Liesl Vivier

Liesl is an urban designer whose main role is to lead design teams to find interesting and appropriate design solutions for large-scale and complex urban projects. She also deals with the day to day management of the office.

She joined Khandekar in 1993 and became part of BDP in April 2008 following the merger of the two practices.

Liesl has worked on many urban design competitions, most notably the design for a new residential quarter in Ypenburg and the regeneration of Osdorp, a suburb of Amsterdam and supervises r urban design projects during realisation.

Liesl is also a regular columnist for “Stedelijk Interieur” in Holland.

Liesl is proud of the slow but sustainable growth from a small group of four in 1993 to a studio of 25 in 2008, accompanied by an enormous improvement in the quality of design.

What do you think is the most exciting innovation in architecture/urban design?
The phenomenal development of computer design aids has opened a world of possibilities. I can “walk” through my 3-d design, calculate within seconds the sun projections of proposed buildings and do a detailed analysis of the site by using satellite images. Despite this, nothing beats an old-fashioned architectural model when explaining a design to a lay public.