001
Can your neighborhood change your brain?
How our built environment relates to the aging human brain.
read more
all art.
art begins with love.
when i say “all art”, i mean that everything we do can become art when we do it with passion and love.
a meal. a building. a conversation. the way we care for another person. art is not limited to what we hang on a wall. it lives in the most ordinary things, through the attention and love we give them.
we all spend our days doing different things. even when two people do the same work, each does it in their own way. every kind of work can become art. what matters is how we do it.
even work we do not enjoy.
we can spend every day being angry about what we have to do. or we can work on the way we think. learn to accept the moment, be present and bring love to the task in front of us. we can find joy in doing it with care. and we can be grateful that we are able to do it at all. not everyone has that ability or that opportunity.
when we understand this, even an ordinary task can become something we take pleasure in creating. something we give a part of ourselves to. something that becomes art.
my passion, my vision, is to bring people to the same table. people of every culture, every nation, every religion. to talk, find common ground and learn to accept one another as we are.
without trying to change each other.
if we want peace, this is where we have to begin. with ourselves. with learning to accept another person without covering them in criticism or assuming that our own way of thinking is the right one. accepting their religion, their faith, their way of seeing the world. allowing them to be who they are, without trying to turn them into someone we would prefer.
and when i speak about acceptance, i do not mean compromise.
imagine you love red and your partner loves blue. you are painting a room together. you agree to paint it blue because you love your partner. you call it a compromise.
but every morning, you wake up surrounded by a colour you do not like. you agreed to it. you may have done it out of love. but inside, you still wish it were red.
that is the difference i am talking about.
acceptance goes deeper. you accept that your partner loves blue. you chose this person with their own tastes, their own feelings, their own way of seeing beauty. you begin to love the blue because you love the person who loves it.
and one morning, you wake up in that same blue room and love being there. you love the colour that brings joy to the person beside you.
you are no longer waking up with a compromise. you are waking up with acceptance.
acceptance does not mean making yourself smaller. it does not mean giving up who you are. it means sincerely wanting the other person to be who they are, even when you do not agree with them. you can love that something matters to them without needing it to matter to you in the same way.
this is the acceptance i am talking about. the willingness to find love for another person’s blue, even when your own favourite colour is red.
compromise will not take us to the world i believe in. learning to accept one another will.
i know how difficult this is. i know it will be a long road. but i believe in it. if every one of us begins with ourselves, if we stop trying to change everyone around us and learn to accept one another as we are, then we can build a peaceful life together.
this is the level of acceptance i teach in my courses, through fasting, nutrition, cold exposure, breathing exercises and meditation. if we want to reach this way of thinking, we have to begin with ourselves.
that is what i stand for.
in the past hundred years, our technology has advanced beyond what people once thought possible. we can make cars fly and send spacecraft to mars. yet our growth as human beings has not kept pace. in the way we treat one another, some of us still live in the stone age.
we can keep reaching for mars. but learning to live together here on earth matters more. learning to see ourselves as one human community. a community that invests in education, cares for future generations and teaches its children how to build peace.
i believe in a blue and green planet where people of every culture and religion can live together in peace and joy. where everyone can do their work and be accepted for who they are.
whether it takes a hundred, two hundred, three hundred or five hundred years, i believe we can reach that point.
and that path begins with love. each of us has to find our own way to walk it. each of us has to begin with ourselves.
my message is simple: whatever you do, do it with love. find joy in what you do. be grateful that you are here, that you can create, that you can give something of yourself to this world.
what you create with that love is your art. it doesn’t have to please the whole world. it only has to please one person: the person who created it.
you.
neuroarchitecture
phd
how does our environment affect our health and behaviour?
this question has followed me throughout my work in architecture: how deeply does the built environment influence the human mind, our physiology and ultimately our behaviour?
