INSTITUTE
PRACTICE
Institute Practice
The Institute for Urban Excellence supports public and private institutions in the practical implementation of urban solutions. Under the practice pillar we conduct technical assistance and technical review, advisory missions, urban labs, design charrettes and think tank workshops.
CURRENT projects
Interreg Europe Project
Down to Earth works on disaster risk reduction and rural development from regions across Europe, who firmly believe that retaining population and encouraging sustainable practices in key sectors is crucial to curb environmental deterioration, and can greatly contribute to risk prevention.
DOWN TO EARTH
Interreg Europe Project
Down to Earth works on disaster risk reduction and rural development from regions across Europe, who firmly believe that retaining population and encouraging sustainable practices in key sectors is crucial to curb environmental deterioration, and can greatly contribute to risk prevention.
SERVICES
Stories matter. We are working on a number of publications that promote the use of storytelling in citizen participation activities, to create spaces where communities can share their experiences and perspectives. Our digital storytelling tools make telling stories accessible to many people and use AI-powered visualisation modules.
STORYTELLING FOR CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
Stories matter. We are working on a number of publications that promote the use of storytelling in citizen participation activities, to create spaces where communities can share their experiences and perspectives. Our digital storytelling tools make telling stories accessible to many people and use AI-powered visualisation modules.
completed projects
URBAN LABS
The Institute for Urban Excellence has experience implementing two types of Urban Labs.
Design Charrettes: collaborative design workshops during which decision makers rapidly work together with their planning and design colleagues from the Charrette host city, municipality or organisation. Design Charrette participants jointly analyse the Charrette’s location and topic, and sketch designs to explore and share a broad diversity of possible ideas and solutions.
Urban Labs: design-based, collaborative projects in which selected planners work jointly in an interdisciplinary team with a host city, municipality or organisation. The team typically consists of planners, architects, landscape architects and engineers, but also of citizens, city officials and other stakeholders, depending on the topic and context. The Lab’s objective is to create a design and implementation plan or conduct research-by-design on a specific topic, in a participatory approach of co-creating.
The Institute selected a team of five international experts to work together with a local team of planners, designers and students in Weifang in July 2021. The goal was to deliver innovative urban solutions and a vision for the Weifang International Centre of Peace. The international team successfully developed a renewal design and implementation path for the Ledaoyuan historical and cultural area. The findings were presented to the City of Weifang on the last day of the workshop, together with urban design solutions and recommendations.
As part of the Wuhan Placemaking Week, an expert team took part in a Design Charette about the development of ‘New Hanzheng Riverside Avenue’. Covering a 900-meter-long riverfront coastline at the confluence of Hanjiang and Yangtze rivers, the municipality’s vision was to recreate an urban core, characterised by global trading, finance & tourism. The team designed new strategies for intervention across scales, bringing back the old spirit of the two rivers and making it a new place of meeting and exchange.
The Institute organised and coordinated the Urban Lab Session “Championing Local Green Deals”, as part of the Urban Thinker Campus “A Local Green Deal” organised by the city of Mannehim (Germany). The session took place online on Friday 16th July 2021. Through the European Green Deals, the European Union has set the ambitious target of becoming the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050. In this sense, transforming the direction given by the Green Deal into local actionable projects and concrete interventions is crucial for its success. The session collected and discussed valuable practices and experiences in the implementation of Local Green Deals.
Invited by the eThekwini Municipality, a team of experts supported the local team in packaging parcels of government land to facilitate investments by means of Public Private Partnership and other models of cooperation. The task of the Urban Lab was to focus on two strategic precincts, assisting in the design of the implementation process, and to develop financial cooperation models for their urban transformation. One precinct was the centre, where the objective was to transform it in the primary civic precinct of the city, a mixed-use area with a variety of cultural facilities.
The old town of Guangzhou has a rich heritage with districts, islands, parks, waterways, buildings and a large variety of backgrounds, stories and identities. Nevertheless, many of these places are currently isolated and would require a better context and better connections. The Guangzhou Urban Planning & Design Survey Research Institute (GZPI) invited the Urban Lab experts to collaborate in the assessment and connection of the historic urban resources of the city, accelerating the functional dispersal, to optimise and upgrade the corridors.
The ‘Integral Guidelines for Urban Territories – A set of principles for the integrated development of urban areas’ is a guidance document published by STRELKA KB, Moscow in December 2018, aiming to define the main approaches to design the development of residential and mixed-use areas for Russia, in correspondence with the needs and demands of residents, while taking into account the peculiar characteristics of development in Russian cities and the best international practices in the transformation of the urban environment.
The Institute hosted the Urban Thinkers Campus “Nature-based Solutions and Green Public Spaces for Health and Resilience” in collaboration with the ISOCARP Community of Practice on Urban Health (CoPUH) and the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH). The UTC session brought together international experts and thought leaders providing an overview over public spaces, nature-based solutions, and their potential for urban health and in the current Covid-19 crisis.
The Institute together with Middle East Cities Center at the American University in Dubai University and FIABCI, the International Federation of Real Estate organized on the 22nd of June 2021 the UTC on Hot Cities in the MENA region. The UTC highlighted and discussed the current trends of hot cities in the MENA region (such as were water scarcity, biodiversity loss, sea level rise, loss of coastal defence and storm surges) , and explored possible solutions that are being tested to ameliorate the future of urban living conditions.
INSTITUTE PRACTICE NEWS
Down to Earth’s 2nd Thematic Conference and 4th Study Visit
Down to Earth’s third Study Tour
DOWN TO EARTH’s second Study Visit
Down To Earth Study Visit in Molise, Italy
Down To Earth project kick-off conference in Santiago de Compostela
Down to Earth – Interregional cooperation for sustainable, resilient and attractive rural areas
ISOCARP UPAT at Lake Chapala, Mexico
Call for Experts – ISOCARP UPAT Chapala
Down to Earth’s 2nd Thematic Conference and 4th Study Visit
Down to Earth’s third Study Tour
DOWN TO EARTH’s second Study Visit
Down To Earth Study Visit in Molise, Italy
Down To Earth project kick-off conference in Santiago de Compostela
Down to Earth – Interregional cooperation for sustainable, resilient and attractive rural areas
ISOCARP UPAT at Lake Chapala, Mexico