Reimagining Urban Futures

The future of urbanity demands innovative approaches to understanding and shaping the cities we live in. The Urban Solutions to Green Transitions Living Lab, University of Copenhagen, has dedicated its first year and a half to research exactly that. In this two-part exhibition showcasing findings from the Living Lab’s pilot projects “Planning for People, Place and Planet” and “Sustaining Publics”, you are welcomed to follow its evolution through the different methodologies and insights that shaped our research on sustainable urban development.

With Copenhagen and more specifically Nordhavn as a reference and case study, the first part "Planning for People, Place and Planet” explores citizen’s perceptions and connection to urban nature while highlighting the necessity of designing solutions that harmonise natural ecosystems with the built environment. The second part “Calls from the Public” takes an ethnographic approach, focusing on people’s responses to disruptions in public spaces. Through a set of portraits, this photography exhibition invites us to reflect on our own city experiences and explore how they can inform actionable design parameters for a more socially sustainable and inclusive cityscape.

Through different approaches, these pilot projects engage in futuring, an exercise through which to visually reimagine how better versions of urban planning might look like. In the exposition, you will dive into the layers of data and methodologies used –such as human stories, photography accounts, interviews, nature field trips, co-creation workshops with Generative AI, seminars, and mappings of geo-localised app documentation.

Together, both projects underscore the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration in urban planning and take a citizen science approach, where local’s inputs are at the very centre of the research.

Can the spaces we design today relief the pains, challenges, discomforts of yesterday and prepare for the uncertainties of tomorrow?

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The exhibition can be experienced in Kildevæld Kulturcenter from June-August.