The CTBUH 2025 Europe Conference, “Different Densities: The quest for carbon-neutral cities in Europe,” was held at De Duif, a repurposed church, in Amsterdam on 4 June 2025, and at the offices of MVRDV in Rotterdam on 5 June 2025. The conference emphasized projects and strategies for shaping low-carbon, high-impact cities. Presenters also shared how data and new technologies are providing innovative insights into assessing building stock. 

With an incredible turnout of 171 attendees from 50 cities and 22 countries across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North America, delegates joined CTBUH for thought-provoking presentations, stimulating conversation, astounding off-site tours, an engaging workshop, and multiple networking opportunities. The conference brought together thought leaders, experts, policymakers, and industry representatives, forming a tapestry of voices representing various sectors and interests across the Europe region. 

The presentations and discussions taking place throughout the day on Wednesday 4 June and Thursday, 5 June are detailed further in this summary report below, along with a summary of the off-site tours and networking reception held the previous day on Tuesday, 3 June. 

We’d like to thank the CTBUH Europe Steering Committee, sponsors, partners, and CTBUH leaders who made this a successful event. 

 
Platinum 
De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) 
KONE 

Gold 
AGC Glass Europe 
constructsteel 
Peikko Group Corporation 
Technostrutture 
TK Elevator 
Whitby Wood Mills

 
Silver 
DAM & Partners Architecten 
DeSimone Consulting Engineering Engineers 
Equitone (ETEX) 
MVRDV 
Surbana Jurong Private Limited (Atelier Ten, Robert Bird Group) 
UNS

Supporting Partners 
Stichting Hoogbouw

Program Partners 
constructsteel 
FG Empreendimentos/Talls Solution 
KPF 
PNC/Sobha Realty 
Whitby Wood Mills

 

Off-sites and Opening Networking Reception, Amsterdam
Tuesday, 3 June

In the afternoon, delegates went to off-site tours, kicking off the program for the conference. 

 

_{Off-site tours from left to right: Booking.com City Campus by UNS; Valley by MVRDV; and Green Mile walking tour.}

 

Booking.com City Campus Tour 
This cutting-edge City Campus reflects the client’s mission to create a healthy, sustainable, and inspiring destination for work and collaboration. Delegates learned about the innovative architecture, the carefully planned layout, and Booking.com’s forward-thinking approach to workplace design, which prioritizes well-being, inclusivity, and environmental responsibility. Designed by UNS, leaders from the studio and booking.com shared how the campus is a model of sustainability with features like energy-efficient systems, green roofs, and materials selected for their low environmental impact. Interiors foster creativity and connection, with flexible workspaces, abundant natural light, and biophilic elements that bring nature indoors. Every detail has been crafted to enhance the employee experience while reducing the building’s ecological footprint. 

 

Valley Building Tour
Led by representatives from EDGE and MVRDV, the dramatic, geology-inspired, plant-covered project called Valley stands out in Amsterdam’s Zuidas neighborhood with its three towers of 67, 81, and 100 meters and its spectacular cantilevered apartments. Awarded the CTBUH 2024 Best Tall Building Under 100 Meters, the building distinguishes itself in several ways: firstly, it combines offices, shops, catering, cultural facilities, and apartments in one building; secondly, unlike the closed-off buildings elsewhere in the Zuidas, the green valley that winds between the buildings on the fourth and fifth floors is accessible to everyone via two external stone staircases. 

 

Green Mile Walking Tour 
The Green Mile is a collaborative initiative, a movement, that brings together key stakeholders—Heineken, Rijksmuseum, De Nederlandsche Bank, the School of Applied Sciences, and UNS—in partnership with the City of Amsterdam. Together, they share a bold mission: to transform Amsterdam’s most polluted street into its most sustainable, inclusive, and healthy urban corridor.  Through a combination of small and large-scale interventions in the public space, the Green Mile aims to redefine what a city street can be.  The guided tour, led by the founders of the Green Mile, explored transformative interventions of public-private collaboration in addressing pressing urban challenneges, and concluded at the recently renovated De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB).  

 

_{In the spectacularly renovated Dutch National Bank, the opening networking reception was an example of sustainable redevelopment.} 

 

The opening networking reception location in the newly reopened DNB, offered more than just a chance for connecting at the reception. The building embodied the very ideals at the heart of this year's conference: the quest for creating carbon-neutral cities in Europe. After nearly five years of renovation, the historic headquarters exemplifies how legacy buildings can be transformed to meet carbon goals while serving the community.

