2^nd Forum – “Urban_Trans_Formation”

About The Event

What will the city of Shanghai look like 20 years from now? How will the growing city balance economic, environmental and social needs of its people? More than 250 experts and scholars from over 40 countries gathered in Shanghai to debate these and other aspects of tomorrow’s approaches to urban development. 

The forum fostered the interdisciplinary exchange of experience and knowledge through keynote speeches, workshops and panel discussions, as well as full-day case study tours in the Shanghai region. The experts discussed and shared their concepts for sustainable urban development – seeking to meet present-day needs for housing and infrastructure without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs in times to come.

Worshops themes

Five workshop themes addressing transitions in urban morphologies worldwide provided a platform for addressing the challenge of how processes of urban formation can be managed in order to attain long-term sustainable conditions.

Urbanism is understood in an expanded framework to include the design of policies and terms of governance for the making of the physical environment. Particularly as issue are operative strategies that can be deployed within the constraints determined by currently available resources. What feasible means, techniques, and methods can be brought into play in an innovative manner to increase the performance of the city?

• Normative urbanism - between convention and differentiation
• Informal urbanism - between sanctioned and shadow orders
• Green urbanism - between ecology and economy
• Touristic urbanism - between local and global
• Temporary urbanism - between the permanent and transitory