architecture is not simply something that surrounds us. we continuously perceive and process space: its proportions, colours, materials, acoustics, density, visual information and spatial organisation. much of this happens without our conscious attention. yet these environmental inputs may influence how we feel, how we behave, how we make decisions and how our bodies respond.
we are only beginning to understand the complexity of systems once considered secondary. the microbiome is one example. research increasingly reveals interactions between the gut, the nervous system, the brain and human behaviour.
our built environment raises a similar fundamental question: what shapes us every day without our being aware of it?
my phd investigates the relationship between architecture, perception, physiology, behaviour and well-being. it asks how much of our built environment's influence we have yet to understand.
the research raises questions such as:
how should a hospital be designed to support the human body and mind in healing?
are hospitals today truly environments for healing? or have efficiency, standardisation, capacity and the treatment of symptoms become more influential in their design than the conditions that may support recovery itself?
if our environment influences our health and behaviour, then the place where healing happens must be part of the question.
what would a hospital look like if healing itself became the starting point of its design?
and beyond hospitals, how should we design the spaces around us to help people stay healthy?
we already know that architecture affects us consciously. the more compelling question is:
what happens beyond our awareness?
how does the built environment shape our subconscious, our biology, our microbiome and ultimately our behaviour?
that is the question i want to answer.
research journal
002
Can a view from the window help us heal?
What a group of trees outside a hospital window has to do with recovery.
read more003
Does the city shape how our brain handles stress?
Living in a city and growing up in one leave different traces in the brain’s response to social stress.
read more004
Why do curved rooms feel more beautiful?
What happens in the brain when we look at round and angular spaces.
read more005
Does a forest near your home protect your brain?
Urban green, forest and the brain’s stress centre in older city dwellers.
read more006
What does one hour in the forest do to the brain?
An experiment in Berlin compares a walk in the forest with a walk along a busy street.
read more
cutcake.app
coming soon
love creating videos, but social media drains your energy?
i designed an app for creators who want more from life.
coming soon. be the first to know.
sign up for the release
compaz
live · mycompaz.com
you love travelling. but in a new city, you don't know what's going on.
where is the next party? the next yoga retreat? that is what compaz is for.
type in where you are. find your party. find your yoga retreat. find your breathing session. find the best restaurant.
hand-picked: only the best places. simple and clean, nothing overwhelming. explore easy.
mycompaz.com is live. try it, test it, and write to me if you have ideas or suggestions.
explore mycompaz.com send me your ideas
cyclemax.app
coming soon
cyclemaxing for women, men and couples.
single or in a relationship. choose your mode.
for her.
log your period and get to know your own patterns. look ahead, like a weather forecast for your cycle, based on what you track. practical guidance on food and nutrients helps you explore what supports you through each phase.
for him.
get reminders in advance to stay calm, relaxed and present. understand the cycle and remember to be the rock in the storm.
the goal: feel more at home in your body. bring more calm and understanding into your relationship.
why i built it
arguments. separation. divorce. a divorce costs more than a lifetime of cyclemax. cyclemax is the insurance for your relationship.
a man does not need to study a woman's cycle. he does not need to analyse it or argue with it. he needs to understand one thing: he is the rock in the surf. her storms come, and her storms pass. sometimes it rains, sometimes it storms. he answers with calm and ease.
if you do not understand this, you are condemned to fight with every woman. both react emotionally, and the argument ends in emotional chaos, too often in divorce. as a man, you have to lead emotionally.
in today's society, men forget who they are. they forget to lead. society tries to turn women into men and men into women. we have the same rights, and we must be treated as equals. but we are not the same.
a woman lives in a cycle of about 28 days. a man's hormones follow a cycle of 24 hours. a woman is far more sensitive. we are different, and that is good.
so that you can learn this, i have developed an app. with simple colours, it shows you where she is in her cycle and warns you in advance: now is the time to be a man.
you stand in your masculine energy. calm, relaxed, present. and she can relax around you and let herself fall.
i want to start a revolution. a revolution in dating and in relationships: men and women who live together in harmony, find great love for the long term, and raise their children in peace.
