Cities will still be here in 2050!!!

One of the few certainties we have today is that ‘cities’ will still be here in 2050. However, not much can be said about what they will look like, what kind of life they will foster, how people will move within them, think, grow, study, work, have fun, suffer and die. What sort of architecture, design and technology tools will be used? We need ideas, vision, architecture, design, conceptual tools, and technologies for the future of cities. This is the debate that the Italian Association of Architectural Technology (SITdA) has started with a selected group of experts and scientists from all over the World, to explore the “vision†and the tools for the transition from the city today to the city in the year 2050 and beyond. The results of this debate will be presented in Milan at the MADE Expo 2009 during an international conference called CITYFUTURES.

The problems associated with large metropolitan regions: energy, environment, transportation, social pressure, quality of life are now well beyond sustainability. Answers must be devised and supplied in a short time. The whole complex industrial system that serves the settlement process is challenged. Given the continuity of the transition process towards possible futures, some of the answers to these problems are in some way already available today, though hidden, elusive and unreadable. Some of the problems have not yet been placed on the table. Some known unknowns and some unknown unknowns!

CITYFUTURES wants to offer a vision and suggest the tools for the transition, the “know-howâ€, in accordance with the attitude of the technology experts members of SITdA. The debate and the research that are proposed will be institutionalized: to achieve that cityfutures will have a permanent structure: an international committee of experts and scientists, an international award for significant projects and scholarships for young researcher active on critical topics. cityfutures will connect with formation and information of the professions through the Italian Association of Architectural Technology.

Cityfutures is MADE Expo’s contribution to the City of Milan for the exciting challenge of Expo 2015.

More information on MADE Expo can be found here: www.madeexpo.it

More information on the CITYFUTURES Conference can be found here: www.madeexpo.it/it/eventi_city_futures.php