Many New Towns for the post war era are presently in the phase of regeneration or even of reinventing themselves. They have grown and matured, but also the economic and social circumstances have changed since the 20th Century. What possible new strategies exist to cope with the new context to make the New Town future-proof? What housing strategies can make the city more attractive? How to deal with architectural heritage in transformation and development areas? How to involve residents in a fruitful and inclusive manner? How to deal with climate measures, an aging population, new mobility concepts? These questions are all very common in New Towns.
A New Town Lab is a rapid urban planning workshop in which a selected, multi-disciplinary group of international and local experts work together for one week with the aim of finding convincing and innovative concepts for these urgent planning issues.
The New Town Lab is characterized by two phases:
– a research phase that takes place prior to the workshop and
– a participatory urban design process that focuses on integrating the historical, socio-economic and cultural issues.
In this way the Labs are research-by-design workshops with an interdisciplinary approach. By using the pressure-cooking method of having external and local experts working together in four or five days on the specific issues of the New Town, we have shown that inspirational, innovative and realistic strategies can be delivered. The ultimate goal is to implement these strategies in the urban development process of the New Town.
If you are interested to organize a New Town Lab in your city, send an email to: m.provoost@newtowninstitute.org
– Examples of previous Labs in Alamar (Cuba), Shenzhen (China), Curitiba (Brasil) and Tatu City (Kenya) can be seen
– An Example of a New Town Lab in the Netherlands (Zoetermeer) can be seen