children who are not traumatised because after nine months or three years one partner decides to leave. because the man suddenly became emotional and lost his masculinity.
a partnership, a marriage, is sacred. when you decide to start a family, you take on a responsibility. and this responsibility cannot simply be dissolved by emotion. when children are involved, responsibility begins.
that is my goal.
coming soon. be the first to know.
sign up for the release
pure
system for man
this is the death of the ego.
it comes with the understanding that something greater than you exists. something more intelligent than you. not as an idea you agree with, but as something you have taken inside. when you live it, when you feel it, when your soul has understood that something greater exists than humanity itself, greater than anything you can touch, something that goes beyond the mind and beyond imagination, then the ego breaks. and in that moment true freedom stands in front of you.
putting that into words does not work. you have to feel it. you have to live it.
how you get there is what i found out, and it is what i teach in my courses: cold, breathing, fasting and the right nutrition.
many describe it as the third eye. others call it god, or the universe. it does not matter what you call it. the name is only a label. there are different houses of god in this world and many religions, and all of them do the same thing. they pray to something they cannot grasp and cannot hold.
that is why i separate religion from god. what you call god is left to your culture and to you. religion is private. god is private. nobody in this world can tell you what to believe or what to call your god, as long as you believe, as long as you have understood that something greater than yourself exists.
that is the access. that is the key to true freedom.
that key is what i want to give you. i want to build it with you. i want to grind it with you. i want to hand it to you. but you have to put it in the lock yourself. you have to open the door yourself. i can show you the door. i can help you open it. walking through it is yours alone.
a man who does not understand his body and cannot guide it will never truly lead his life.
physis is the first pillar: understanding your body. what it needs, how it responds and why it asks for comfort. learn the difference between needing rest and avoiding effort, between hunger and a craving, between a physical limit and the discomfort of doing something unfamiliar.
your body sends signals all day long. hunger, cold, tiredness, the pull back into the warm bed. most men treat these signals as orders. they are not orders. they are information. cold water teaches this faster than any gym. the body screams, nothing happens to you, and you learn the difference between a signal and a command.
this is not about punishing your body or ignoring its signals. it is about learning to work with it instead of letting every impulse decide for you.
physical effort, cold, meditation and discipline are part of the system i built. they are ways to observe your reactions, understand your limits and practise making conscious decisions when comfort pulls you in another direction.
you learn when to push, when to recover and when to say no. understanding your body gives you the foundation to lead your life.
your mind is not your brain. the brain is a physical organ. your mind is your thoughts, your feelings, your awareness, your inner experience.
picture it as hardware and software. your brain is the hardware, your mind is the software. they are connected, but they are not the same.
most men never notice the difference. they spend their lives following orders they never gave.
understanding your mind means noticing what happens inside you before you act. a thought appears. a desire follows. you feel an urge to do something. but feeling an urge does not mean you have to follow it.
our reward system helps us learn and motivates us to pursue things that support survival and development. the problem is not that this system exists. the problem is how easily modern life keeps stimulating it.
you can move from food to shopping, from scrolling to another notification, with almost no effort and no clear stopping point. you can spend an entire day chasing the next pleasant feeling without doing what matters to you.
understand this: something can feel rewarding in the moment and still take you further away from the life you want.
start noticing what you reach for, when you reach for it and what you are feeling beforehand. are you making a conscious choice, or trying to escape boredom, discomfort or loneliness?
the purpose is not to remove pleasure from your life. it is to understand your behaviour well enough to choose what deserves your attention.
responsibility is not just a weight you carry. it is power you choose to take.
start with yourself. take responsibility for your actions, your decisions and the way you treat people. that does not mean everything that happens is your fault. it means recognising where you can act and being honest about your part.
the only question that matters is one almost nobody asks himself. where was i fully responsible? not partly. not given the circumstances. fully. answer that honestly and something changes.
