“The “15-minute” is an approach to urban design that aims to improve quality of life by creating cities where everything a resident needs can be reached within 15 minutes by foot, bike or public transit. This concept puts an emphasis on careful planning at the neighborhood level, giving each district the features it needs to support a full life – including jobs, food, recreation, green space, housing, medical offices, small businesses and more. And importantly, it’s a full life that doesn’t require a car.” - The Charette
We teamed up with Buro Happold, an international, integrated engineering consultancy operating in 24 locations worldwide, on the 15-minute competition organized by the Charette. The competition aims to re-imagine our urban landscapes as cleaner, safer, healthier and more inclusive places to live, and come up with a replicable module of a 15-minute following the famous examples in major cities such as Paris, Melbourne, Detroit, Portland and Ottawa.
Together with Buro Happold, we joined hands and brains in a series of co-creative sessions, leading to a design strategy to unleash the “The Untapped City”. By supplying steps and guidelines that can be repeated across different cities and neighbourhoods, our module illustrates the regeneration of publicly accessible spaces, such as public schools, religious institutes, urban greens, parking lots, shopping areas or empty lots. By identifying both these public spaces as well as missing facilities and amenities of a community, temporary structures can after be implemented, filling the missing needs of a neighborhood and stimulating street life and social interaction.
You can check out the video on our YouTube channel, and on the website of Buro Happold here.
