Matthijs Bouw

Matthijs Bouw is a Dutch architect and urban planner, the founder of One Architecture, an award-winning design and planning firm in Amsterdam and New York. Bouw has pioneered the use of design as a tool for collaboration. He led the development of ‘Design Studios’ to support the long-term planning of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, with notable projects such as the Design Studio Deltametropolis, Randstad 2040, and the Olympic Main Structure 2028. More recently, this approach has found significant application through a series of climate adaptation and resilience projects in the U.S., where he combines strategic planning with implementation projects. In Asia, he is developing ‘Nature-based Solutions’ for several projects in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Bouw leads the Urban Resilience Certificate Program for the Stuart Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is Associate Professor of Practice and McHarg Center Fellow for Risk and Resilience. Bouw’s work at Penn theorizes and positions design as an integrator and innovator among scales, disciplines, actors and issues in urban resilience, energy and water management projects.