bring that same responsibility into your relationship and your family. keep your word. communicate clearly. say what you want, what you do not want and what you are prepared to commit to. when you make a mistake, acknowledge it and do the work to repair it.
responsibility has nothing to do with possessing people. your partner is not your property. protecting your family does not mean controlling them.
you do not need to own everything to be free. you need to stop avoiding the decisions and commitments that are yours to make.
most men would rather be right about the world than free inside it.
taking responsibility is the path to true freedom. you cannot control every circumstance, but you can decide how you respond and what kind of man you become through your actions.
most people do not understand what ego is. they think it means arrogance, being loud or believing you are better than someone else.
what i mean by ego goes deeper. it is your attachment to the image you have of yourself. you can notice it when being right becomes more important than understanding, when disagreement feels like disrespect, or when you need someone else's approval to feel secure.
ego can be intelligent enough to hide behind your own explanations. you believe you are acting freely while the need to defend yourself is making the decision. even saying “i have mastered my ego” can become another way to feel superior.
the man who tells you he has mastered his ego is the one it holds most completely.
for me, true masculinity means letting go of that need to prove yourself. you do not need to shout, make yourself look bigger or dominate every conversation. you can accept people as they are and listen to an opinion that is different from your own without feeling threatened.
acceptance does not mean agreement. it also does not mean allowing people to cross your boundaries.
i am an architect, and i built this system the way i design a building: from the foundation up. i believe your boundaries need foundations as solid as concrete. know what matters to you. make it clear. when someone crosses a boundary, you should be able to say calmly: “this crosses my boundary. i do not want this.”
being able to say what you want and what you do not want is real strength. you can be firm without humiliating someone. you can listen without surrendering your values. you can change your mind without losing your dignity.
this matters deeply in a relationship. people sometimes marry without truly knowing the person they are choosing. they have not spoken honestly about their values, their expectations, their limits or the future they want to build.
as a man, it is your responsibility to make yourself known and to take the time to know your partner. do not expect her to understand boundaries you have never expressed. do not assume you understand hers without listening.
when your ego no longer needs to win every disagreement, there is more room to understand your wife, honour her and protect the family you are building together. she is the person with whom you may create the next generation of your family. that deserves care, commitment and respect.
i built my method around physical effort, meditation, cold and self-control. my aim is to explore and loosen the ego's hold without drugs or psychedelics. the practice is to observe what happens when you face discomfort, when you cannot impress anyone and when you have nothing to prove.
what i am trying to describe is more than an idea. in my own experience, it is a feeling that words cannot fully explain. you stop needing every opinion to agree with yours. you can hear what someone thinks of you without immediately needing to defend yourself. even proving that you are free from ego loses its importance.
at the heart of this system is my belief that freedom begins when you understand, deep in your heart and soul, that something greater and more intelligent than you exists. your understanding is not the limit of what is real.
whatever name you give it, the label is not the point. the point is to recognise that you are not above everything and do not need to be.
for me, accepting that is the beginning of true freedom. it is the foundation for becoming a man who knows his boundaries, takes responsibility and can love without his ego standing in the way.
without trust, none of this works.
before anything else you have to be clear about one thing. trust is the ground everything else stands on. not trust from other people first. trust in yourself.
self-trust is not something you are born with. it is built. you build it by doing the thing you said you would do. you said six in the morning, so you get up at six. you said you would make the bed, so you make the bed, especially on the days you do not want to.
that is where self-trust comes from. not from the size of the task. from keeping your word to yourself.
it works like the gym. nobody gets muscles overnight. you train and it compounds. say three push-ups a day and do three. a week later it is six. the number is not the point. the point is that you did what you said. even one push-up counts, because you kept your word.
once you trust yourself, other people can trust you. it shows in how you stand, how you speak and what you promise. it does not work the other way round. a man who breaks his word to himself every morning will never hold anyone else's.
that is what a life is built on. people who trust you deeply enough that they want to be around you, because they know they can count on you.
trust is my currency.
the method, the blueprint and everything behind it.
pure pact: before a relationship, both of you say what matters, where your boundaries are and what you wish for. send the link, see where you fit.
start pure pact
pact
questions for couples
the conversation most couples never have.
before you start a relationship, both of you say what matters, where your boundaries are and what you wish for: loyalty, children, money, intimacy, everyday life and how you fight.
