All Things Urban

Marcin Żebrowski is an urban designer who studied city planning in Warsaw, Poland, before discovering his interest in the Scandinavian perspective on urban design and planning. He pursued a Master’s degree in Sustainable Urban Design in Lund, Sweden, and currently works in Copenhagen, Denmark, next to carrying his own podcast about urbanism.

Ryota Kamio is an urbanist, designer and researcher based in Fukuoka, South Japan. After graduating from Human Geography in Tokyo, he moved to Barcelona where he researched urban issues for five years, before switching to designing urban solutions. Ryota currently works for the Think & Do-tank Re:public on transforming South Japan into a circular economy.

As an official media partner for the upcoming CoMotion LA LIVE, All Things Urban spoke with John Rossant, the Founder and CEO of CoMotion and the Founder and Chairman of the NewCities Foundation, about a professional pathway from a journalist to one of the leading experts in urbanism, his opinion on the future of mobility, and the best solutions for cities to recover after the current pandemic.

Carola Vega is an urbanist currently working as a consultant in Barcelona. She was born and raised in Peru, studied between the United States and worked in different European cities before moving to Spain. This global journey has led her to shift progressively from architecture and urban design to strategic urban planning.

Aisha Mugo is an aspiring urbanist and cultural geographer from Nairobi, who uses film photography to archive African urban culture. After graduating with a focus on Global South urbanism and migration, Aisha worked at an international NGO. She is currently pursuing a Master’s at Malmö University and is Creative Content Curator at Matri-Archi(tecture).

Lea Bou Sleiman is an urban economist, currently pursuing her PhD at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. She was born and raised in Lebanon and moved to France for her studies. Diving into the world of research, she tackles in her thesis the economic impact of pedestrianizing parts of the Seine river quays.

As an official partner of the Wellbeing Cities Forum, All Things Urban sets off to find out what it takes to put wellbeing at the heart of the cities’ development strategy. In search of the main trends and ideas behind the wellbeing principles, we spoke with Niels Lund, Vice-President at Novo Nordisk and a member of the Advisory Board for the Wellbeing Cities Award that celebrated cities implementing ambitious, inspiring, innovative and inclusive initiatives.

Kristen Zupancic grew up in Canada, just outside of Toronto. After graduating from Media Communications, she developed a niche interest in coliving, a community-driven shared living model. To pursue her career and dreams, she moved to Amsterdam in 2018 and is now working as Trend & Innovation Analyst at The Class of 2020.

The multidisciplinary nature of urbanism means there is a wide range of research methods available. Can filmmaking be one of them? The founders of Maison d'Être described their cinematic experiments and how they use documentary to explore the notion of ‘home’, one of the least studied yet promising themes in contemporary urban studies.

In the run-up to CoMotion LA, we spoke with Greg Lindsay, its director of strategy, as well as a journalist, urbanist and futurist, about his career in urbanism, what brought him to the field and how he envisions the future of cities and urban mobility.