Elma van Boxel and Kristian Koreman are the founding partners of ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles]. Since starting in 2001, ZUS practices architecture, urban planning, and landscape design, pushing the boundaries between these different domains.
Van Boxel studied Landscape Architecture at Larenstein University, Architecture at Greenwich University, and Architecture and Urbanism at the Academy for Architecture in Rotterdam. Kristian Koreman studied Landscape Architecture at Larenstein University and Philosophy at the Erasmus University.
Van Boxel and Koreman lead ZUS and regularly teach and lecture at universities worldwide. In 2012 they curated for the International Architecture Biennial Rotterdam and were the first lab team members for the BMW Guggenheim Lab, New York. They are Visiting Professors at the Syracuse University School of Architecture, New York.
The duo regularly publishes critical articles, letters, and books, including ‘Re-public - Towards a New Spatial Politics’ (2007) and ‘101 Streets – The Implosion of the Public Domain’ (2014), and ‘The City of Permanent Temporality’ (2019).
The work of ZUS / Van Boxel and Koreman has been widely exhibited, including the Guggenheim, New York, the Venice Biennial, the V&A, London, and the Istanbul Modern, and will have their first retrospective at Museo d’Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia.
Their unsolicited advice and interdisciplinary work led to them winning the 2007 Maaskant Prize for Young Architects, being named Architect of the Year in 2012, receiving the Urban Intervention Award Berlin, being finalists for the European Prize for Public Space in 2016, and being nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award in 2017.
