Dirk Sijmons

Background

Dirk Sijmons (1949), landscape architect, studied at TU Delft. From 1977 to 1981 he worked for the nature conservation directorate of the then Ministry of CRM. From 1981 to 1984 he was head of the Department of Strategic Policy Development and Research Coordination at the then Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries. He then joined the Forestry Commission as head of the Landscape Architecture department (1984-1990). He is coordinator of the landscape architecture course of the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam from 1990-1994. In 1990 he is one of the three founders of H+N+S Landscape Architects. In recent years, Dirk has been associated with H+N+S as a consultant for projects such as the Eo Wijers competition and the IABR 2016 project '2050 An Energetic Odyssey'.

Other activities

Dirk Sijmons received the Rotterdam Maaskant Prize in 2002. On the occasion of this, the book 'Landkaartmos and other reflections on the landscape' was published. Other book publications are =Landscape (1998, which was also published in English as =Landscape in 2002), Oorden van Ontvangen, about shaping nature development (also from 1998) and 'Een Plan dat werk', which appeared in 2006 and deals with the relationship between policy and design. His book 'Greetings from Europe' (2008) is about the mutual interaction of tourism and the European Landscapes. From 1994 to 2011 he was chairman of the OASE Foundation, which publishes the Dutch-Flemish magazine of the same name in the field of architectural theory. In 2014, after intensive interdisciplinary design research, the book 'Landscape and energy (kWh/m2)' was published. A story about designing for the post-fossil landscape - from the solar panel on the roof to global politics.

In 2004, Dirk Sijmons was appointed Government Advisor for Landscape by the Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. In 2007 he received the prestigious Edgar Doncker Prize for his contribution to 'truly Dutch culture'. From October 2008 to October 2015 he was appointed professor of Environmental Design at TU Delft. Dirk Sijmons was curator of the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2014 'Urban by Nature'.