Next month, Autodesk and the New Cities Foundation will explore the transformative role of design and the creative industries in shaping the future city by hosting two evening events at the Autodesk Gallery Pop-Up in Paris on October 14 and 22, and by launching a related blog series and Tweet chat.
Entitled Making the Future City, the New Cities Foundation’s events, blog series and Tweet chat will involve pioneering European architects, designers and innovations, who will question how evolutions in the creative industries are revitalizing the contemporary urban space.
The two Making the Future City events will follow the following format:
Making the Future City: An Evening with Odile Decq
October 14, 6-8pm
What role will architects, designers and makers play in shaping the city of tomorrow? Renowned French architect Odile Decq will share her bold and distinctive vision of a more creative, dynamic 21st century metropolis. Find out more about Odile Decq’s work at www.odiledecq.com.
Making the Future City: An Evening with Odile Decq will be held in French, and will be moderated by Steven Hearn, President, Scintillo (Gaité Lyrique, Le troisième pôle, Incubateur Créatis)
Making the Future City: One Hour with Five Innovators
October 22, 6pm-8pm
In this fast-paced evening event, five pioneering designers and innovators, selected from across Europe, will talk about the projects they have set up that are re-shaping the city of tomorrow.
Confirmed speakers:
- Andy Merritt, Co-founder, Makerversity, London
- Ekim Tan, Founder, Play the City, Amsterdam/Istanbul
- Alastair Parvin, Co-founder, Wikihouse, London
- Apolline Belondrade, Co-founder, WoMa, Paris
This session will be held in English and moderated by Thibaut Thomas, a Paris-based communication and digital strategies consultant.
Making the Future City – Events: More information
Both Making the Future City events will take place from 6pm – 8pm at the Autodesk Gallery Pop-up in the Galerie Nikki Diana Marquardt in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. Each event will gather an invited audience of professionals from the fields of architecture, design, the creative industries, high tech and entrepreneurship, from across Europe.
Following presentations on both evenings, the New Cities Foundation and Autodesk will host a drinks reception, with opportunities to visit the Autodesk Gallery pop-up, which showcases how people are using technology to imagine, design, and create a better world through architecture, engineering, art, manufacturing, film, video games, and more. Guests may also visit the Gallery’s digital fabrication workshop, where artists will be creating objects with design software, 3D printers, and laser cutters.
Making the Future City – Blog Series and Tweet Chat
In order to disseminate the ideas exchanged and spark a global discussion, the New Cities Foundation has invited each speaker to write a blog post related to their personal vision of Making the Future City. The blogs will be published as a series ahead of the events at http://www.newcitiesfoundation.org/making-the-future-city/ and re-published by Autodesk.
A Tweet chat dedicated to Making the Future City will be hosted on October 15 at 5pm – 6pm CET, featuring speakers and selected guests from the architecture, design and creative industries.
The dedicated hash tag for the Tweet chat and all social media activity around the events will be #GalerieAutodesk.
New Cities Foundation and Autodesk Collaboration
Autodesk, a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment services, joined the New Cities Foundation as a member in early 2014. This is the first major collaboration between the two organizations.
Mathieu Lefevre, Executive Director, the New Cities Foundation, said: “Thanks to the emergence of new practices, today's city is one of new opportunities for innovation and creativity. How can we seize these opportunities for the benefit of all citizens? Who will make the future city? We are delighted to be collaborating with Autodesk to host these two events at the Gallery pop-up in Paris, where we’ll invite architects, creators and innovators from across Europe and beyond to discuss these issues that are central to the city of tomorrow.”
Image source New Cities Foundation
Amar Hanspal, Senior Vice President of the Information Modeling and Platform Group at Autodesk said: "As the world urbanizes, cities present us with some of humanity's greatest challenges — but cities are also the design labs for solutions to those problems. Architects, engineers and makers can now tap the power of pervasive connectivity and cloud computing to simulate the real-world in software so they can experiment with the urban environment safely before ever breaking ground. Technology is unleashing a new wave of creativity for buildings and infrastructure, and in the process the design community is helping make future cities more sustainable, livable and economically vital."
Odile Decq, Architect, Studio Odile Decq, said: “More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. But in which city? Each urban territory is unique: sprawling or compact, each one offering different modes of living. It is therefore necessary to rethink the way we approach these urban territories, physical and virtual. Since proposals for how we run cities can no longer be considered universal, we must invent new processes of thought and action for our cities and for humans that inhabit them.”
Image source DomusWeb, ©Markus-Deutschmann
For full details on the events, the blog series and tweet chat, visit http://www.newcitiesfoundation.org/making-the-future-city/
