Growth Planning introduces an entirely new approach to area planning and urban design. Rather than defining specific programmatic requirements, Growth Planning instead applies socio-economic impulses to the area within certain performance edge conditions. It revolutionzes the task of city design by requiring the urban fabric to organically respond to social and economic stimuli, and allows for increased value, quality, and development over time.

Born out of the necessity to start thinking differently about our built environment due to economic, social and environmental constraints, Except has worked on refining this new form of planning since 2005.

The Daadkracht project is the design of a four story mixed-use building in the heart of the old city of Rome, offering three spectacular apartments, shops, and a restaurant. Part of the design is a city park bordering the Tevere river, a church and various other historical buildings.

The project presented a unique opportunity to design the first new non-cultural edifice in Rome after Mussolini. To honour this event, an extensive study into the history of Rome, both its ancient past, turn of the century socio-cultural and political developments and modern developments were used as a driving force behind the design of this building.

BKCity is a magnificent listed monument of more than 30.000m2 functioning as the faculty of Architecture of the TU Delft. Except created a phased plan to make this historic educational building energy and carbon neutral within ten years.

The plan converts the building into a didactic tool that puts sustainability at the heart of education for generations of architects, introducing a unique in-building ecosystem that provides an inspiring environment, functional qualities and cost savings.

Dit project realiseert 's werelds grootste dakpark in het hart van een van de spannendste steden van het westelijk halfrond, door een bestaand centraal station te transformeren in een ecologische motor: Salesforce Park.

Het ontwerp, ontwikkeld door Except samen met Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, gebruikt deze kans om de oude betonnen kolos te transformeren in een stadshub waarin een nieuw stadspark, waterzuivering, efficiënt transport en energieopwekking samen gaan. Biodiversiteit, gezondheid en duurzaamheid staan voorop in dit vooruitstrevend voorbeeld van stadsvernieuwing. Het project startte in 2007 en werd opgeleverd in 2019.

The Merredin Spirulina plant, developed in the year 2000, is one of the first projects in which we applied systems thinking and our holistic, systemic approach to innovation, using ecology as a main component.

The result is a highly unusual but stunningly effective business case for a sustainable, ecological industry to revive a desert town in Australia. 

This project is a testament to the strength of holistic, systemic approaches. For this reason, we documented the project extensively on this page, indluing the conception process, business case and design of the plant. For more detail, feel free to contact us.

Under the name of Excellent Areas ("Excellente Gebieden"), a number of Dutch home construction companies and municipalities are engaged in an experiment to use the building standards of 2015 and 2020, today. By the nature of these future building standards, there is much to learn for these actors before they can profitably apply them.

AgentschapNL is the facilitator of the Exemplary Neighborhoods project, and they asked us to evaluate the instruments they have set up for the learning trajectory.

Dit is de visie voor de doorontwikkeling en verduurzaming van het warmtenet van Tilburg, ontwikkeld met onze consortiumpartners.

De visie dient als startpunt voor de verdere ontwikkeling en samenwerking in Tilburg om tot een duurzame warmtevoorziening te komen, in opdracht van Essent, Gemeente Tilburg, Attero, Brabant Water en MOED.

“Zevenkamp through our eyes: a story of three students and one neighborhood” is an urban transformation project by Except Academy, a learning platform for interns at Except. We developed an inspiration book which tells the story of our journey and experiences while investigating Zevenkamp, the second largest post-war neighborhood in the Netherlands.

The purpose of the book is to inspire and share our vision of Zevenkamp’s future. It has practical examples of opportunities for the neighborhood to become flourishing and resilient with the help of its residents and stakeholders.

In cooperation with the Dutch Foreign Office we  organized the trade mission to Detroit of May 2015 for over 25 organizations. The program established new permanent business partnerships of Dutch agri- and horticulture, and innovation companies with their American business, governmental and community development counterparts. Detroit, a  former powerhouse of the automotive industry, has suffered  from deindustrialization, a decline in population, an increase in crime, and general  decay. Yet, Detroit is a city full of resources and opportunities.

The event launched Detroit Urban Regen which aims to  revitalize  the city using smart agricultural solutions and creating a new biobased industry.  22 written pledges of commitment where secured, adding to the existing 15 international partners for Detroit Urban Regen.

Samen met KWS-Infra en tenderbureau GAIM gaf Except middels een innovatiesessie invulling aan de duurzaamheidsdoelstellingen van de gemeente Utrecht. De uitvraag van de gemeente Utrecht  betrof de sloop van een deel van het in het centrum gelegen projectgebied Catharijnesingel.

Voor ReGen Villages ontwikkelden we een wereldwijd uniek masterplan voor een zelfvoorzienende woonwijk bestaande uit 203 woningen. Het plan  is ontworpen op een terrein van 25 hectare in het gebied Oosterwold dat zich op slechts 20 minuten van Amsterdam bevindt. Het is een voorbeeld van zelfvoorzienend, betaalbaar en regeneratief wonen.

Blue Green Infrastructures (BGI) increase the resilience of urban and rural landscapes, integrating their core functions with natural features and processes. Hurdles exist in the process of translating BGI-related knowledge and data from science to practice, and a tool that facilitates this transfer is still missing. We conducted a research in collaboration with a team of partner organizations (JNCC, IFLA Europe, BiodivERsA, and NRW), to pinpoint key preliminary knowledge to design such a tool, and collected our key findings in a report downloadable on this page.