New Office / New Opportunities
Mobycon Goes Pacific: Checking In with Lennart Nout in Auckland
Exciting news: Mobycon is expanding to New Zealand! Lennart Nout, who will be leading our Pacific office, met with us in Auckland to kick off Mobycon Pacific. We met him to hear more about what New Zealand offers and Mobycon’s vision for the region.
We are thrilled to announce a new Mobycon venture, Mobycon Pacific! That’s right, Mobycon has expanded to New Zealand! Our esteemed team member Lennart Nout has started a new chapter for Mobycon in New Zealand. As of this month, we officially have an address in Auckland as part of a push to expand our focus to cities in Australia and New Zealand.
With Mobycon offices across North America (where we recently opened a new office in Portland, Oregon), the Netherlands, and Germany, we’re ready to work on the other side of the globe!
To celebrate this new expansion, we sat down with our Pacific representative Lennart Nout, to hear more about what opportunities await Down Under.
As you enter your tenth year with Mobycon, what excites you the most about this new chapter in New Zealand?
I have always really enjoyed working for Mobycon from the Dutch office. Collaborating with our North American colleagues, learning from their experiences, and contributing to the conversation in the U.S. and Canada has always been very rewarding. It made sense when the opportunity arose to start a new Mobycon office in New Zealand. I am very excited about helping Kiwi and Australian clients advance in their planning and design projects while continuing our work in North America.
What are some of your goals for our practice in Australia and New Zealand in the coming years?
New Zealand and Australia are at a bit of a crossroads regarding how they look at their streets and public spaces. Over the past years, significant investments have been made in cycleways, shared paths, and trails in both countries. Many are constructed as “quick build” retrofits or expensive off-road facilities. The real challenge for the next few years will be to reallocate road space on the arterials and redesign the residential streets to create better outcomes for everybody. In my opinion, those are the most exciting challenges because those questions are about values more than they are about engineering. I look forward to contributing to that conversation with our values-based approach to street design.
If you could collaborate with any partner or client in New Zealand or Australia, who would it be and why?
There is a big appetite for capacity building in Australia and New Zealand. This is not only in terms of cycleway design but also in looking at more efficient construction methods. The Netherlands is very good at cost-effective construction methods and doesn’t hesitate to innovate. That’d be a massive opportunity for the Australian and New Zealand markets. However, this requires changes to many sectors. I would love to work with professional engineering institutes to help figure out how we can bring both safer and more effective street design methods to this part of the world.
What’s something you’d recommend to someone visiting New Zealand for the first time?
New Zealand is an amazing country for a road trip. So while this may sound ironic, I recommend renting a car or a campervan. However, New Zealand also has some genuinely amazing cycle trails like the Timber Trail, the Alps to Ocean cycle trail, the Otago Rail Trail, and some of the best mountain bike trails in Rotorua. So yes, get a car, but make sure it’s got a bike rack.
How do you see the Pacific office helping to shape the future of our company?
I am very proud to launch the Mobycon Pacific office. It takes Mobycon, a small company with strong roots in The Netherlands, and turns it into a truly global presence. I am looking forward to bringing international best practices in street design, intersection design, and network planning to the Pacific region, and I know there are a lot of things that Mobycon can learn from the New Zealand and Australian practices. Being able to do that while still working on European and North American projects is truly an amazing opportunity.
We will continue to update on further developments out of Auckland on our website, LinkedIn, and Instagram. If you want to bring the Mobycon approach to a project in Australia or New Zealand, we’ll be eager to hear from you.
Are you located in New Zealand, Australia, or the Pacific region? Don’t hesitate to reach out; we’d love to connect with you! If you find yourself in Auckland, don’t hesitate to pass by and say hi! We’d love to chat and show you how we can help.
