential to socially driven housing.
What it delivers
Our projects do more than solve spatial challenges. They strengthen ecological performance, improve liveability, increase climate resilience and create a deeper connection between people and place.
From concept to realisation, nature remains the guiding logic: shaping form, materialisation, use and long-term management.
Want to know more?
Natalia Andreeva
Associate partner, architect- Location
- Rotterdam
- expertise
- Design & build
Other services
Policy Advice
We take responsibility for embedding Natural Intelligence into the frameworks that shape cities. We hold positions as city architects, supervisors, and quality team members, instead of advising from the sidelines. From those roles, we integrate climate, water, and biodiversity into spatial frameworks before projects are defined, and translate ecological ambition into guidelines and principles that govern how cities develop.
Research by Design
We study Natural Intelligence, its organisational structures, and the building blocks needed to shape them. We research impact and spatial meaning. From that dual understanding, we identify new and better interventions to develop city regions.
Strategic Planning
We help cities link their climate goals to the social and cultural transitions we face today and tomorrow. By connecting natural systems to urban ambitions, we shape strategies and spatial frameworks that support climate adaptation and long-term development.