It has been a while since I have written a longer article. This week I have some reflections on a classic but still very much relevant problem: beauty in the built environment. What makes a place beautiful is a question which the general public cares very much about, and which it seems like most professional designers want to avoid as much as possible! I am not sure when environmental design stopped being about having fun creating beautiful constructed environments. In this essay I argue that a mastery of the fundamentals of spatial design, a focus on craft and a rediscovery of play are three elements which can return us to the simple objective of creating beautiful places. ___________________ Beauty and ugliness in the constructed world The built environment is a constructed habitat, the result of the modification of original material resources into a spatial organization that is intended to support human existence. When considered in this way, a city itself becomes a complex artefact

Pages from my sketchbooks, March-April 2026. A variety as usual, including building studies, watercolours and future urban environments from my imagination. ***

It is amazing what does not actually exist in the world. I am prone to overthink things far too much for my own good. It is a natural inclination to imagine a bad possible consequence of a situation instead of an equally probable good one, but for me this instinct often acts in overdrive: I tend to hop directly to the negative, and spend far too much time ruminating on the worst possible thing that could happen. It has become almost a cliché to say so, but while things often do not go the way that I hoped for, upon further reflection it is rarely the case that the results are ever as catastrophic as I imagine. In modern life, people are exposed to an unprecedented level of psychological noise. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been raised in the last generation that was able to experience early life before the Internet became a form of pervasive pseudo-reality that people spend most of their time immersed in, as opposed to being an alternative means of momentary escape and ent

Few things embody more pure talent than the detail of traditional Japanese carpentry. ____________________________________________ I always say that there are two things for which I have endless respect in this life: people that take initiative to start things, and people that have developed a highly refined skill. The first is a topic for another day; today I want to give my attention to skill. It is a curious state of being in this world that humans devote most of their time to learning and acquiring information, especially early in life. No one comes into (out of) the world with anything else than a mind which is structured to perceive, imitate and extrapolate. While natural inclination, instinct and talent exist, a skill or ability must be introduced, nurtured and systematically developed if it is to become refined and productive. Most societies have a social life structured around this necessity. In modern society it is implied that a child first learns a language and basic rules