How can we forge a more holistic, integrated approach to urban design and planning? A way of operating that fully embraces the social and cultural aspects of community life and brings about liveable urbanism?
Urbanista.org is a webzine of critical perspectives on contemporary urban design: its strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It investigates the issues underlying the ways in which multidisciplinary design and management teams are responding to social, cultural, political and economic forces globally.
It shines a light on how potential can be unlocked. What capacities exist – including participatory placemaking, for example – to create liveable urbanism? What are the obstacles? Which aspects of past ideas are well past their sell-by date and need junking if there is going to be real progress and genuinely equitable outcomes? What emerging tools and strategies need much more airtime?
A lot of good stories about aspects of these issues get overlooked or remain untold. Urbanista.org’s incisive global radar unfolds narratives. It critically analyses contesting realities so readers can feel engaged and make sense of issues.
Why Urbanista? – Urbanista.org’s inaugural issue – was followed by issue 2, Local-Eyes! on participatory placemaking. Issue 3, Sustainable Urbanism New Directions, was a collaboration with Qatar University, published in May 2018. Subsequent issues have been published on an occasional basis.
Urbanista.org webzine for liveable urbanism was founded by Lucy Bullivant Hon FRIBA in 2013. As a unique cultural media platform dedicated to urban design and adaptive planning in an era of inexorable challenges faced by cities globally, we are not interested in novelty for the sake of it, and reserve the right to cut a necessarily broad swathe through topics. Urbanista.org’s thinking about design and technology is hybrid and closely related to social and cultural issues. Our deep focus is placed on relationships transcending outdated silo thinking with the civic agency to make a difference, now and in the future.
Events programme
Events programme
As part of its public outreach Urbanista.org curates and stages webinars, talks, roundtables, seminars and exhibitions locally and internationally, collaborating with notable local and global partners including The Urban Vision – on the Urban Manifesto webinar series from 2020 co-curated and co-hosted by Lucy Bullivant and Prathima Manohar, founder of The Urban Vision; RIBA; the Center for Architecture, NYC; AIANYC; Tate Modern; Limewharf, the futures gallery in London E2; the Urban Design Group (UK); the Bow Arts Trust and the Livesey Exchange.
Web design
Urbanista.org has been designed by Simon Brown, founding director of &&&, London, a leading design agency reclaiming graphic design in the purest form as a powerful tool to intuitively communicate across all platforms.
Contributions
Urbanista.org invites contributions from suitably qualified specialist writers based around the world. If you have an idea for a feature you would like to discuss, please contact us at info@urbanista.org with a 300 word outline of what you have in mind and a 300 word bio.
Subscribe
To subscribe to the Urbanista.org e-newsletter announcing our forthcoming issues and our events in alliance with different partners, please register here.
“It is wonderful that there is a website like Urbanista.org that focusses on current topics about urbanism on so many different levels. Questions concerning the future of the city, sustainability in cities, geographical, political and social changes are of course issues that all architects and planners need to keep abreast of and it is particularly interesting to see the attention that is given on Urbanista.org to conferences and news about the latest urban topics, with in depth analysis by Lucy Bullivant. It will no doubt create excellent spin-off for further discussions within the field as attention for the platform grows”.
Ben van Berkel, Co-Founder and Principal Architect, UNStudio.
Urbanista.org partners
Urbanista.org issues 1 and 2 and their associated events were realised with the kind support of Dargan Bullivant, Thomas Ermacora, the Alfred Herrhausen Society, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Urban Design Group. Issue 3, Sustainable Urbanism: New Directions, is the illustrated proceedings of a Qatar University international workshop of the same name, a professional collaboration with Professor Anna Grichting. A printed version of the publication was released simultaneously. See here for further details.