Jakoba Helena Mulder (1900-1988) was the first female urban planner at the municipality of Amsterdam. She had an eye for detail. Where men with big names like Cornelis van Eesteren and Ben Merkelbach thought in bird's-eye views and big lines, Mulder looked around and saw how people used and struggled with their surroundings. The story of the girl next door who was rooting in the earth in search of sand, which gave her the idea to design sandboxes, is not missed in any of her interviews, but is more than proverbial.

The Amsterdam Forest, carefully designed by Jakoba Mulder, was built between 1934 and 1970. Previously, meadows and peat cutting farms were located here. Mulder, also known as 'the Miss of the Forest', determined the locations of water features, roads, and hills. This project, along with her other Amsterdam works, formed her urban planning approach.

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