!melk’s design for the downtown San Francisco park at 5th & Mission contains our version (designed by !melk) of mitigation of the wind tunnel effect caused by the newly built high-rises that flank the open space. These iconic “wind baffle structures” are…lnkd.in/dRq4uyD

Just posted a photo @ Hangzhou, China instagram.com/p/CNVcZbkskwf/…

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My mega talented son

New article - new video!!!!

SONG PICK: Daytona Starsky - Gasoline (Video) #glamglarepick @daytonastarsky glamglare.com/music/2021/05/…

Dutch Born and Brooklyn based @daytonastarsky just released his new single & video GASOLINE! Read all about the artists, the song and watch the video ➡️ 🎶🎥bit.ly/33mpqz2

Design has been reduced to ticking boxes and meeting KPIs. A numbers game where creativity is sacrificed for certainty. When did we start valuing metrics over meaning? It’s time to question whether this approach serves the people who inhabit our spaces or just the spreadsheets.

We’re told to “design with vision,” but only if that vision’s been approved by 12 stakeholders, reduced to a mood board, and value-engineered until it’s invisible.
#architecture #landarch #designtruth

Antwerp - Belgium: my favorite (not so) Dutch City 😁🥰😈#antwerp #notnetherlands

Too often we follow our clients, who most of the time want safe bets.
Result? Spaces that blur together, lacking distinction or soul. When did originality become a liability instead of an asset? #landscapearchitecture #design #urbanism #landarch #publicspace

The safest design is often the most forgettable.
But cities deserve more than safe.
They deserve spaces that resonate, that stick with us! #placemaking #urbanism #design #landarch #publicrealm #makememorablespaces

A place shouldn’t be designed to be tolerated. It should be designed to be loved.
#designwithsoul #landarch #publicspace #placemaking #urbanism

Designing public spaces should be more like jazz — improvisational, unpredictable, and a little messy. So disappointing that so often it’s more like elevator music on repeat. #forgettable 
#landscapearchitecture #bores

If a city’s public realm doesn’t make you feel anything, is it really working? Sameness is the quiet death of cities. When every plaza, every park, every streetscape starts looking like the last — we lose the soul. But we can resist. Distinctive design is not in a textbook!

The sameness of urban landscapes isn’t an accident; it’s the product of a design culture that equates the latest “must-do-so” words with creative success. If designers always deliver what’s standard and expected without pushing boundaries, we’ll continue to drown in monotony.

Architecture gives form, presence, outline. But it’s often the space around it—between, beneath, and beyond— where the project breathes. Where people linger and feel something they didn’t expect. That’s where memory takes hold. And that’s where we work. melk.global

The Real Yes:
Good clients don’t just say yes to the idea. They say yes to the process. To the work it takes to carry something original all the way through.
Safe design is easy.
But the kind that stays with people?
That takes guts.
melk.global

I’ve spent my life designing places that try to make people feel something. But the culture around design seems to do the opposite - flattening everything into sameness and compliance. I think it’s time to write about what that’s doing to us. So that’s what I’m going to do.