Bio

Francine Houben is a founding partner and creative director of the architecture practice Mecanoo, based in Delft. Over three decades of work, Francine has amassed a wide-ranging portfolio of internationally acclaimed projects. From 2002 to 2006 she was City Architect of Almere. Francine has held professorships in the Netherlands and abroad, and in 2007 was visiting professor at Harvard University. In 2010 Francine was granted lifelong membership to the Akademie der Künste, Architecture Department, in Berlin. In November 2015 Queen Máxima of the Netherlands awarded her the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Prize.