Rotterdam’s West 8 is not only one of the largest, but also one of the best-known and most active design firms working in Europe today in the field of "urban design and landscape architecture." The phrase suggests the firm’s strongly interdisciplinary orientation between landscape architecture and town planning. Its projects are provocative, avant-garde in the typically Dutch manner, and not afraid of contact with popular culture. They were created in close collaboration with such architects as Richard Rogers, Steven Holl, Dominique Perrault, Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano, and many others. The founder and director of the firm and its most highly visible figure is Adriaan Geuze, who is the author of this book.

Classics such as the Swiss Expo.02 park in Yverdon-les-Bains and Chiswick Park in London stand alongside current projects including Moscow Luxury Village, One North Park in Singapore, the Jubilee Gardens in London and Madrid Rio, the spectacular design for the city centre of the Spanish capital.