Neville Mars is a Dutch architect and planner in China. Trained at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, Mars started his career with the office of Rem Koolhaas OMA in Rotterdam, working on projects such as the Guggenheim Museum Las Vegas, Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, and Rotterdam Central Station.
In 2003, he founded the Dynamic City Foundation (DCF) in Beijing. DCF became a prominent urban research and design platform focused on China's rapidly changing urban environments. Author of The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction, Mars has served since 2009 as the principal of Mars Architects in Shanghai. With his design studio, he applies urban research to realize sustainable projects on all scales, from buildings and furniture to urban master plans and sustainability strategies. The studio's core premise is that urban growth is essentially organic. With this notion, a radical new “evolutionary planning” methodology has been developed that can respond to China's accelerated and pressured market conditions.
Photo: Arjunan Sanjayan