BK at UN Habitat in Kuala Lumpur

Both Design as Politics and Urban Thinkers Campus are invited to speak at the upcoming UN Habitat Conference in Kuala Lumpur. Design as Politics will present the first results of the multiyear research-by-design project The African 500 Mile, and discuss hopeful futures and necessary tools and alliances. Roberto Rocco will be presenting the results from the Urban Thinkers Campus for the New Urban Agenda and will be part of the panel of 'Alliances towards the new urban agenda'.

Design as politics will be presenting together with the International New Town Institute, focussing on the African west coast, one of the fastest urbanizing regions in the world. More than a dozen agglomerations with millions of inhabitants are stretched over an area of approximately 500 miles between Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria. This creates an urban area with a potential coherence and accumulative value comparable to regions such as the East Coast of the United States or the Pearl River Delta in China. The goal is to create awareness and to collectively create and develop alternative spatial and political approaches for a sustainable development of the African 500 Mile City.

The Urban Thinkers Campus (UTC) was organised at BK City in June 2017 the topic of ‘Education for the City We Need: Integrating the New Urban Agenda in Higher Education Curriculums’. The objective of this UTC was to discuss how to integrate the New Urban Agenda into higher education curricula and research for the built environment. It produced a set of guidelines and teaching points that might help schools around the world structure curricula that embrace the New Urban Agenda enacted in Quito in October 2016. At the UN Habitat in Kuala Lumpur the accompanying report will be launched, while also searching for cooperation with other higher education institutions interested in the New Urban Agenda.