TOM
BOSSCHAERT

Design for the living world.

The systems we have built are extraordinary. The ones we have failed to build are even more so.

Placeholder, from Symbiosis in Development

Selected Work

SiD Framework and Omnibus Book

A comprehensive framework for designing whole systems toward regeneration

Salesforce Park Transit Center

The world's largest ecosystem rooftop, 2.2 hectares above downtown San Francisco

IKEA Supply Chain

Seven years, 484 GWh saved. Enough to light 145,000 Swedish homes for a year.

Heineken 100% Circular

Company-wide circularity vision, strategy, and roadmap for 100+ breweries

UCo (Utrecht Community)

Historic train depot transformed into an energy-neutral circular coworking hub

Schiphol Catalyst

Sustainability strategy for one of Europe's busiest airports

Serenity Farms

Regenerative agriculture and community resilience

Orchid City

A vision for Ho Chi Minh City's sustainable urban future

Sustainability is not a destination. It is a relationship between a system and its context, maintained through continuous adaptation.

Placeholder, from SiD framework

Ideas

Symbiosis in Development
A framework for designing whole systems toward regeneration. 468 pages, 12 years in the making.

book
Greenprint
150+ pages of innovations in sustainable homes, cities, and daily life. Creative Commons licensed.

book
Learning from Failed Utopia
200 years of utopian city projects, and what they teach us about the ones we are building now.

essay
ThinkSiD
Open learning platform for systems thinking and sustainability. Video courses, exercises, expert tracks.

platform

Gallery

Every building is a theory about how people should live. Most of them are wrong in interesting ways.

Placeholder, keynote

Invite me to speak

Keynotes, masterclasses, and lectures for organizations ready to think in systems.

Systems Thinking for Organizations
Regenerative Design and Circular Economy
The Future of Sustainable Cities
Leading Transitions in Complex Systems

Speaking inquiry

Work with me

Strategic advisory, board membership, and consulting for organizations navigating complex transitions.

Advisory inquiry

I have spent most of my career trying to understand how large systems work, then redesigning them so they work for more people and fewer landfills. I founded Except in 1999. In the 25 years since, we have taken on roughly 700 projects in architecture, urban planning, circular economy, and systems design.

Some of that work I can point to. The ecological systems inside Salesforce Park in San Francisco: 2.2 hectares of living rooftop. Seven years helping IKEA redesign supply-chain energy use, which cut 484 GWh. A circular roadmap for more than 100 Heineken breweries. I wrote Symbiosis in Development, a 468-page open-source framework for designing whole systems toward regeneration, and built a teaching platform (ThinkSiD) around it.

I am an architect and engineer by training (Yale, TU Delft). Since 2021, I have been based in Ho Chi Minh City, working on what still holds my attention: design for the living world.

Except.eco ViCo ThinkSiD LinkedIn

TOM BOSSCHAERT