Urban Talks: Virtual Forum on Urban Transformation

As part of the Joint EU & UNDP Virtual Forum on Urban Transformations, we interviewed two thought leaders on how to radically change our urban spaces to become more resilient, inclusive and sustainable, and what new ways of looking at our future(s) along with new approaches, narratives and tools are needed.

Gabriella Gómez-Mont is the founder and director of Experimentalista, a novel type of nomadic and creative office specialized in cities, with high-level, transdisciplinary collaborations across the world.  She is the former chief creative officer of Mexico City, and founder of Laboratorio para la Ciudad (2013-2018), the award-winning experimental arm and creative think-tank of the Mexico City government, reporting to the mayor.

Urban transformation is in the hearth of the conversations happening
nowadays. Cities are the best engines for transformation where we can
see different types of urban social realities.

Nicolay Boyadjiev is an architect, strategic designer and creative director working between Montreal and Moscow. He is currently the co-director of Strelka Institute’s post graduate education program, where he co-leads “The Terraforming” interdisciplinary design-research think-tank. He is also the co-author and editor of “The New Normal” (2020, Strelka Press + Park Books): a comprehensive record of the projects and insights developed during the 2017-19 design-research cycle at Strelka which set out to develop and prototype new models for urban design practice at the intersection of software, cinema, strategy, and planning.

We should rethink the standards needed for design, long-term building,
and infrastructure, and how culture is reflected, created, maintained at city scale.

See the full recording from our virtual event.

Browse the list of speakers.