- you fill it in. the standards are already there: you rate them and add your own.
- you send the link. your answers stay hidden until the other has answered too.
- you both see what fits, what to talk about and where it breaks.
no account, no database. your answers live only in the link. part of pure.
mysidibou
unesco project
my mission: to protect sidi bou saïd from landslides.
we only have one earth. every part of it belongs to all of us, and protecting it is our responsibility. as an architect and artist, i feel called to make my own contribution, so that generations after us can still experience what makes this place so special.
the second part of the answer is mass tourism. together with architecture students, i am developing a ticket system inspired by venice, where day visitors pay a small access fee, booked online and checked by qr code. the income would flow back into the village and the university.
with the students, we also test ideas for public space, waste, heritage and the hillside itself.
antiquity
from the cape, the mountain of the lighthouse, jebel el-manar, punic and roman ships are guided along the coast.
11th century
watchtowers and fire towers are built on the cape to guard the gulf of tunis.
1231
the sufi saint abu saïd al-baji, who taught on the hill, is buried here. the village grows around his tomb and later takes his name.
18th and 19th century
the beys of tunis and families from the city build summer residences close to the saint's tomb.
1860
a tower of about ten metres becomes the lighthouse of the cape, with a flashing light.
1893
a decree of the bey makes sidi bou saïd a municipality, one of the oldest of the coast north of tunis.
1912
baron rodolphe d'erlanger begins his palace, ennejma ezzahra. it takes ten years to build.
1914
paul klee, august macke and louis moilliet paint in the village. macke paints the café on the square, one of the oldest pictures of the village.
1915
a decree, pushed by baron d'erlanger, protects the village: white walls, blue doors, nothing built out of place. it is one of the first heritage protection laws in tunisia.
1920s and 1930s
the blue and white becomes the rule for every house. writers such as andré gide find a retreat here.
1932
d'erlanger dies. his archive of arab music stays in the palace.
1942 and 1943
the second world war reaches tunis. german and italian troops hold the city from november 1942 until the allies enter in may 1943.
late 1940s
painters found the école de tunis. yahia turki, ammar farhat and others paint the life of the country, far from the orientalist gaze.
march 1956
tunisia becomes independent.
1966 to 1968
the philosopher michel foucault lives in sidi bou saïd, teaches in tunis and writes much of the archaeology of knowledge here.
1979
the archaeological site of carthage, the landscape around the village, becomes world heritage.
1985
a decree makes carthage and sidi bou saïd a national archaeological park and sets areas where nothing may be built.
1992
the state, owner of the palace since the late 1980s, opens it as the centre for arab and mediterranean music.
january 2011
the tunisian revolution. president ben ali, whose palace stands on the hill of sidi bou saïd, flees the country.
january 2013
arsonists set fire to the saint's mausoleum. residents march in protest, and unesco calls for the protection of tunisia's heritage.
may 2023
d'erlanger's music archive enters unesco's memory of the world register.
april 2024
the village enters tunisia's tentative list for world heritage.
february 2025
tunisia submits the nomination: village of sidi bou saïd, hub of cultural and spiritual inspiration in the mediterranean.
january 2026
close to 300 mm of rain in two days. the clay hillside cracks, and eight buildings are evacuated.
july 2026
at its 48th session in busan, unesco inscribes the village of sidi bou saïd on the world heritage list.
