As the world is changing, we are faced with new paradigms. Rapid urbanisation has led to more than half of the world’s population now living in cities. Cities will need to find ways to accommodate this growth. They will also need to seek solutions for a range of other challenges: economic and cultural globalisation, environmental crises, inter-city competition to attract investments and changes to the ways people live, work and spend their leisure time. All this means that cities are facing a new reality.
This is the context in which, 2014-2018, Human Cities Challenging the City Scale has questioned the scale and co-creation of the contemporary city. Based on a concept created in 2006 by Brussels-based international creative consultancy Pro Materia, the project is now managed by Cité du design Saint-Etienne.
The project was co-funded by the European Commission's Creative Europe / Culture Programme and has involved 12 partners from 11 European cities: Tallinn, London, Brussels, Belgrade, Cieszyn, Saint-Etienne, Graz, Helsinki, Bilbao, Ljubljana and Milan. The partners included universities, design centres and creative design consultancies.
They shared a common goal: to identify practice that challenges the way cities are co-designed. In 4 years the project has seen a rich programme of activities and outputs: an investigation of 90 state-of-the-art case studies, collected in a book; 9 co-creative sessions, 18 experiments in 13 cities, 12 international workshops, 11 international conferences, 6 master classes, 9 exhibitions.
“ Challenging the City Scale”
Challenging the City Scale, Journeys In People Centred Design Human Cities book Vol.II
This book tells us about the experiences of experimental results and lessons learned of adjusting to rapid urbanisation in 11 European cities.
Estonian Association of Designers (EAD) is participating in the international project “Human Cities Challenging the City Scale”, the main topic of which is to identify practice that challenges the way cities are co-designed. A multidisciplinary team of designers, architects, urbanists, sociologists, etc. is to assist in seeking solutions for more human living environment. A man and his relation with rapidly changing environment occupy a very important place in this process.
The main goal of this 4-year project is to create a „living lab“ to initiate social changes. The project has seen a rich programme of activities and outputs: an investigation of 90 state-of-the-art case studies; 9 co-creative sessions, 18 experiments in 13 cities, 12 international workshops, 11 international conferences, 6 master classes, 9 exhibitions.
12 partners from 11 European cities are participating in the project: Tallinn, London, Brussels, Belgrade, Cieszyn, Saint-Etienne, Graz, Helsinki, Bilbao, Ljubljana and Milan.
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