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New Town Labs

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 a convincing and innovative concept for urgent planning issues regarding New Town developments.

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.

In 2017 and 2018 four Labs were organised in New Towns in the Global South: Alamar (Cuba), Shenzhen (China), Curitiba (Brasil) and Tatu City (Kenya). You can find the report here (pdf 1Mb).

In 2019 INTI started to organise New Town Labs in the Dutch New Towns, de ‘Groeikernen’ of which the first was located in Zoetermeer (pdf 8Mb).

If you are interested to organize a New Town Lab in your city, get information here, or send an email to: m.provoost@newtowninstitute.org