 

Core Conference, Amsterdam
Wednesday, 4 June | Morning Sessions

Opening the day’s event, CTBUH Europe Scientific and Advisory Group Member Haakan Brouwer gave brief welcome remarks on behalf of the local CTBUH steering committee, welcoming attendees to the 2025 Europe regional conference. Next, Erik Faber, President of the Board at Stichting Hoogbouw introduced the City of Amsterdam, weaving together the narratives of the city's densification and restoration giving an example of the conference's venue (De Duif). He shared the methods of renovation and how the new design improves energy efficiency and opens it up to the city.

CTBUH Board Chair Shonn Mills took to the stage after to give an overview of the conference, and in line with the theme, shared the latest sustainability initiatives that the Council is leading. He then invited Faber back to the stage to announce the partnership between CTBUH and Stichting Hoogbouw to promote best practices and support better density.

 

_{CTBUH Chair Shonn Mills (left) and Erik Faber (right) celebrate the new partnership between CTBUH and Stichting Hoogbouw.}

 

_{Diederik Dam (left) has a conversation with Francesco Veenstra (right) on the city and region's relationship with tall buildings, creating policy for best practices, and the push for energy efficient buildings.} 

 

The first session titled "Host Country in Focus: The Netherlands," was dedicated to conversations on seminal buildings and innovative practices towards achieving optimal sustainability, transforming the region to become an interdependent cluster of cities or a “daily urban system” in Europe.  Setting the tone, Francesco Veenstra, Chief Government Architect of the Netherlands Central Government Real Estate Agency discussed with Diederik Dam, Architectural and Urban Designer of Dam & Partners Architecten the types of typologies for density, while reviewing carbon policies. Veenstra explained, "Tall buildings should add something exceptional and do more than just solve a housing shortage."

Following this conversation was Arne Lijbers, Partner at Mecanoo Architecten who presented the process of the design for De Nederlandsche Bank, where many delegates had visited the previous night for the opening networking reception. He emphasized the coordination as integral to the process and that the design was about opening up the space. It was important to have a welcoming area to the community while still providing the security and confidentiality that is needed for the bank, and was successfully achieved. Gideon Maasland, Director at MVRDV presented next, sharing deeper insights into the Valley project which was one of the off-site tours.  

 

_{Session Chair Astrid Piper asked the critical question to start off the session, "How do we hit policy targets?"}

 

After a short break, the second session commenced with the theme of "Carbon Policies: Hitting the 2050 Target." The chair for the session, Astrid Piper, Partner at UNS, gave a quick introduction to the topic and welcomed her colleague Arjan Dingste, Partner and Senior Architect at UNS as the first presenter.  His presentation, "Carbon Pricing & Embodied Carbon in High-Rise Real Estate" was a deep dive into the complexities of measuring carbon for construction. It was a fascinating dialogue of the current demands on the AEC industry to know and understand more about meeting carbon goals for both clients and governments. It left a lasting impression of what to consider.

It is about measurement. How much can we measure? And what do we know?

- Arjan Dingste, Partner and Senior Architect at UNS

Nanne de Ru, Founder of Powerhouse Company shared examples of projects using design and financial evaluations to provide good communities and sustainable high-rises. Specifically looking at development in the Netherlands, he commented on the modesty in scale of tall buildings compared to other international regions and how developers can encourage local city policies to increase density when it is done in an intelligent way.  Next Oliver Sascha Brozek, Head of KONE Major Projects - Europe presented how digitalization brings the tools to improve mobility, both in new and existing buildings, giving examples of projects in Helsinki and the EDGE in Berlin. 

 

_{Participants in the fifth City Advocacy Forum panel included (L to R) moderator Steve Watts, Paco Bunnik, Gwyn Richards, Do Janne Vermeulen, and Peter Cachola Schmal.} 

 

In it's fifth iteration, CTBUH Chair Shonn Mills came to the podium to present the CTBUH City Advocacy Forum panel discussion that included the cities of Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and London. CTBUH Vice-Chair Steve Watts moderated the conversation between Paco Bunnik, Urban Design Supervisor at the City of Amsterdam; Do Janne Vermeulen, Architect/Director, Team V Architecture (Amsterdam); Peter Cachola Schmal, Director, DAM Deutsches Architekturmuseum (Frankfurt); and Gwyn Richards, Planning and Development Director at the City of London. Housing, retrofiting, and the importance of evaluating buildings for reuse or innovative approaches around partial demolitions were topics that each city spoke to and debated on policies surrounding this. It was an invigorating conversation and provided the fodder for discussions once the session completed and everyone breaked for lunch.

