During recent talks in Oslo and Malmö, I’ve been showing how a simple shift in thinking can open awareness and generate new possibilities. My goal in that specific part of the presentation is to get audiences to expand their thinking about how existing urban assets could be used in different ways, but the “conditional thinking” approach is an […]
For those who wonder what is on the mind of the world’s mayors, last week’s MIPIM Mayor’s Think Tank in Cannes, France was a rare opportunity to discover just that. In the Salon Royan of the Cannes Majestic Hotel, mayors and officials from cities around the world gathered to talk about what their cities were […]
Now that the media and blogging community has had first dibs on covering my latest project, it’s time to talk about it here. Reprogramming The City: Opportunities for Urban Infrastructure is a global overview of ways in which existing urban infrastructure is being re-imagined, re-purposed and re-invented to do more in the city. It’s a […]
I’m often asked for my opinion or direct assistance to increase engagement in cities and their spaces or services, or even across a company’s existing offering. Frequently, the thing being discussed is quantified as a “product”, a fixed end result of the effort. There’s nothing wrong with the word in itself – shipping product is […]
Can you recycle a city? In an age of limited resources, I explored the notion of recycling existing urban materials for new design use in Jesolo, Greater Venice, Italy. The language of limitation has been shaping our dialogue for several years. This is not a bad thing. While there is certain and saddening pain felt […]
This weekend marks the first of many new ventures in my once, and soon to be again, home city of Boston. I have been invited by Boston University to design and host a workshop for BU students which explores creative urban responses to some of the challenges facing the city of Boston. The workshop is […]
The Boston Society for Architects recently asked me to write a series of articles for them outlining strategies for “The Resourceful City” by reprogramming existing urban infrastructure to serve new urban functions. The four-part series runs this month, and the first two installments are up now. The overall arc of the four parts is about urban […]