Urban Maestro: New Governance Strategies for Urban Design

A joint initiative of the United Nations Human Settlement programme (UN-Habitat), University College London (UCL) and the Brussels Bouwmeester Maître Architecte (BMA).

Overview

The Urban Maestro project was a joint initiative of the United Nations Human Settlement programme (UN-Habitat), University College London (UCL) and the Brussels Bouwmeester Maître Architecte (BMA). The work was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.

The project took a deep dive into the governance of urban design around Europe. It examined interventions in the means and processes of designing the built environment as devised by public authorities and other stakeholders across the continent. In particular, the focus was on the use of soft powers to influence design quality in the public interest. In doing it traced the scope, use and effectiveness of the range of informal (non-regulatory) urban design governance tools that governments, municipalities, and others have at their disposal. It also included an examination of the design / finance divide with an investigation of how informal design tools can be used alongside financing instruments to encourage the very best development outcomes.

Governments everywhere, are increasingly seeing these sorts of tools as part of a necessary investment in delivering the sorts of high quality built environments that their residents, businesses and investors demand. The project revealed how.

This project ran from January 2019 until April 2021.

People and collaborators

Professor Matthew Carmona (Lead PI), The Bartlett School of Planning
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UN-Habitat
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Brussels Bowmeester (BMA)
Visit the Brussels Bowmeester (BMA) website

Funder

European Union Horizon 2020
Find out more about the European Union Horizon 2020 funding programme

Outputs

Carmona M, Gabrieli T & Bento J (2023) Urban Design Governance, Soft Powers and the European Experience, London, UCL Press, https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/211155 (open access book)

Carmona M, Gabrieli T & Bento J (2023) Bridging the Design /Finance Divide: Adding design strings to the financing of urban development, Journal of Urban Design, 28(6): 597-622, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13574809.2023.2206549

See also Urban Maestro website with extensive case study material at https://urbanmaestro.org

Related links

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Photo by Matthew Carmona