 

Wednesday, 4 June | Afternoon Sessions

After lunch, speakers presented on "Carbon Solutions" and represented the various branches of the building industry transforming themselves to mitigate the carbon impact of the materials, products, and services delivered. Session chair Nirit Rosenstein, Vice President Business Development, Israel Towers Group - Urban Renewal Corporation introduced the topic for this packed session of speakers. First to present, Liudmila Webber, Head of Product Development at ArcelorMittal discussed the life cycle approach to steel in construction based on studies done in collaboration with constructsteel. Providing a different perspective, Julia Köhler, Senior Structural Consultant, CREE GmbH talked about the role of wood in Europe's tall buildings. Her presentation emphasized that timber use needs to be evaluated along with other materials, and that it has an important role working alone or together in hybrid with steel or concrete. 

 

_{Providing a case study of a retrofit and renovation project, John Bushell and Samantha Cook of KPF give insights into carbon strategies.}

 

Next, John Bushell, Principal and Samantha Cooke, Director at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates used the Panorama St. Paul project in the U.K. to discuss the changing approaches to carbon in the country. Presenting the strategies behind building with existing structures and improving them for today's needs they referenced upgrading the Bush House South West Wing and how it contributes to the carbon conversation. Following this example, Marvin Vollbracht, Project Sales Manager at Peikko additionally shared project examples of innovative and fast solutions for complex and modern high-rises.

Returning to steel, Marion Charlier, Advanced Building Solutions & Sustainability Lead at ArcelorMittal detailed the ways in which the material is advancing and driving building solutions for sustainable construction. She also provided a summary and conclusions for the pre-conference webinar that she participated in before the event that delved into this topic. Looking at low-carbon glass as another solution, Hugues Lefevre, Product Manager at AGC Glass Europe gave examples stating, "We need to consider optimizing a building for daylight while balancing thermal comfort in facade design."

 

_{Marion Charlier shares the conclusions of a pre-conference webinar that was one of six webinars laying the groundwork for content discussions at the event.}

 

Closing out the session, Roland Bechmann, Managing Director & Partner at Werner Sobek AG gave further detail from the conversations held at the pre-conference webinar titled "Beyond Energy: A Human-Centered Approach to Sustainable Façades." He expanded on how he and other industry experts are exploring the ways in which façade design influences well-being, efficiency, and sustainability—with cutting-edge tools and analysis methods. A much needed coffee break followed this for delegates to reflect on the incredible knowledge that was shared.

After the quick break, César Frías, CEO at Morph was the session chair and introduced the speakers for the second session looking at Carbon Solutions. Giulia Daniele, Managing Director at Tecnostrutture with Gabriele Pascolini, Associate Director at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill discussed the fast, flexible building system of the student and Olympic campus in Milan. They gave an overview of the designs and how the collaboration between the two companies created the solutions for a quick and effective construction, achieving completion of the structures within 12 months, and limiting carbon emissions.

Next, Cristian Maluk, Technical Director, DAMA Engineering Consultants presented on fire engineering for sustainable design detailing how material and safety are integral parts to consider in tall buildings. He was followed by Özgür Irim, Senior Vertical Transportation Consultant at TK Elevator GmbH who shared how the industry can enable excellence in a building's carbon footprint through urban mobility, providing examples and ambitions of how the future could look. 

 

_{Using multiple examples of popular literature, images and concepts Reiner de Graaf asked the audience to rethink how the future will look.} 

 

Reiner de Graaf, Partner at OMA brought a different perspective for delegates to consider. Instead of talking about his firm's work, he looked outwards towards past examples of utopian works and views and to today's the realities, presenting a picture of how current densities and visions are now merging with those of past ideals. Or are they morphing? It was an intirguing and welcome reflection.

 

_{Ben van Berkel (right) provided insight into city making and tall buildings, speaking with Erik Faber (left) and answering questions from the audience.} 

 

Ending the day, keynote speaker Ben van Berkel, Founder of UNS had a conversation with Erik Faber about density using three projects as examples: Madrid Chamartín-Clara Campoamor Station; Four Frankfurt; and the booking.com City Campus in Amsterdam. These touched on the themes of infrastructure, mixed-use spaces, and creating community to redefine architecture and urban living. It was an engaging conversation and van Berkel answered questions from the audience throughout it, demonstrating in his own way the importance of interaction and community.

Density and value are connected by mixing the right programs into how you densify. By rethinking density, we can design adaptable, human-centered environments that connect deeply to their context and improve quality of life.

- Ben van Berkel, Founder, UNS

It was a full day of informative and inspiratial presentations for what the future of carbon and city-making can be.

