Spuybroek graduated cum laude from TU Delft in 1989. The following year he won the Archiprix for his entry of the Palazzo Pensile, a new palace for Queen Beatrix on Rotterdam's Brienenoord Island. Shortly thereafter he and Maurice Nio started the journal in book form NOX, of which four volumes came out between the years 1991 and 1994 (A: Actiones in Distans, B: Biotech, C: Chloroform and D: Djihad)