Franka van Marrewijk has experience the Netherlands and abroad, in particular East Africa on projects aimed at green, sustainable and cultural responsive development. Franka is open minded and always tackles projects with a critical view on contemporary challenges in cities and landscape with a passion for designing with people and nature. y to coordinate a design studio with local urban planning students as part of The World Bank Tanzania team. She is member of the NGO AAMatters and has worked on multiple urban design and research projects in East Africa.

Role
Urban designer, landscape designer

Career starting point

After graduating my Masters in Urbanism I got the possibility to do more work related to East Africa. Moving to Tanzania and embarking on the journey to grow this company (again) has changed my entire career focus. I am learning and seeing new things every day trying to stay open-minded towards what's to come. 

Influenced by
The people I meet in everyday life. 

Why architecture/urbanism?

It's amazing to see how environments have so much influence on the health and happiness of people. It is for me a concrete way to make places and livelihoods step by step better. 

Design principles
Respecting people and nature in designing and believing that small innovations can make big changes. 

Focus
Context sensitive design

Formula for success
Start by listening and change by doing

Obstacles for the profession
Copy-paste design