Van Winden graduated in 1987 as an architect from TU Delft . In 1985 he was co-founder of the Molenaar & Van Winden Architecten office in Delft . Van Winden left the office in January 2009 and started a new office WAM architecten independently . In addition to the Inntel Hotel, van Winden designed the Essalam mosque in South Rotterdam, the De Oriënt residential building in the Transvaal district of The Hague and De Marquant residential building in Breda .

In addition to design, Van Winden is engaged in research and writing articles and essays on a variety of topics. Years of research into the design of Dutch and German highways resulted in, among other things, the publication – with co-author Wim Nijenhuis – of De diabolische highway (2007). In 2010 the publication Fusion: a plea for graceful architecture in an open society was published. In it Wilfried van Winden launches the idea of Fusion architecture.. Fusion is not a style, but an attitude: a strategy of the open mind that does not accept taboos. Fusion architecture stands for an inventive way of mixing and connecting past and present, East and West, tradition and innovation and high and low. The Inntel Hotel Zaandam , the Essalam Mosque in Rotterdam and the De Oriënt housing project in The Hague are good examples of Fusion architecture from his own work.