One Architecture & Urbanism (ONE)

ONE's Nature-based Solutions director Friso Klapwijk attended Waterproof 2026 in The Hague, a conference bringing together water professionals, researchers and policymakers on water security and climate adaptation. Two themes from the day connect directly to ONE's ongoing projects and commitment. Philip S.J. Minderhoud (Wageningen University & Research / Deltares) highlighted groundwater extraction as a primary driver of land subsidence in vulnerable coastal deltas and the risk of adaptation strategies that address symptoms rather than underlying causes. This dynamic is central to the challenges ONE is working on in Indonesia, where land subsidence driven by groundwater extraction significantly impacts coastal flooding risk and shapes the conditions for integrated coastal protection and adaptation. Partners for Water seeks to bring solutions, not as engineering implementations, but with considerable emphasis on community voices. The conference specified the value of creating space for the emotions that water challenges inevitably bring. Water insecurity shapes livelihoods in profound ways, and so do the improvements that follow. In ONE's projects along the coast, this is a familiar reality. Spatial adaptation processes require room for mourning, for what is lost, what is changing and evolving, but also for what communities are asked to leave behind. This needs to be combined with the collective work of building towards environmental resilience. #Waterproof2026#WaterSecurity#ClimateAdaptation#CoastalResilience#NatureBasedSolutions

Exciting news! ONE's principal Lot Locher has been invited to co-deliver this year's Vitruvius Lecture, organized by the Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties (BZK), Platform Ontwerp NL, and Actieagenda Ruimtelijk Ontwerp. Together with Hans Stegeman, Chief Economist at Triodos Bank, Lot Locher will explore what 'future value' means in a time of great uncertainty, examining what becomes visible when economic logic and design thinking are combined. The lecture asks how we can broaden our understanding of value beyond financial frameworks, towards social, ecological, and spatial meaning. The Vitruvius Lecture, named after the Roman architect who introduced the concept of spatial quality 2,000 years ago, was launched in 2023 as an annual invitation to reimagine the Netherlands of tomorrow. We are honored and proud that Lot Locher will represent ONE on this prominent stage.   More on the Vitruvius values: https://lnkd.in/e95wNvy 🎟️ Tickets https://lnkd.in/euAe647s (via Kunstlinie)

East River Park's resiliency and connection to Chinatown are two sides of the same coin. Please join us Tuesday, June 9th at 1PM at the The New York Public Library Chatham Square Library (2 doors down from our office!) in Chinatown, Manhattan to hear more about the project from One Architecture & Urbanism (ONE)'s Senior Landscape Designer, Yuting Yan. The talk will be in Mandarin, with Cantonese translation and English speakers notes. All neighbors and park goers more than welcome! (No RSVP required.) 東河岸公園（East River Park）的防洪韌性和華埠的連接密不可分。歡迎大家6月9號（週二）來曼哈頓唐人街的且林廣場圖書館（Chatham Square Library）——就在我們辦公室隔壁。ONE事務所的高級景觀設計師嚴雨婷將為大家詳細介紹這個專案。講座會用普通話進行，現場提供粵語翻譯和英文字幕。不管是社區居民還是公園常客都歡迎來參加！（不用提前報名。） ⏱️ Tuesday, June 9th from 1-2PM 📍Chatham Square Library, 33 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002

Join ONE in welcoming our newest team member, Lisan Westerhof! Lisan Westerhof is a landscape designer who combines her interest in climate adaptation with a strong focus on the natural processes that shape landscapes. Her interest sits at the intersection of climate adaptation, ecological restoration, and water management, always grounded in the natural processes that give landscapes their unique character. With her experience on projects from different scales and contexts, Lisan brings both environmental resiliency and links to surrounding ecosystems in her designs. She aims to create functional and resilient landscapes that respond to climate and biodiversity challenges while encouraging exploration and curiosity. At ONE, Lisan joins a new design team working within the NL2120 consortium, where she focuses on identifying strategic guidelines for Nature-based Solutions (NbS) implementation across different study areas, and designing of future visions for landscapes that work with nature. This role requires her experience in blending ecological and spatial design thinking. "Joining ONE is a meaningful opportunity to contribute to inspiring projects and collaborate across disciplines. Looking forward to learning from the team and working together in shaping resilient landscapes."

