Thinking
Regenerative Cities: Building Cities That Flourish
Cities aren’t just where we live; they’re the engines of our future—and they need a radical reboot. Moving beyond the usual “less harm” approach, regenerative …
Eco-Industrial Parks and Industrial Symbiosis
The drive toward Eco-industrial parks and the support for a more sustainable future are gaining momentum with investors, businesses, and manufacturers alike. P…
Symbiosis in Development (SiD): The Framework Behind Every Project
SiD integrates systems thinking, network theory, and lifecycle analysis into a single operational method for designing at systemic scale. Developed over 25 yea…
EISAP: Industrial Symbiosis Through Systemic Design
A masterplan for circular industrial ecology in Estonia where waste streams become feedstock, applying SiD at the intersection of industrial ecology, agricultu…
Orchid City: Systemic Design at Urban Scale
A 40,000-resident masterplan designed using the full SiD methodology, coordinating energy, water, biodiversity, mobility, and governance into a single integrat…
Salesforce Park: When Systemic Analysis Redefines the Brief
How SiD analysis of a San Francisco transit hub revealed that the optimal solution was a 2.2-hectare elevated public park, demonstrating that systemic design c…
Schiphol Catalyst Office: Architecture as System Node
A multi-tenant building at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol designed not as an isolated object but as a catalyst node in the airport ecosystem of energy, water, wast…
Schiebroek-Zuid: Co-creating Neighbourhood Regeneration
A post-war Rotterdam neighbourhood redesigned through SiD co-creation with over 100 stakeholders, demonstrating how structured systemic process builds both tec…
Understanding the Anatomy of a System
The term “sustainable” is now ubiquitous across society, yet its actual meaning is elusive and often misunderstood. For example, despite the common assumption,…
Circularity is not sustainability
For a sustainable future, we will need to adopt and develop circularity across every industry and sector. Not only will it help to relieve many wicked problems…
How Innovation Communities Enhance Sustainability
The following article consolidates a three-part series that Except produced for Sustainable Vietnam. It shares Except's experience and insight on developing in…
The Rise of Systemic Investments
To realize a sustainable society, we need to address our bruised environmental and economic systems in their entirety. For that to happen, vast and profound sy…
Catalytic Buildings
Catalytic Buildings are next-generation high-performance buildings that boost the economic, social, and physical sustainability of entire urban areas. Going be…
Urban Evolution: the case of Schiebroek-Zuid
Our world is littered with the physical remnants of past ideologies calcified in the form of buildings, plazas, and streets. One of the most ubiquitous of thes…