Kth Shifting from Objects to Places

The process of planning a city is complex, and planning a sustainable city while keeping in mind the effect it will have on the environment over a long period is even more complicated. Creating cities that will sustain long-term economic, lifestyle, and technology-led changes is also a monetary challenge mostly because city officials are typically looking for ways and means to build a city with an approach that is led by a best-cost or low-cost attitude. As the years pass by, towns gradually expand into cities. There was little thought that went into the future of a city’s growth and expansion by those looking into city planning. The Centre for Future of Places came into being as a body to develop a response to the turmoil and pressure experienced by expanding metropolitan cities around the world.

Creation of Centre for Future of Places

Lack of planning and hasty construction resulted in cutting corners and an artificially sustained life in the city which did not have a long sustainable future. “As more people migrated to metropolitan cities, the more evident this unsustainability became,” says Dr. Tigran Haas, CEO of the Centre for the Future of Places. The Centre for the Future of Places (CFP) was established in 2016 to tackle the inadequacies present in current city planning models.

The working process of the CFP involves analyzing the various levels of human settlements, that is, neighborhoods, towns, and metropolitan cities. The project also works towards creating healthy cities that comply with Urban Planning and Urban Design disciplines.

Being a professor of Urban Planning and Urban Design at Stockholm’s KTH School of Architecture and Built Environment, Dr. Haas avails the resources at KTH to carry out his research. The partnership between the CFP and the KTH School has led to a revolutionary shift in the curriculum of Urbanism Studies as the focus changes from studying objects to places. Students can now learn to incorporate the topics related to urban sociology, urban planning, urban economics, politics, and human geography to understand city planning complexities better.

Mission and Implementation

CFP’s primary mission of the project is two-fold, the first being becoming a core source of research on Public Space and beyond. The other aspect of the mission involves conducting extensive research from a global perspective regarding urban planning and becoming a platform for new proposals and housing ideas. The center hopes that the ideas and suggestions that come in will help overcome the present and future challenges seen in public spaces.

The center functions as a global platform for influential leaders in various sectors and across borders to create a self-sustaining and prosperous world. Therefore, the mission to create the ideal metropolitan cities is not restricted to Sweden or European countries but extends to the third world and underdeveloped countries.

Objectives of Centre for Future of Places

The entire project of creating sustainable cities can be full of tough challenges. It involves the lives of millions of people and requires one to address a multitude of issues arising out of social, political, and economic implications. The more populated a city is, the more issues one would have to address. Therefore, CFP’s first objective was to carry out research regarding the problems that plague cities at present.

One of the more important activities that the center carries out is the interaction between researchers and the general public. This interaction takes place in the form of workshops, round tables, seminars, and conferences. The general public plays a significant role in the information gathering process and helps in arriving at the potential solutions for rapid and unplanned urbanization.

Driving the Project Forward

Funding is one of the more crucial aspects of planning projects the size of a large city. The grants that the researchers receive goes towards experimentation and testing the ideas that make it to the research stage. The complete funding for the creation of the specialized lab has been contributed by the Margret and Axel Johnson Foundation.

The City Planning and Design lab encompasses all the resources required to create prototypes of the desired city while testing the various policies that would be considered for implementation. This allows the CFP to fulfill the long-standing wish to achieve the highest level of quality in their research methods.

The center also hopes that establishing a lab will push for “internalization on all levels.” This lab will allow students to learn about urbanization from an academic perspective.

Since 2016, the Centre for Future Places has been the source of 150 books, book reviews, research reports, and academic publications. All these published works house many systemic solutions geared towards improving the quality of life in an urban city.

CFP has also hosted around 220 presentations, demonstrations, seminars, and other interactive sessions to outline new city policies. At present, the Swedish Government has been reviewing several of the experiments performed by the CFP to find a way to improve the urban living experience.

Achievements and Recognition

The CFP has released such large volumes of scientific papers and academic content that the efforts of Dr. Haas and his team of researchers have received praise on an international scale. The CFP has been awarded 12 prestigious awards since its formation. The most recent being the ACQ Global Award back in 2018 in the category of “Europe- Knowledge Centre of the Year.”

The project has also been the recipient of awards like the Corporate Excellence Award 2017 for the Most Outstanding in Engineering and Technology and the “Ones to Watch” award at the European Business Awards 2017. Dr. Haas has won many awards for his leadership and ability to coordinate large projects.

Some of the notable recognitions CFP’s Director has received include awards from CEO Europe Magazine, ACQ Global Awards, CV Magazine Award, CIO Views Award, CIO Look, and Silicone Review. This streak of awards and their continued efforts show the importance of having CFP in today’s world.

A Collective Effort

The Centre for Future Places was the brainchild of a tenured professor in Sweden. However, the projects carried out by the center are now seeing active participation from universities around the world. The research projects are an amalgamation of some of the brightest brains from several reputed universities like MIT, Harvard, ETH Zurich, CUNY, Chicago, London Bartlett, and many more.

Researchers can find books and research material of the highest quality at their respective universities. In addition to this, CFP receives a helping hand from the UN-Habitat to create better policies that are plausible. However, the research can be directed to more local issues in Sweden and the neighboring countries as the researchers also occasionally consult the Nordic Research Centre Hub on Public Space.

What Does the Future Look Like for CFP

CFP has been an abundant source of productive information about an overlooked topic like urbanism for the last five years. The center has offered an insight into cities and city policies in a manner like never before.

The coming five years are an unpredictable time for CFP, as they can either choose to continue on the same path that they have been on for the last five years or decide to explore new territories. The latter would be revamping the center’s research model and changing the perspective with which they looked at urbanism.

2021 and 2022 will see the creation of experimental cities that are Livable, Viable, and Intelligent. In addition to this, CFP will also provide much-needed insight into proper city planning for the UN habitat as the UN aims to build more shelters in third world countries and underdeveloped nations.

The Centre for Future of Places will continue to research the four thematic fields: sustainable urbanism, urban transformations, housing, urban spaces, and human geography. In addition to this, the KTH School of Architecture will continue to interact with UCL Bartlett in London and MIT to further their research.

CFP now faces an even more significant challenge in implementing the tested policies. The cities have continued to expand through the years and have vastly changed. Therefore, the plans for urbanization created in the last five years may not hold good for some cities.

Such cities call for newer approaches and tools. CFP’s focus will shift from concepts like who owns the city and city for all and move towards humanizing intelligent cities and urban space. This shift can revolutionize the concept of smart cities and what such cities can do for human society.

The Centre for Future of Places has worked tirelessly and hopes to do the same in the future. The aim to create sustainable cities is now taken up by countries worldwide after encountering a dip in their economic growth on account of the pandemic. CFP’s work will help such countries create healthy and livable cities, focusing on places and not objects.