This book is as much about making architecture as it is about world making. Herman Hertzberger has never considered his works as stand-alones, but always as parts of webs of connections on different scales. Shaping freedom integrates his architecture, texts, photographs, drawings, quotes, and art and architecture of others. All these layers are reciprocally related to each other. Together, they form Hertzberger’s architectural universe.

Exponential population ageing is changing how we coexist in urban spaces. The Architecture of Ageing is de Architekten Cie.’s long-term collaborative project on housing, ageing, and care in the city. It is where we synthesise our knowledge and share our experience through continuous dialogues at home in the Netherlands and internationally.

Improving discourse on ‘care’ is high on the agenda in our globally ageing world. Our task of densifying cities with hundreds of apartments in single...