SLU news

Practice meets Academia in an Urban Forum, 8-13 April 2019

Published: 24 February 2019

The two research platforms Urban Arena at Lund University and SLU Urban Futures are joining forces during Lund’s Sustainability Week in April 2019. Together they will arrange a place where practice meets academia, for practitioners and practice-oriented researchers to exhibit their work, finished or in progress, tackling urban sustainability in manifold ways.

During this so-called Urban Forum practitioners and researchers can engage in collegial discussions with each other and get feedback from each other. We asked Lisa Diedrich, program director of SLU Urban Futures to tell us more.

Why an Urban Forum?

– Working with urban sustainability we see the Sustainable Development Goal 11 [on Sustainable Cities and Communities] as a portal to all other SDGs. The urban realm is a place where cluster problems are more manifest than elsewhere and where sustainability efforts can multiply exponentially and almost overnight. 

– We need to act fast, in order to maintain momentum, and change our ways of working to support the Agenda2030. And we know that valuable action-oriented knowledge arises from the exchange of practice and academia.

Who are you hoping to see there?

–  Practitioners in architecture, urban planners, landscape architects, the construction industry, municipalities and authorities, researchers and design critics – and many more!

How will this encounter take place?

– There will be an exhibition of selected architecture, landscape and urbanism projects submitted by professionals, and research works proposed by academics.  The exhibited projects will be presented and discussed one by one, during one or two days while the exhibition is open. We want to shed light on burning topics in urban sustainability, formulate concrete feedback on critical questions, offer inspiring findings and stimulate fruitful exchanges between practice and academia.

What kind of outcome are you hoping for?

– Professionals and academics cannot exist in isolation or in competence alone, they need each other for constructive feedback on their ongoing work, to advance both the profession and academia – this requires an atmosphere of trust and ambition at once, and we hope to establish the Urban Forum as such a place for the first time in Lund, and elsewhere soon.     

More information about time, place and program will be shared on slu.se/urbanfutures

Facts:

Call for projects - Urban Forum: Practice meets Academia

The two research platforms Urban Arena at Lund University and SLU Urban Futures invite practitioners, researchers and design critics to present and discuss their ideas for the development of sustainable cities and communities during the Urban Forum in April 2019.
Deadline for submissions: 8 March. Read more here.


Contact

Lisa Diedrich, Professor

The Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, SLU

lisa.diedrich@slu.se, +46 40-41 54 24