Situation: KCAP Architects and planners - Philip Ursprung

This first monograph from Dutch architect and urban planner Kees Christiaanse and his firm, Kees Christiaanse Architects & Planners, or KCAP, follows the conception and realization of their most important designs. KCAP works at the interface between urban planning and architecture, combining the fields. Their broad range of projects includes large-scale urban and landscape planning, complex inner city regeneration and restructuring, and the same sorts of new building commissions that keep conventional architects in business. As Europe's attention has shifted to the revival of urban areas, KCAP has done pioneering work at former dockland and industrial locations and on the waterfronts of major rivers, in projects where the firm often acts as supervisor, urban planner and architect at once. In the space of 15 years, KCAP has grown into an international office with an impressive built oeuvre that challenges the way architecture and urban planning are conceived. This survey and analysis of their work brings their ideas and experience to readers curious about urban revival both abroad and at home.