Twelve grassroots projects from diverse cities across the world were nominated by Arup offices and selected by our Integrated City Planning team to feature as a new element to the ‘Conflicts of an Urban Age’ exhibition by LSE Cities, currently held at Arup’s gallery space.
The projects selected to feature in the exhihibition, showcase the most ingenious, innovative solutions to the challenges of rapid urbanisation that aim to improve the quality of life of urban populations.
All initiatives take a bottom-up approach in transforming cities into vibrant urban areas, taking into considersation the importance for improving the quality of life for people in communities, often deprived of resources.
While some cities are pioneering sustainable and imaginative solutions, many are not. New city forms are also emerging, with profound social and environmental consequences for billions of urban dwellers.
Individuals, local communities and organisations across Nairobi, Istanbul, London, Mexico City, Mumbai and Shanghai have demonstrated creativity and ingenuity in addressing some of the challenges posed by rapid urban growth such as social inclusion, social equity, density and resource efficiency.
Projects range from communities setting up creative workshops to bring together residents from Mumbai’s largest informal settlement, contributing to the city’s economic and cultural life to transforming public spaces like a bus stop to integrate locals in Istanbul.
We encourage you to explore how their achievements can be replicated and be inspired to learn from the unique projects initaitied by local communities.
