You could say I’m a strategic product designer, although for me, ‘product’ can mean anything from a digital platform to a campaign or service. What matters is that what I design serves a purpose beyond itself. To make a real difference, designs also need a clear strategy behind them: something that can survive within real organisations, with real budgets, and real people.

A project I admire is The Future of the Urban Forest by Sanne Keizer [1]. She created the ‘Urban Forest Portfolio’, a tool that helps plan and track the growth of urban forests over time. It’s a strong example of how design can shape systems rather than just create products.

[1] The future of the urban forest: 2023. https://repository.tudelft.nl/record/uuid:5ab49475-cff2-412a-9d90-fdaff94fc6c0.

Nature is not just something we visit; we are part of it. But today, people and nature are often separated.

I saw this growing up in the Netherlands. Almost every piece of land is used for buildings or farming, leaving very little space for wild nature. Reports from the Dutch government confirm that nature there is suffering because of it [2]. And it’s not just a national problem: the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals make clear it’s a global one [3].

I want to change this. When nature is healthy, people are happier and healthier too. I want to design ways for people to be partners with nature. This means for example creating greener cities so that humans and nature can thrive together. During my Final Bachelor Project, I developed a nature-monitoring platform designed to increase social acceptance of micro-rewilding in urban areas. This is the kind of tool that matches my vision as a designer.

[2] Balans van de Leefomgeving 2025: 2025. https://www.pbl.nl/publicaties/balans-van-de-leefomgeving-2025.

[3] THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/goals

The world of business is changing. Where it once focused on selling products, then experiences, it now increasingly centres on solving shared problems, like climate change, by working with local people [4].

This is how I work too. I believe in thinking globally but acting locally. You cannot simply copy an idea from one place and drop it in another. You have to listen and tailer to local needs. Also, the problems I care about are urgent, and a slow design process means fewer iterations and less impact. A local project, done well and done fast, is how real change starts and how it can grow.

[4] Brand, Reon & Rocchi, Simona. (2010). Rethinking value in a changing landscape. A model for strategic reflection and business transformation. Philips Design.