← The Collection

  • Horribly Brilliant

    4 min

  • Rotterdam, Naturally.

    2 min

  • On Nature

    13 min

  • Dear Decision Maker

    3 min

  • Difficult to Swallow

    4 min

  • Panorama Class

    5 min

  • Gustell Script

    2 min

  • The Privilege of Not Knowing

    5 min

  • (MA) My Last Letter with Love

    8 min

  • Inside KAAN.

    5 min

  • These Hands

    4 min

  • Architect As

    4 min

  • Slow Dancing in the Dark

    1 min

  • Life at Full Swing

    6 min

  • The Garden Maze

    4 min

  • Silver Bullet

    6 min

  • Strawberry Fields for a while

    5 min

  • Malta's Most Obvious Problem

    6 min

  • Coastal Parking

    7 min

  • Something to Chew On

    4 min

  • Dear Decision Maker

    3 min

  • The Chairs

    3 min

Rotterdam, Naturally.

Oct 05 2026

·

2 min


I write this from a coffeeshop on a Monday morning. The tuna-melt toastie in the Google Maps photograph looked sufficiently appetising for breakfast on a cool, sunny Dutch morning.


I sat at the back of the coffeeshop, overlooking a small, semicircular open space. Gazing out, the view suddenly became familiar. The curved, vertical arrangement of the three-storey buildings was something I had seen before. I looked further, through the dense canopy of trees. A faint, bright-orange band appeared between the foliage.

I had been here a few years ago, during my last trip to Rotterdam.


I opened Google Maps and scrolled towards the buildings.


MVRDV Architects.


Coincidentally, directly opposite the establishment whose most enthusiastic Google review described it as a ‘fabulous toasty and coffee’ bar.


I looked for pedestrians entering the space, for the possible worker bees of this global house of architecture. People arriving with bicycles, coffees, laptops. The ordinary choreography of an office morning.


I do not write this to suggest some unintentional gravitation towards the firm. I have never been interested in applying for a position there, nor particularly in its architecture. I do, however, find some harmony in the way my path seems to keep crossing Dutch boundaries. A strange alignment, perhaps, between my ambitions and this beautiful country that I had struggled so much to fit into during my studies. Now, I come back as an Architect, a business trip of sorts. A sense of pride and willingness to withstand the stringent Dutch ways of doing.


As my laptop started up, I looked again at the orange band.


I wondered whether they were switching on their laptops at that hour, while the coffee machine ground fresh beans downstairs. Perhaps someone was already opening a drawing. Perhaps someone was late. Perhaps someone was staring at the same screen I was.

Whatever they were doing, I had no interest.


My inbox had already begun to load.

“Kindly find the proposed masonry wall drawing for your urgent approval.”

The drawing was attached beneath the email. Its legibility was underwhelming. Its quality, even more so.