Sandra is an urban planner and architect. She graduated from TU Delft with an honorable mention. She also studied landscape architecture at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Copenhagen. Sandra worked for eight years in Rotterdam, successively at West 8 and Kaap 3, and at the same time was education coordinator of the bachelor’s degree in urban planning and guest lecturer in landscape architecture at TU Delft.
After winning the Harry de Vroome Prize for the research ‘New view on old villages’, which was partly developed on her initiative, she started ‘Sandra van Assen Stedenbouw’ in 2007, an office for urban planning advice, research and design. The office works on sustainable urban design and transitions and conducts (design) research in the field of spatial quality, regional identity, analysis and design methods. Sandra was Provincial Urban Planner in Friesland from 2008 to 2016. Since 2013, she has been part of the Future Urban Regions Lectorate. She is a researcher and teacher here. In 2016 she started her PhD research into spatial quality teams. Sandra is co-author of the publications ‘Tool book Rondje Rand’, ‘The Q-factor, spatial quality teams in the Netherlands’ and ‘Foar in moai Fryslân, six years of Team Spatial Quality’, which were published in 2014 and 2015. She participates in various scientific papers and conferences.