Kick-start seminar 30/11 2021 for Urban space, design and built environment

We are looking forward to meet with you next week, Tuesday 30 November, 10:15-12:00, for the kick-start seminar of Urban Arena’s subject area Urban space, design and built environment, dubbed Adapting to societal transformation: Lessons from Belgium.

We will meet IRL at Pufendorfinstitutet, Hörsalen (Biskopsgatan 3, Lund).

Keynote speaker Fredrik Skåtar will attend via Zoom.

ADAPTING TO SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATION: LESSONS FROM BELGIUM

The Urban Arena subject area Urban space, design and built environment argues that critical interaction and new mindsets are needed to foster perspectives on how to respond to challenges and opportunities in the contemporary. For the design and development of holistic urban space, new strategies, methods, concepts, and tools become crucial to activate generative interaction between the different agencies that usher spatial change, including the public and the private sectors, the NGOs, and the cultural and creative industry. This seminar explores alternative, or innovative and experimental, processes in city governance, and trances their impact on the materialization of urban space. The seminar will include an introduction by Per-Johan Dahl and a keynote lecture by Fredrik Skåtar – architect and Ph.D. Student at LTH. Skåtar will draw on his Doctoral research on creative urban governance in a handful of Belgian cities, including the structure and organization of the Flemish Bouwmeester office. The lessons from Belgium will serve as references in the following discussion on local and regional procedures, praxis, and policies. Questions to be raised include, for example: What tools can be used to increase public awareness in the development of city districts? What mind-sets can we use to surpass the “twin forces of moralism and commercialism,” which, according to Dana Cuff and Roger Sherman, suffocates the sustainability discourse?* How can the public sector interfere with the real estate industry to require improvements in building and city quality?

* Cuff, Dana, and Roger Sherman. "Introduction." In Fast-Forward Urbanism: Rethinking Architecture's Engagement with the City, edited by Dana Cuff and Roger Sherman, 10-33. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.

Per-Johan Dahl
Associate Professor, Ph.D. in Architecture, SAR/MSA, AIA, HKIA
Lund University
Faculty of Engineering (LTH)
Department of Architecture and the Built Environment
Box 118, SE 221 00 Lund
Visiting address: Sölvegatan 24 / A-building
Telephone: +46 46 222 72 61
Mobile: +46 73 068 84 07