KCAP Zürich

KCAP is a globally renowned urbanism, architecture and landscape design firm, comprising a team of over 100 people and more than 25 nationalities. We work around the globe and are based in Rotterdam, Zürich—where we have a team of 28 architects and planners—Paris and Shanghai. We specialise in architecture, planning, urban design, landscape and interiors, though at heart, we are generalists with an unbound curiosity for the world.

At KCAP, it is essential for us to have pleasure in our work and that the sense of community of our firm translates into the research of togetherness and drives us in our projects and planning approaches, regardless the scale of intervention.

KCAP pursues the development of long-term design strategies for complex urban conditions. Design is at the core of our process, connecting our free-thinking on a strategic and programmatic level to a conceptual approach and radical pragmatism. For us, creating the open city means creating conditions of freedom, places where the present and future generations can live and prosper together.

KCAP is reputed for realising unique concepts and attractive designs on the fringe between architecture and urbanism. While simultaneously offering the required flexibility to maneuver within unpredictable changing circumstances, these represent social and spatial cohesion. We specialise in the development of long-term design strategies for complex projects. Our working methodology operates across scales and fuses planning, urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design. Within each project, we combine the merits and know-how of each of these design disciplines.

Hundreds of projects have been designed and realised since its founding, mostly in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, UK, France, Russia and China. We are currently participating in waterfronts, cultural landscapes, revitalising and restructuring, infrastructures, mixed-use ensembles, public buildings, office buildings, housing, public space, research and development.

Since the founding in 1989 by Kees Christiaanse, KCAP has become one of the leading offices in Europe and Asia. The company is led by eight partners: Xavier Blaringhem, Kees Christiaanse, Jeroen Dirckx, Ruurd Gietema, Anouk Kuitenbrouwer, Irma van Oort, Ute Schneider and Edward Schuurmans.