How can we monitor our impact on battling climate change and what are some of the tools we can use to create positive solutions for public spaces in urban areas? Winy Maas was invited to speak at AIA Las Vegas to elaborate on these topics by showing different MVRDV projects, such as Radio Tower & Hotel, Depot Boijmans van Beuningen, Tainan Spring and the Glass Mural. The title of his lecture is ‘’Issues in Contemporary Urbanism: Climate Change and Public Space’’.

The ‘M’ of MVRDV, Founding Partner and Principal Architect Winy Maas Ir. Ing (Schijndel, NL - 1959), has received international acclaim for his broad range of urban planning and building projects, across all typologies and scales. These are often self-generated, innovative, experimental, and theoretical. Maas challenges colleagues, clients, as well as students and collaborators at TU Delft’s The Why Factory – an internationally engaged think tank Maas established in 2008 – to challenge the boundaries of established standards to produce solutions that reimagine how we live, work, and play. Aside from his dedicated leadership role at MVRDV and professorship at TU Delft and elsewhere, Maas is widely published, actively engaged in the advancement of the design profession, and sits on numerous boards and juries, including the Spatial Quality Boards of Rotterdam, Eindhoven, and Barcelona.

“I advocate denser, greener, more attractive and liveable cities, with an approach to design that centres around user-defined, innovative, and sustainable ideas for the built environment, regardless of typology or scale.”

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) was founded in 1857. For the last century and a half the AIA has provided education, government advocacy, community development and public outreach activities, and has endeavored to create an environment that is responsive to the people it serves. As members of the AIA, more than 95,000 licensed architects and associated professionals express their commitment to quality design and livability in our communities throughout the country. The Las Vegas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects – AIA Las Vegas – was established in 1956, and has served the Las Vegas community for over sixty years.