International Talk: Bas Smets

Experience the city reimagined as a living, breathing organism 

AfterDAC International Talk welcomes Bas Smets, landscape architect and founder of his Brussels-based studio, Bureau Bas Smets, established in 2007. With a background in landscape architecture, civil engineering, and architecture, Smets has completed more than 100 projects across 15 countries - including the Parc des Ateliers in Arles and the transformation of the public space surrounding Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, currently under construction. In our exhibition, Age of Nature, you can experience Bas Smets’ model for the transformation. Developed through a detailed microclimatic approach, the project enhances outdoor comfort through trees, shade, wind protection, and evaporative cooling - demonstrating how landscape architecture can strengthen urban resilience while opening new perspectives on the Cathedral and the Seine.

Smets was appointed Professor in Practice at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2023, served as curator of the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025, and was recently named Officer of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. 

Biospheric Urbanism

In his talk, Biospheric Urbanism, Smets proposes a radical yet grounded shift in how we understand the city. Rather than seeing it as a static composition of buildings and infrastructure, he frames it as an aggregation of artificial climates - where architecture alters wind and sunlight, and streets reshape water flow and soil conditions. Within this constructed environment, landscape architecture becomes a precise and powerful instrument. Drawing on the ways plants and living systems transform their environments over time, Smets explores the city as a living laboratory. By introducing vegetation as an active agent of change, new microclimates can emerge - making the built environment more resilient in the face of accelerating climate instability. At the thin interface between atmosphere and geology, between the uncertainty above and the malleable ground below, urban ecologies become critical zones of life. Carefully cultivated, they hold the potential to reshape not only our cities, but our future. 

Join us for an evening that invites you to see the city differently - not as a fixed reality, but as a dynamic ecosystem in the making. Experience a compelling exploration of how living matter can become a geological force, and how design can operate at the scale of climate itself. Leave inspired to rethink the role of nature, architecture, and collective responsibility in shaping the urban world ahead. 

Practical Information:

• Language: The event will be held in English
• As a DAC Club member, you have free admission, but ticket booking is required. Log in with your email address to access club pricing. Club members may bring the number of guests specified on their club card
• Student Discount: Special student rate available
• Food & Drinks: Enjoy food and refreshments at the DAC Café before the event - you can book your table here
• Tip: Visit the DAC exhibitions before or after the event, we close at 21:00

 The series is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation