Over the last decades a new generation of cities and urban planning paradigms have emerged. Technology has risen as a driving force defining new urban developments and government's decisions. Cities have started to implement technology at different scales, providing more accurate models describing its functions, organization and relationships among their parts.

In our digitally connected and overpopulated cities, Public Spaces are being redefined in their consistency.

Issues such as security, accessibility, segregation, privatisation, contamination or equality to name a few, affect the essential function of public spaces as community revitalizers and challenge people to find alternative physical or digital spaces with similar effects.

Technology is emerging as a powerful generator of new digital public spheres, producing a strong impact on the physical shape of the city itself. As new tools and planning strategies rise, designers and urbanists face new challenges. Which are the new functions and configurations that emerge in the Public Space? How do citizens interact with the urban elements and how do those latter perform? The public space is the catalyst for urban renewal in the core of cities. It is the place where participatory local democracy occurs, where the character of a Society is materialized and where all infrastructure networks that connect the City functional nodes come together.

If the public space we inhabit today follows principles/protocols of the Industrial revolution, the Information society is boosting the emergence of new protocols for the design and performance of the various elements of Public Space. New modes of interaction among social, environmental and economic agents can be fostered through the redefinition of the Public Space. How do we design and inhabit it? How does it perform? What does it produce?

The Responsive Cities 2017 Call focuses on the applications and implications of new technologies in the dynamic sphere of public spaces. The specific focus is placed on the advancements of technologies of information, interaction and fabrication in the redefinition of public space, as catalyst for achieving urban resilience and high quality of life.

The Responsive Cities Symposium Active Public Space is organized around the following topics:

• DESIGN - urban analytics | physical and digital merge | fabrication protocols | real time data

• SHARE - citizen participation | ownership | accessibility | sharing economies

• ADAPT - resilience | new materials | dynamic cycles | environment

• EXPERIENCE - digital & virtual space | behaviours | gaming |

• LEARN - raising awareness | testbed for innovation | policies | data flows

Crimson Roser - Burning Man
Patrick Blanc - Vertical Garden Patrick Blanc
Helen Soholt - Making Cities for People
Gaia Pin Fernando - Barcelona City Council
Luis Falcon - InAtlas
Claudia Pasquero - Ecologic Studio
Aldo Sollazzo - Noumena
Enric Batlle - Batlleiroig
Nataly Gattegno - Future Cities Lab
Alexei Noviko - Habidatum
Pontus Westerberg - UN-Habitat & Block by Block

Deadlines

• Opening of Call: June, 15th 2017
• Submission: September, 28th 2017 
• Participants selection: October, 9th 2017
• Symposium: November, 13th – 14th 2017

For details on How to apply / Selection / Fees* please download the call detailed description

*Fees only apply to the call for papers and projects. Symposium attendance is free of charge

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