The Future City

Louka and Eyal reminisce about the first 50 conversation of The Future City Podcast.

We've all heard about affordable housing, but what is affordable retail?

Charlie and Anthony say that entrepeneurial start ups are creating immense value by creating businesses and organisations that are focussed on affordable retail, leading to fulfilled sustainable communities.

Charlie has over 30 years’ experience of advising on commercial property investment development and asset management. Clients include owner-managed property companies, international trustees/private offices and prominent UK institutions including charities and livery companies. Charlie’s practice particularly covers equity-share investment leases in the City/West End, community developments and capital projects for charities and institutions.

Anthony is a Senior Associate in the Planning and Environmental team.

Anthony focuses on compulsory purchase order (CPO) and development planning work as well as advising parties affected by major and Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.

His clients include private individuals, institutions and companies looking to develop land or those affected by CPO proposals, Development Consent Order (DCO) applications and those affected by the proposed Hybrid Bill for Crossrail.

Are green gardens allowed, or encouraged on rooftops in most metropolitan areas? In a high-density low-parkland environment; are there really no spaces for greenery and plant-life?

Elizaveta Fakirova says that parks, natures, and green spaces can be on walls, rooftops, inside, and designed into other creative areas. Ingenuity and policy can enable a city of smart gardens, and will hopefully increase as we have more free-time.

Elizaveta is the 2020/21 German Chancellor Fellow with the Humboldt Foundation, where she is conducting a research-based project about green roof and facade policy implementation in Europe, aimed at transferring and applying that knowledge to a Russian context. Originally from Saint-Petersburg, Russia, she is also an interdisciplinary project manager with experience developing urban, cultural and educational projects. Practical working experience in two Russian urban consultancies, Strelka KB and Citymakers, as a project manager has established her as a professional who is able to take care of the full project circle - from initial idea to project implementation and further maintenance.

Elizaveta has experience living, studying and working in Saint-Petersburg, Moscow and Berlin. She speaks fluent English, advanced German and native Russian. She has traveled around 26 Russian cities in three months from Saint-Petersburg to Vladivostok. Elizaveta was among 15 national participants (out of 200+) in the UNESCO Young Professionals Programme in 2018. Elizaveta has a degree in architectural environmental design (Saint-Petersburg) and a master's degree in urban management from Technical University (Berlin).

Biography from World Urban Parks.

How valuable is the purpose of a space? What happens when you combine a meditation trainer and an engineer?

Nitin Govila says that the importance and design of spaces for reflection, meditation, and just to unwind are extremely important human-centred considerations in design, capable of being achieved efficiently by being a part of practical planned construction and supply.

Nitin is a management leader, entrepreneur, engineer, and meditation trainer. He is the APAC MENA MD for the French manufacturing group Serge Ferrari, a leader in the flexible composite material sector. His scope of operations covers: Japan, Korea, China, Hongkong, India, ASEAN, Australia-NZ, Middle-East & Africa. Nitin was born in India, educated and worked in France, and is currently based in Singapore.

In addition to overseeing business operations and management of 7 Legal distribution entities (and a newly acquired Taiwanese company) across the Asia Pacific, Middle East & African regions. Nitin is a member of the Group Executive Committee helping define the company’s long-term strategy and key decisions for the future growth of the organisation. Nitin manages a 175-member global team.

Part of Nitin's accomplishments include his first Asian expansion, with the acquisition of a Taiwanese manufacturing plant; completed within 9 months during the beginning of the global pandemic. He was instrumental in managing a smooth transition and integration of a newly acquired company in the MEA region with a multinational team, into the existing organisational infrastructure. Also Nitin significantly increased APAC + MEA region’s worldwide contribution through multiplication of revenue, volume and profitability.

Architect and public art strategist Samuel Mayze says every city needs an Artist-in-Residence.

Mayze says public art is another piece of infrastructure which brings people together and cities are in dire need of creative curation of their public spaces.