 

Conference, Rotterdam
Thursday, 5 June

 

_{Welcoming the group to Rotterdam, Director Dario Trabucco shares his enthusiasm for the day's events.}

 

Continuing the conversations, a smaller group traveled to the MVRDV offices in Rotterdam for a half-day of speaker presentations and a panel discussion on transformative projects and environmental strategies. CTBUH Europe Region Director Dario Trabucco introduced this equally impactful part of the conference to an audience of around 60 people. 

 

_{At the heart of the MVRDV offices, the auditorium space provides an inspiring setting for delegates. Representatives of MVRDV, Wenchian Shi and Sanne van der Burgh give more context of the firms work and attitudes towards the next generation of sustainable design.}

 

Wenchian Shi, Partner, MVRDV welcomed the audience into their offices and provided background into the space and projects spanning the firm's work. Sanne van der Burgh,  Associate Director and Head of MVRDV NEXT spoke next and highlighted the complexity of calculating embodied carbon and shared the exciting and current CTBUH and MVRDV partnership to advance this work. Speaker Emiel Arends, Senior Advisor on Urban Affairs at City of Rotterdam gave a presentation on the history of building high-rises in the city and the ways that he, as part of the city, evaluate and review building proposals for sustainability and community. Complementing this discussion, Robert Winkel, Founder and Lead Architect at Mei Architects and Planners presented SAWA, a timber structure high-rise that was an off-site tour later in the day. He shared deeper insights into the process of designing for carbon goals and real-life examples from this project to better the future of our cities. 

 

_{From left to right: Ariane Dienstag, Gwyn Richards, Nayla Mecattaf, and Anja Köhler presented on how to design for carbon goals and engaged with the audience afterwards to answer questions.}

 

Following this, a panel about changing design to meet carbon targets was moderated by Ariane Dienstag with speakers representing the industries of "government", "designer", and "developer".  Gwyn Richards, Planning and Development Director, City of London (government), Nayla Mecattaf, Architect, CEO & Co-Founder, CroMe Studio (designer), and Anja Köhler, Head of Sustainability, EDGE Technologies (developer) shared examples and their experience in reaching carbon goals set by muncipalities. Each talked about how they must work together to achieve this.

Haakon Brouwer, Architect at Dam & Partners Architecten next presented the project De Zalmhaven, a 215-meter building in Rotterdam (and off-site tour) that is connecting the streeet to the public. With a mixed-use focus that is mainly residential, the high-rise offers a restaurant at the top and creates an interior park for public use. Following this, speakers Bjarne van der Drift, Architectural and Urban Designer at Dam & Partners Architecten and Rick Titulaer, Senior Computational Designer and Structural Engineer at Arup, gave concluding remarks for one of the pre-conference webinar "Tall in the Low Countries." 

This rounded out the half-day of presentations and delegates breaked to network, discuss the day's presentations, and eat lunch. 

 

Off-sites, Rotterdam
Thursday, 5 June 

After the half-day of sessions, delegates went to off-site tours in the afternoon.

 

_{Off-site tours from left to right: City Walking Tour; De Zalmhaven Building Tour; and SAWA Timber Building Tour.}

 

 

Rotterdam City Walking Tour
Emiel Arends, Senior Advisor on Urban Affairs for the City of Rotterdam took delegates on a walk around the city to learn insights on the development, pointing out architectural highlights along the way. Departing from the MVRDV office, the walking tour went along the Markthal to Wijnhaveneiland, home to several significant skyscrapers such as the Red Apple, CasaNova, and Muse. From there they proceeded to the Cool District, a bustling neighborhood and then on to take in the views from the riverfront.

 

De Zalmhaven Building Tour
Led by representatives from Dam & Partners Architecten, the Zalmhaven is one of the most recent additions to the Rotterdam skyline and the tallest residential tower in the Benelux at 215 meters. For this ambitious project, much attention has been paid to the relationship with the environment and the liveliness at ground level. From the fourth floor up, the tower is completely prefabricated, significantly speeding up the construction time. Delegates not only visited the top to view Rotterdam from above, but they also saw the central hall and several technical spaces to tell the full story of the design and construction of this building.     

 

SAWA Timber Building Tour
Delegates joined a tour led by Robert Winkel, Founder and Lead Architect at Mei Architects and Planners, to see SAWA, a 50-meter residential building, constructed of cross-laminated timber (CLT).  The building is distinctive in its appearance due to generous green terraces, which refer to the history of the location and at the same time reinforce the biodiversity in the neighborhood. Nearing completion, the design ambitiously driven by reducing CO2 emissions and achieving (inter)national climate goals, enhancing biodiversity of the neighborhood, and creating a circular building with affordable housing for an inclusive community.   

 

 

For more images of the event, view the gallery here.