Ideal Spaces Working Group

Ideal Spaces had an interview with Jonathan Kennedy, former member of the British Council, on the role of art in building communities. Two communities were examined, located in two different regions and cultures, India and England. Critical success factors for building up and sustaining communities were examined, and how to build them from scratch under unfavourable starting conditions.

The interview revisits a timeless question that has taken on renewed urgency: the idea of the ideal city. Far from being obsolete, the concept remains a vital source of inspiration—especially in the context of building a more sustainable and humane urban future.

Drawing on historical models of planned cities, the conversation situates these ideas within a contemporary Canadian context. Two projects developed by Josephson and his team are presented as case studies: Innisfil and The Hearn.

Innisfil can be understood as an “ideal city on the ground”—a masterplanned urban model that combines two classical frameworks: the utopian concentric circle (garden city plan) and the Roman grid. The project engages core questions of infrastructural integration, urban life, including building typologies, scale, density, and neighbourhood structure.

In contrast, The Hearn—a former power plant once among the largest in North America—represents a different approach. Rather than expanding outward, it proposes a radical form of adaptive reuse: transforming a single building into a self-contained urban environment. In this sense, it becomes a vessel for cohabitation—a city within a structure. The project can be read in dialogue with the unrealized ambitions of Cedric Price’s Fun Palace—not as a direct lineage, but as a shared intellectual territory in which architecture operates as an open-ended framework for occupation, transformation, and collective life. Like the Fun Palace, The Hearn suggests a shift away from static form toward architecture as an enabling system—capable of hosting evolving programs, social dynamics, and forms of participation over time.

Together, these two projects frame alternative ways of rethinking the ideal city today: one as a ground-up urban system, the other as an internalized, architectural one.

In our series about the younger generation, we had an interview with the young Ukrainian artist and music producer Syfromfaraway who also makes his own albums. We asked Sy about his view on society and its important trends according to his view, on the younger generation and their relations to social media, and how he conceives the recent situation in its total. We also asked him about his fears in regards to the future, and how to cope with fear in a positive, not fearful way. 

[audio mp3="https://www.idealspaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Society-Social-Media-Trends-Syfromfaraway-youth-series-.mp3"][/audio]

Interview with Dr. Andy Harrod, human geographer with a therapeutic background and head of the research group for health and wellbeing. Andy speaks about community/individual today, the influence of nature for individual wellbeing and identity, and about  the positive effects of nature-related activities for communities. In these regards, the relations between the city, community and the individual today are looked at, and the role of green areas inside the city.

Interview with Ana Schluth, student of architecture, about the life of younger Americans in times of increasing economic pressure, compared to their parents’ generation; about the shift from online life to real life; about the city wanted and the need for a human-scaled city. 

In our series about the younger generation, Ideal Spaces interviewed Sarah Haeflinger, student of architecture and urban design at the Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. In the context of the Ideal Spaces workshop on Identity, Place, and Citizenship, Sarah speaks about her generation, how a humane city should look like, together with the need for a human scale and green areas, and what this would mean for citizenship.

In the context of our younger generation-series and the Ideal Spaces workshop on Place, Identity, Citizenship held in October 2025 with Jason Montgomery from the Catholic University of America, Washington D.C. and Ettore Mazzola from the University of Notre Dame in Rome, Ideal Spaces interviewed one of Jason’s students, Luke Kelly. What is his view on his generation, on life in the city, future developments, and which kind of city he would like to see in the future.

In our youth-series, Ideal Spaces had a podcast with Jackson Truong Montgomery, son of Jason Montgomery with whom we made our Ideal Spaces workshop on Identity, Place, Citizenship in October 2025. Jackson, a student of architecture, gives his view on the city today, citizenship, improvements needed, and his vista of a good city.

Identity, Place, CitizenshipWorkshop with Prof. Jason Montgomery, Catholic University of America, Washington D.C./Prof. Ettore Mazzola, University of Notre Dame, Rome/ Prof. John Roberts, Brunel University, UK/ Dr. Ulrich Gehmann, Grant Raynham and Ulrike Sattler from Ideal Spaces/international online participants.Held at the Ideal Spaces foundation’s venue in Karlsruhe, October 19 + 20, 2025

Introducing dialogues on important topics as a new podcast format, we start with a discussion on the topics treated in our workshop on Identity, Place, Citizenship. Prof. Jason Montgomery/Catholic University of America will discuss with Prof. Ettore Mazzola/University of Notre Dame Rome, Prof. John Roberts/Brunel University London, and Dr. Ulrich Gehmann and Grant F. Raynham from Ideal Spaces.