Last Sunday, One Architecture & Urbanism (ONE) was honored to lead a tour of East Side Coastal Resiliency as part of the NYC Department of City Planning’s annual celebration of the city’s 520 miles of waterfront. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the 2021 Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, with 520 Day programming across the five boroughs. With trees growing in and plantings in bloom, the event attracted several dozen participants eager to learn more about the project, a significant portion of which opened almost exactly one year ago. DCP’s Michael L. Marrella kicked things off in Corlears Hook Park, introducing ONE’s Matthijs Bouw, Emily Gordon of MNLA , and Pauline Claramunt Torche, AICP, ENV SP representing NYC Department of Design and Construction’s community relations team. (We were also joined by DCP Director Sideya Sherman.) After Matthijs introduced the project and context as part of the Big U vision, the tour proceeded across the pedestrian bridge to East River Park, with stops at the amphitheater, sports field, Fireboat House, under the bridge, and tennis courts. From specific design details to the broader vision, the tour guides explained the thinking behind the park, emphasizing that ESCR serves not only as physical infrastructure but also as social infrastructure as a community vision. Given the sunny weather, parkgoers—sunbathers, joggers, cyclists, picnickers, and more—showcased just how the community has embraced the park and its varied recreational spaces. As Matthijs noted, with the opening of the rebuilt East River Park, New Yorkers now see ESCR as a spectacular waterfront park as opposed to a first-of-its-kind resilient infrastructure project—but it doesn’t make a difference, because it was designed to be both. Thanks to everyone who joined us on Sunday for the 520 Day tour of East Side Coastal Resiliency!

Among the many events we’re organizing and attending this month, our New York City team took a well-deserved break last Friday with a spring outing to Philadelphia. The city is near and dear to many of our team members as alumni of UPenn, where ONE Founder Matthijs Bouw is Professor of Practice at University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design. We started the day with a quick coffee stop at the Barnes Foundation en route to Calder Gardens, where we had scheduled a tour of Philly’s newest cultural institution. Our volunteer guide Penny filled us in on many details of the renowned sculptor’s life and times, as well as the backstory of the museum and its site, an oddly shaped, city-owned vacant lot next to the highway. Herzog & de Meuron designed the beautifully restrained, mostly-below-grade building with reflective stainless steel cladding, deferring to Piet Oudolf’s verdant and varied landscape to stunning effect. After lunch, we made our way across Center City to Penn’s Landing, where the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation is undertaking an ambitious highway cap over I-95 to create a new 12-acre park that will directly connect the city to the riverfront. The ONE team had the great privilege of a guided tour led by Karen Thompson, AICP of DRWC, with Jon McCandlish of KieranTimberlake and Jing Fan of Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture, all of whom have been involved in the project for years (and in some cases, over a decade). With the retaining walls in place on the site of the former Great Plaza, construction teams have started adding fill to create a gentle slope from the overpass to the river. More impressively, part of a foundation hinted at the pavilion to come, while the partially capped highway gave a sense of the scale of the undertaking. Following the tour of Penn’s Landing, we doubled back to West Philly, where our Geospatial Analyst and Landscape Designer Oliver Atwood hosted happy hour and dinner at his home. (Like true New Yorkers, the rest of the team was astounded by the enviable square footage of the three-story house.) Thanks to Oliver for hosting and to Laura Frances for organizing a wonderful day in Philly, as well as Penny, Karen, Jon, and Jing for showing us around! Justine Shapiro-Kline Youngjin Song Pranav Thole Yuting Yan Mike L. Hassan Saleem Olivia Fiol

Building on years of engagement along the north coast of Java, ONE is excited to continue contributing to coastal resilience and climate adaptation efforts in Indonesia through the newly awarded Invest International climate and coastal resilience project for Demak and Cirebon. Developed together with the Government of Indonesia and consortium partners led by Haskoning, the project focuses on pilot projects in both focus areas that address the growing impacts of climate change and coastal flooding through integrated coastal protection and adaptation strategies. Over the past years, ONE has helped shape conversations around nature-based solutions, coastal protection, spatial adaptation, and community resilience together with local and international partners, including through collaborations with EcoShape and alongside partners involved in Water as Leverage Indonesia. It is encouraging to now see this work move into the next phase: from strategic exploration and visioning toward pre-feasibility and implementation-oriented pilot projects. As part of the consortium, ONE will contribute to stakeholder engagement and alignment, spatial strategies, and integrated landscape approaches that connect coastal protection with long-term adaptation, ecological systems, and local livelihoods. Looking forward to continuing this collaboration with Haskoning, Witteveen+Bos, Rebel, SGS, Diponegoro University, Invest International, and Indonesian stakeholders. #ClimateResilience #CoastalProtection #NatureBasedSolutions #Indonesia #ClimateAdaptation #BuildingWithNature