On this episode of The Future City Podcast we speak with Samuel Mayze, Director of Strategic Projects at Urban Art Projects (UAP) where he has led multi-million dollar public art, cultural master planning and complex fabrication projects in Australia and the Middle East.

Samuel shares knowledge about the public art curation process, why cities are caring more about this, and the afterlife of public art.

The Long Island Railroad’s chief technologist Will Fisher says remote work will keep going if the commute sucks. According to Fisher “If you don’t have competitive commuting options, you will resort to virtual work.”

On this episode of The Future City we speak with Google and Palantir-trained technologist and Chief Innovation Officer for the Long Island Railroad Will Fisher. Will has a degree in Computer Science from Princeton and an MBA from Stanford.

Will speaks with us about the service information spectrum, why having great service means less realtime information is required and the need to mix up your commute to work by focussing on human-powered machines.

Economist Donnie Maclurcan says there are ways city dwellers can be encouraged to share more readily.

In this episode of The Future City Podcast we speak with Executive Director of the Post-Growth Institute Donnie Maclurcan. Donnie has spent over 15 years investigating how to re-teach people in cities to feel safe enough to share their offers and needs.

Donnie says capitalism has traumatized us but that there are powerful ways many people are rebuilding a more just economic system from the ground up.

Donnie speaks with us about how we are conditioned to feel like consumers rather than producers and why getting people to give to their neighbors offers an opportunity to work through some of the trauma capitalism embeds in our lived experience.

Donnie Maclurcan is a facilitator, author and social entrepreneur, passionate about all things not-for-profit. He is Executive Director of the Post Growth Institute and as a consultant, has worked globally helping more than 500 not-for-profit projects start, scale and sustain their work. An Affiliate Professor of Economics, Donnie holds a Ph.D. in social science and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. He is working on his fourth book: How on Earth: Our future is not for profit.

The Untold City with Dr. Dominique Somda

Slave trade researcher Dr. Dominique Somda says monuments which honor colonisers should not be removed from our cities. They should be spectacularly subverted.

In this episode of The Future City Podcast we speak with anthropologist and author Dr. Dominique Somda about why keeping slave histories a secret suppresses the evolution of our cities and their inhabitants.

Somda outlines how people in cities interact based on what they know and ignore about each other and secrecy and hidden memories make city dwellers uncomfortable to engage in their shared history.

Somda says digital humanity and subversion of monuments which are partially removed or marked with new interpretations can transform the glory of the coloniser to one which is more grotesque and shameful. This is how we initiate a new dialogue in the public space about our secret past. Without this, she claims, secrecy is the enemy of liberation.

What if doctors and educators prescribed nature?

On today's episode of The Future City Podcast, Eyal and Louka speak with Dr Melissa Lem and not-for-profit educator and leader Jennie McCaffrey about how nature can be prescribed for health and education.

Dr Melissa Lem is a Vancouver family physician. A board member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and strategic advisor to the BC Parks Foundation, she is a passionate advocate for the health benefits of time spent in nature. She is currently a clinical faculty member at the University of British Columbia.

Jennie McCaffrey is an experienced educator, facilitator, and project manager who leads environmental protection initiatives at the intersection of schools, non-profits, industry groups, and regional and federal governments. Jennie works with the British Columbia Parks Foundation's Healthy By Nature initiative, the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation Education, and the Invasive Species Council of British Columbia.

How does our space influence us?

On this episode of The Future City Podcast, we speak with property development innovator Michael McCormack.  Michael is a registered building practitioner with education in law, architecture, and construction. With over ten years of experience working at several firms, including a premier property consultancy and a national luxury developer and building company, Michael now runs the B-Corporation Milieu, one of Australia’s most-awarded and boundary bending firms focussed on how we can use design and architecture to influence behaviour in our buildings, spaces, and cities. Michael speaks with us about how design and architecture infused with purpose can inspire communities to form; and how firms building our cities must think about their long-term impacts.