In cooperation with UN-Habitat, the Making Cities Together team in Nairobi organized a Minecraft workshop in Dandora, a suburb of Nairobi. During this workshop, the computer game Minecraft was used as a tool to engage the local community in the design of public space projects, in this case the Model street of the suburb. All layers of the population were offered the chance to become part of the design team.

The resident’s designs revealed the need for paved streets, urban greenery, gateways, bins and public facilities like play grounds and community places. They came up with creative and sometimes quirky ideas like sculptural gateways and floating zebra’s. All outcomes of the Minecraft workshop have been incorporated into a city-wide project to upgrade Nairobi’s public spaces. Cave Architects (Nairobi) is currently transforming these designs into implementable projects, which will be executed within two months.
Making Cities Together is initiated by the IFHP, Placemakers and INTI. The implementation of the results of the Minecraft workshop is generously supported by the DOEN Foundation (NL).

The time to re-live the city is now. That was the prime principle underlying the 2015/2016 Shenzhen Hong Kong bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture, which ended on February 28 of this year. On April 12, together with other Dutch participants of the Biennale, INTI’s project manager of Shenzhen, Linda Vlassenrood, was part of the fifth edition of the lecture series ‘China Creates’ in order to discuss her experiences with her exhibition Da Lang 2.0 and the new ideas and opportunities that could make Shenzhen not only bigger, but also a better place to live.
The exhibitions of the Biennale, held in the former Dacheng Flour Factory in the Shekou district of Shenzhen, revealed that both Shenzhen and Hong Kong can and should be more comfortable, beautiful, and open to change and adaptation. The Curatorial Team and Node proposed to redesign and repurpose the existing buildings without demolition to create a series of new public spaces, converting the abandoned factory buildings into a multifaceted exhibition venue.
More info about the lecture series “China Creates” at the Pakhuis de Zwijger website.

Currently, 31% of India’s population lives in cities and that number is expected to rise to 50% by 2030. In order to steer the urbanization process, the national government unveiled in 2015 a list of 100 cities that are supposed to become ‘smart’ and it allocated money for an urban rejuvenation program for another 500 towns and cities in the next five years. Last but not least, many new cities are being planned and developed to give rise to new industrial corridors.
Therefore, INTI and the magazine My Liveable City (India) organize a knowledge tour to the Netherlands this week for a delegation of academics, real estate developers, architectural and urban planning practitioners and Government of India dignitaries. The knowledge tour will expose Indian participants to Dutch expertise and provide a deeper insight into the physical planning structure of the Netherlands in areas like urban development, smart cities/smart citizens, sustainability issues, regeneration & redevelopment and social housing.

With three months standing in between today and the first International New Town Day, the INTI is working hard to provide the participants of the conference with a diverse and exciting program. All updates on the conference, newly confirmed speakers and the two-day program of excursions can be found on the INTI website, Facebook and LinkedIn.
The morning sessions will showcase innovative contributions from Brazil, Cuba China, United Kingdom and Austria to name a few. During the afternoon sessions, special attention will be given to African urbanization and New Towns on the drawing board. The preparatory excursion dates will provide a varied program about regeneration of Dutch New Towns, smart society, urban water management, food security and many other topics.
The program (in PDF) can be downloaded on our website. However, please keep in mind that this program is still in development and is subject to change. For more info or to register, please view our website or contact INTI: info@newtowninstitute.org.