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British architect Norman Foster launched the Norman Foster Institute,
with the aim of “improving the quality of life in cities around the world and addressing today’s most pressing issues in cities.
Launched on June 6 in Madrid, the institute’s team is made up of an international,
multidisciplinary team of professors, practitioners, and civic leaders led by co-directors Norman Foster and Kent Larson.
The Institute’s first 36-week academic programme, called On Sustainable Cities,
will start in Madrid in January 2024.
In times of climate change, this institute is for those who, through practice or education,
wish to improve the quality of life in cities all over the world.
In this spirit, the course will combine practical on-site experience with academic input from the Foundation’s network of international experts.
These range from university professors to real estate developers.
Institutions, transitions and interventions
The Institute’s first cycle on sustainable cities will be a 36-week program that will take place in three phases:
Institutions, Transitions and Interventions – with time divided between classrooms, towns and studios.
The foundation phase consists of an in-depth study of the concepts and processes needed to understand the city, from its history, governance, ethics and standards that define sustainable cities.
Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding the “importance of place”,
building on concepts such as the “cityscape” as well as different strategies for making urban space.
The second phase, titled Transformations, will provide an understanding of the challenges and opportunities for changes in each city.
You will study six of the areas in which a city can defined:
climate and natural environments, networks and mobility,
Planning and construction, resources and energy, economy and social activity, culture and the arts.
The final stage, called Interventions, will enable ideas that reduce embodied and operational emissions, improve public health, and create a new vision for society.
This stage dedicated to testing a set of strategies for sustainable improvement in each field of experimental neighborhoods.
Each year, scientists will given three pilot cities and will visit them to interact directly with planners and managers.
They will use the latest digital tools in the quest to improve sustainable quality of life.
Launch of the Norman Foster Institute with the goal of improving the quality of life in cities
Norman Foster launched the Norman Foster Foundation in 2017 with a mission to foster interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations anticipate the future.
Foster explained: “It will start with tools and skills that can be used to address large-scale issues for cities.
For example, leadership, advocacy, communication, presentation, planning,
mapping, data understanding and interpretation.”
The course will address today’s pressing issues such as carbon footprint, intensity,
mix of uses, equity and affordability, walkability,
place-making, landscape, public and private transport,
politics and economics, energy, recycling, consultation, interest groups and decision-making.
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