City Space Architecture meets Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador (2016)
United Nations conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development
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We are extremely proud to announce that City Space Architecture is officially included in the main program of the Habitat III conference, the United Nations conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development that takes place in Quito, Ecudaor, on October 17-20, 2016. We were selected among more than 1.000 proposals from all over the world! What an achievement!
After Habitat I in Vancouver in 1976, Habitat II in Istanbul in 1996, in Quito world leaders will again meet to review the global urban agenda as well as the mandate, structure and further strengthening of UN-Habitat as it enters its fifth decade. During four-day conference, presidents, ministers and other representatives of 140 countries will adopt the New Urban Agenda, a global 20-year vision on sustainable urbanization.
Habitat III is a major summit to discuss about future of cities. As reported by Dr. Joan Clos, the Secretary General of the conference, Habitat III “is a unique opportunity for rethinking the Urban Agenda in which governments can respond by promoting a new model of urban development able to integrate all facets of sustainable development to promote equity, welfare and shared prosperity”. More than 45.000 participants will attend the event in Quito.
Read more about the conference on Cityscope and on CityLab.
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City Space Architecture is contributing to the success of the conference through two events, included in the official programme of the conference and coordinated by our President Luisa Bravo:
- 'Stand up for Public Space!', Networking event, Monday October 17, 2.00-4.00pm, Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, room 11. During the event our President Luisa Bravo will launch our global campaign 'Stand up for Public Space!' to spread awareness on the importance of public space in cities. This networking event was promoted in collaboration with Mirko Guaralda, Queensland University of Technology (Australia), Hendrik Tieben, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong), Manfredo Manfredini, The University of Auckland (New Zealand) and Luis Alfonso Saltos Espinoza with LASE+CityUrb (Ecuador). Check the website with details of our global campaign: http://www.standupforpublicspace.org/
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- 'The Journal of Public Space', talk at the Urban Library, Wednesday October 19, 5.00pm, Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana. During the event our President Luisa Bravo launched the first issue of The Journal of Public Space (Vol 1, n.1), togehter with Mirko Guaralda, Queensland University of Technology (Australia) and Hendrik Tieben, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong), with the participation of Laura Petrella and Cecilia Andersson, UN-Habitat, United Nations Human Settlements Programme (Kenya). The Journal of Public Space is the first, international, interdisciplinary, academic, open access journal entirely dedicated to public space, it was established in 2015 by City Space Architecture in partnership with UN-Habitat and in collaboration with the Queensland University of Technology. Read our journal: https://journalpublicspace.org/.
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Our President Luisa Bravo was also invited by Cities in transition to join the event Fabrica Ciudad #12: Placemaking as a tool for City makers, where she presented our photography research project 'Pop-up City. Searching for instant urbanity' (Tuesday October 18, 2:45pm), that she is currenlty curating. Other speakers of the event were: Ethan Kent, Project for Public Spaces (New York), Laura Sobral, Instituto A Cidade Precisa de Você (São Paulo), Tamara Egger, Urban Design Lab (Vienna), Zahra Kassam, KUWA (Nairobi), Dre Urhahn, Favela Painting, Naomi Hoogervorst, Placemakers, and Rony Al-Jalkh, Placemaking activist and parctitioner.
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She was also selected by UN-Habitat Global Public Space Programme to join the Habitat III Village Pop-up Public Space in Parque El Ejito to present our cinematography project 'Urban Visions. Beyond the ideal city' (Thursday October 20, 3.00-4.00pm), that she is currently curating.
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We would like to thank our President Luisa Bravo, for the commitment and the very hard work, together with honorary members Mirko Guaralda, Hendrik Tieben and Manfredo Manfredini, and our partner in Ecuador Luis Alfonso Saltos Espinoza.
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A full report of all our activities at the Habitat III conference is available on our Facebook event.
