Meet Steven BECKERS, the visionary architect who is revolutionising urban planning with the circular economy and urban agriculture

Steven BECKERS, Circularity Expert at BOPRO, is a Cradle to Cradle-accredited architect and Founder of Lateral Thinking Factory, integrated into BOPRO since 2018. He also founded BIGH (Building Integrated Greenhouses), aquaponic urban farms developed in collaboration with VEOLIA.

A pioneer in the circular economy, Steven influences architecture, construction, and urban planning through innovative solutions with positive impacts. He advises public and private sectors as well as political bodies in Belgium (Brussels and regions) and France (JO2024 and Paris). As a lecturer, Steven has taught at universities across Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Denmark, Luxembourg, Ethiopia, China, and the GBC. His systemic approach integrates innovative solutions that deliver economies of scale while avoiding redundancies and keeping resources local. With 35 years of experience as an architect in Switzerland, the UK, France, and Belgium, he brings a multifaceted perspective through digital tools and project management. Steven’s achievements include being named ‘Radicale Verniewer 2018,’ Pioneer Architect of the Year by the Belgian Building Association in 2019, Brussels Personality of the Year (Economy) in 2019 with BIGH, and Brussels Personality of the Year in 2020 for his environmental career contributions. His work emphasises material cycles as a key facet of regenerative circular economy. Inspired by Cradle to Cradle principles, Steven designs buildings for longevity, considering their temporal impacts on humans and their environment. He advocates for mixed-use structures as future-proof infrastructures—climate regulators built off-site for disassembly and adaptability to combat obsolescence. This revision enhances readability by refining sentence structure and improving consistency while maintaining the original meaning.

For more details on the programme and to register, please click HERE.