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Barcelona’s Superblocks: Putting People at the Centre – Literally

A few weeks back, during an ECIU Challenge in Barcelona, I talked with the Office for Urban Ecology of Barcelona's municipality. They showed me the city's plan to win its...

Pontevedra: The Little Utopian City That Drove Out Cars – and How They Made It Happen

The city of Pontevedra in the Northwest of Spain is recognised for its well-preserved old medieval town and beautiful cobbled streets. Yet the city has also gained world-wide attention...

Enrique Peñalosa: “An Advanced City Is One Where the Rich Take Public Transport”

Bogotá’s former mayor, Enrique Peñalosa, redrew the capital’s cityscape. Surviving two recall elections, he built hundreds of parks, bike tracks, bus lanes and sidewalks. For him, a bus stuck in traffic...

It Was No Easy Ride: Amsterdam’s Journey to Becoming a Cycling Icon

Cycling seems like second nature in Amsterdam, but after speaking with Marjolein de Lange, co-author of the book ‘Bike City Amsterdam’, we discovered that this hasn’t always been the...

Most Popular in Sustainable Building(s)

Barcelona’s Superblocks: Putting People at the Centre – Literally

A few weeks back, during an ECIU Challenge in Barcelona, I talked with the Office for Urban Ecology of Barcelona's municipality. They showed me the city's plan to win its...

Mud: Fact File

Half of the world’s population is living in mud constructions. And we can understand why. Take a look at the following facts, primary building methods, and the main uses...

Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay: Sustainable Building Meets Greenery

Gardens by the Bay: an award-winning green haven in the middle of Singapore. With its iconic architecture, innovative use of technologies, environmental sustainability, and horticultural displays, Singapore has established...

Guide to Natural Materials in Construction: More Than Hobbit Houses and Mud Huts

Deep in the depths of the construction world, among the steel, cement and concrete, there are materials hidden, just waiting to be utilised. We’ve put together this guide exhibiting...

Most Popular in Climate Adaptation

Schoonschip: A Community-built Floating Neighbourhood

This article was written by Jose Rodriguez of the European Cultural Foundation, based in the Netherlands. It was originally published here on the website for the Creating Actionable Futures (CrAFt) project...

How to Avoid Heat Islands with Greenery

Have you noticed the extremely high temperatures this summer? Especially when walking around a larger city? That is because city concrete and rooftop tar contribute to temperature increase and...

Daylighting Rivers: A Hidden Gem of Climate Adaptation

Urbanisation in the post-industrial age led to the burial of waterways to make way for buildings, roads, and public spaces. Water, though, cushions the blow of climate change, so...

Water/Cooler Moments in the Age of Extreme Heat

As heatwaves become more frequent, we grow reliant on cities taking measures to provide relief. From fountains to pools to games, there are plenty of ways water offers comfort...

Most Popular in Food, Water & Energy

The Challenges Facing Urban Water Management

What water is available to cities is unevenly distributed and increasingly stressed due to population growth. Human activity backed by poor policy safeguards increases volumes of wastewater, reduces that...

Notable City: São Paulo – Water Challenges Along the Class Divide

São Paulo is a tale of two cities. A broken relationship with water has created a litany of challenges, which hit the sprawling favelas harder than the wealthy centre....

Schoonschip: A Community-built Floating Neighbourhood

This article was written by Jose Rodriguez of the European Cultural Foundation, based in the Netherlands. It was originally published here on the website for the Creating Actionable Futures (CrAFt) project...

Urban Agriculture Projects in Europe

With the increase in cities’ populations comes the higher need for food in an, often dense, urban environment. How to best make use of the little space left, and...

Most Popular in Inclusive Cities

CityChanger Jan Gehl: Creating Liveable Cities

Renowned Danish architect Jan Gehl changed our understanding of what urban space should be. Shunning the traditional school of planning in favour of liveable cities, he pioneered the movement...

Colonial Urbanism: Polycrisis Guaranteed by Design

Cities across the Global South remain firmly in the grips of their colonisers’ “innovations”, hosting entrenched centuries-old systems and practices of abuse and exploitation that disrupt health and life...

How to Build a City for Women – and Why Cars Take a “Back Seat” in Feminist Urban Planning

Have our cities really been built with gender bias in their design? How did this happen, what does a "feminist" city really look like, and how can a female...

Creating Safer Cities: Considerations for Gendered & Nighttime Design

If the design of urban spaces does not make us feel safe, it limits how we move around, engage with, and enjoy the city. This impacts women disproportionately, and...

Most Popular in Circularity

Lyon Confluence: How a District is Retrofitting Heritage Buildings

SPL Lyon Confluence is carrying out a stand-out urban renewal project in a once-deprived district of central Lyon. Project Manager Etienne Vignali describes how this offers a significantly chance...

Recycling Construction and Demolition Waste with SeRaMCo

Is there a market for recycled concrete? This was such a sizeable question that the EU part-funded a multi-million-Euro project to find out. Leading SeRaMCo, Christian Glock set out...

Recycling Concrete: Can We Really Reuse Construction and Demolition Waste?

Concrete. As a staple of construction, it’s everywhere in our cities. What happens when a building has served its purpose? Could we recover, recycle, and rebuild with construction and...

How Cities Can Build with Timber… Responsibly

Biobased materials can deliver buildings that are both low-carbon and fit residents’ needs: robust, resilient, and pleasant to be in. They can allow us to ‘partner’ with the natural...

Most Popular in Skills

How to Make Public Spaces Inclusive for an Ageing Society

How does the design of public spaces influence mental health? Could urban design reduce isolation and loneliness and increase accessibility and mobility? “Rosario is also its older adults”, a...

How to Overcome Opposition and Face Backlash

Convincing the “other side” of your idea can be exhausting and frustrating. And if you finally persuade the opposition and continue with implementation, there are still going to be...

Maptionnaire: A Smart Lesson in Democratising Engagement the Fun Way

Public participation matters. It brings democracy and diverse perspectives to city design. But it can be difficult to get right. Smart technology hands us new opportunities for engagement. Today...

CityChanger Safaa Charafi: Creating Fair & Sustainable Cities with Intersectionality

Cities aren’t inclusive. It’s evident in how they’re laid out, the policies that govern us, and the mindsets of inhabitants. There’s a way to change this. Mainstreaming gender and...

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