Last week, ONE hosted a book talk with Julia Watson, whose practice extrapolates possible futures for climate resilience by drawing on time-honored indigenous knowledge. Beyond sharing examples from her most recent book, ‘Lo—TEK Water’ (Taschen 2025), Watson shared many insights and anecdotes from her two decades of experience as a trained architect, designer, and educator, ranging from early memories of the Exxon Valdez oil spill to launching her career in Indonesia to leading co-design projects with indigenous communities around the world. We were thrilled to have a solid turnout of fellow resilience practitioners, who were captivated by Watson’s visually engaging, at times philosophical presentation. In keeping with ONE’s ethos of “Design with Time,” her work connects Ancestral Systems with Regenerative Futures, surfacing nature-based practices and teachings from often remote communities whose traditions are threatened by various external forces. Hence, “TEK,” or Traditional Ecological Knowledge, the namesake of her design practice, which aims to debunk what she characterized as the mythology of technology. Among the many fascinating examples and case studies she shared, Watson highlighted the living bridges of the Khasi people in India, grown over decades from trees planted on opposite banks of a waterway such that their trunks eventually intertwine. (One of these ‘Jingkieng Dieng Jri,’ or living root bridges, is featured on the cover of her first book, ‘Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism’ (Taschen 2019).) Following the presentation, ONE’s Justine Shapiro-Kline led a conversation about lessons learned, concluding with Watson fielding questions from a curious audience. Thanks to everyone who joined us last week, and to Julia for sharing her work with us!

ONE is excited to join the Waterfront Alliance at this year’s Waterfront Conference, where we’ll be participating in multiple sessions throughout the day! On Thursday, May 19, the day-long event will convene resilience leaders at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, with the shared goal to “provide a roadmap for future-proofing our waterfronts—no matter what challenges lie ahead.” Kicking things off, Matthijs Bouw will speak in the opening plenary, “Future-Proofing Coastal Cities: Global Strategies for Thriving Waterfronts,” with Walter Rodríguez Meyer, PLA, Nayeli Rodriguez, and Charlotte Wood. In the afternoon, catch Justine Shapiro-Kline at “Empathy as Infrastructure: Reimagining Waterfront Design for the Next Century,” a panel discussion with Gonzalo Cruz, ASLA, Mychal Johnson, and Kimberlae Saul, AIA, DBIA, WEDG, moderated by Joseph Sutkowi, WEDG. The majority of ONE’s NYC team is WEDG-certified, reflecting our deep commitment to the Waterfront Alliance’s mission to “lead the way for thriving and resilient waterfronts, shorelines, and coastlines.” We’re honored to have this opportunity to share our expertise with peers and fellow practitioners as we look to future-proof our waterfronts. Learn more at the Waterfront Conference website: https://lnkd.in/esRrRk3Q

ONE couldn’t be more thrilled that East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) has received the top prize of the AIA New York | Center for Architecture + ASLA-NY Transportation and Infrastructure Design Excellence Awards! Among the 50+ entries from around the world and over a dozen fellow honorees, ESCR was named the Best in Competition by this year’s jury for the biennial awards program! In a live announcement on Tuesday, May 5, juror Nicholas Pettinati, RLA delivered comments and commendations, noting “transformational infrastructure and resiliency project […] does so much on so many levels in addressing the kind of macro scale, infrastructure, and resiliency needs.” As Deputy Director of Urban Design at the NYC Department of Transportation, Pettinati is intimately familiar with what it takes to get things built in New York City, summarizing the jury’s praise: “This has really pushed the bounds of how we think about and how we deliver infrastructure in New York.” On behalf of our collaborators on the design team, BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group and MNLA, as well as our client NYC Department of Design and Construction, we are truly honored and humbled to receive this award. We’d also like to acknowledge the many collaborators who contributed to realizing this massively ambitious project: AKRF & KS Engineers, P.C., Arcadis, Jacobs, Boomi Environmental LLC, Munoz, HARDESTY & HANOVER CONSTRUCTION SERVICES, LLC, SiteWorks, WESLER-COHEN ASSOCIATES CONSULTING ENGINEERS, Hazen and Sawyer, Pentagram, Hortus Environmental Design, Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners, James Lima Planning + Development, and the HNTB-The LiRo Group construction team, as well as agency partners at NYC Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice, NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, New York City Department of Transportation, NYC Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP), New York City Economic Development Corporation, and NYC Department of City Planning. We’d also like to express deep gratitude to the many community partners, without whom this project wouldn’t be the transformational project it became (or even be there at all): East River Alliance, ESCR Community Advisory Group, Fourth Arts Block (FABnyc), Friends of Corlears Hook Park, GOH Productions, Good Old Lower East Side, Inc. (GOLES), L.E.S. Creative People in Action (LESCPIA), The Lower East Side Ecology Center, LES Ready!, Lower East Side Partnership, Manhattan Community Board 3, Moving Culture Projects, NYC Council District 2, and SolarOne. And of course, special thanks to our longtime collaborators at Rebuild by Design, for nurturing this project from the beginning. Learn more and see all of the winners here: https://lnkd.in/epWg5mJb