2026
my mission. as a member of the scientific committee for unesco, i work to protect the village from landslides and their dangers, to answer the question of mass tourism and coordinate it, and to introduce a qr-code ticket system.
october 2026
tunisia's commission for major projects approves the works to secure the hillside.
december 2027
tunisia's report to unesco is due: landslide studies, a map of the cracks, emergency plans and a tourism strategy.
2028
the world heritage committee reviews the report at its 50th session.
pictures: library of congress, no known restrictions: william henry jackson, 1894 · a postcard from around 1900 · nick parrino, office of war information, 1943 · victor lundy, 1949. paul klee, st. germain near tunis, 1914, centre pompidou, public domain. self-portrait of rodolphe d'erlanger, photo issam barhoumi, cc by-sa 4.0
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kefir
qefyr by brinkmann
a small culture. a daily ritual.
after years of experimenting, i developed a method that makes homemade kefir so simple you actually make it every day. almost no work, just living cultures and fresh milk.
the result is smooth, creamy and gently sweet and sour, nothing like the kefir most people know. the grains have roots in the caucasus, while fermented milk has fuelled nomadic cultures for centuries, including genghis khan's mongol army.
fermentation can also change the vitamin profile. in one milk kefir study, vitamin b3 rose by about 202%, b5 by about 42% and b7 by about 58% compared with the milk it was made from.
includes: living grains · my method · getting-started guide
sourdough
âlf & rye by brinkmann
âlf doesn't need a babysitter.
i love sourdough. i bake my own bread. and i wanted a starter that could live with me, without making my life revolve around feeding it.
that is how i developed my method for âlf. no watching him 24/7. no constant attention. with my method, i have left him for a month and brought him back to baking.
i make these things for myself first, because i love them. people kept asking me how it works, how i do it. that is why i want to share my method with the world.
doing what i love makes me happy. and when someone buys something i have made and enjoys it in their own life, that happiness goes further. that is why i do this.
i no longer buy bread from the supermarket. i want to know what goes into my loaf. flour, water, salt and a living culture. you can bake your own bread too, without making it your full-time job.
real sourdough. no added baker's yeast. the wild yeasts and bacteria in the starter do the fermentation. the dough still needs time, but that does not mean you have to stand beside it.
pre-order âlfrye by brinkmann
an active sourdough starter made with german organic rye, for baking bread at home. a starter is a living culture: you feed it flour and water, it raises your dough, and a small part is always kept for the next bake.
feeding instructions and a first-loaf guide give you a starting point for building your own baking routine.
includes: starter · feeding instructions · first-loaf guide
skincare
skyn by brinkmann
back to the origin.
for years i experimented to find the best blend for a cream made as purely as food: only natural fats and oils, no petroleum, nothing synthetic.
a journey around the world finally led me to the souks of the medina of tunis. there i found the most precious ingredient: oil from the seeds of the prickly pear, one of the rarest oils in the world.
beef tallow is the base. its main fatty acids, oleic, palmitic and stearic acid, are also among the main fatty acids in our skin's own oils. jojoba is a liquid wax, close to the waxes our skin makes itself. five ingredients in all.
i have tested it on myself for two years. like all my products, i made it first for myself, my family and my closest friends.
i share it because i am convinced of it, and because i love it. developing products, building, creating: that is my passion. through the things i create, i want to pass on what i have learned and my energy to whoever uses them.
because i make them for myself, every batch is small and always very limited.
pre-order · limited batch · shipped worldwide
wim hof method instructor
certified · 15 years of breathwork
fifteen years of breath.
i have been practising breathwork for 15 years and guiding people through breathing sessions and the cold. i am a certified wim hof method instructor and a friend of wim.
join me in november or december at the original wim hof house in poland. in a small group, max 20 people, we breathe and face the cold.
we climb śnieżka, cook together and spend the evenings around the fire.
i also share what years of personal experimentation have taught me about kefir, sourdough, the microbiome and the routines that helped me manage my own chronic inflammatory joint condition. this is personal experience, not a promise to cure disease.
november & december · poland · max 20 people · limited places