We'll be bringing you a new topic of conversation every couple of months, and have an exciting range of speakers lined up.
Missed them? You can watch the videos below.
New date: Better Cities Film Festival | Monday 18 October
5.30pm to 8pm at the Globe Theatre: Register now
Please note, this event was originally scheduled for Monday 30 August but we've postponed because of uncertainty around Covid-19 Alert Levels.
We're bringing you something a little different this time around, with an evening of short films from around the globe focused on making better cities, towns and neighbourhoods. This "Best of the Fest" will showcase the most acclaimed and award-winning films from the 2020 Better Cities Film Festival, held at the World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi.
The films we've chosen will shine a light on the issues and challenges facing cities around the world, and how creative city making practices can begin to address and overcome these. You can expect to hear inspiring stories about:
- community engagement, collaboration and co-creation
- gentrification
- communities of interest
- social enterprise
- smart city practices
- sustainable practices and green building design
- symbolic architecture and city image.
Check out the festival trailer.
Register now for "Best of the Fest"
This event is free but numbers are limited. Register now to secure your place. Fields marked with * are mandatory.
Previous talks
Urban strategist Greer O’Donnell shares a fresh perspective on the role of housing for health and wellbeing, exploring examples of housing models that have evolved in response to rising house prices and housing inequality, and outlining what cities like Palmy can do to expedite the development of more diverse, fit-for-purpose and affordable homes.
Reflecting on his own projects over the last 16 years, landscape architect Craig Pocock asks the question: Does our carbon consumption offset our carbon creation? While landscape and open spaces projects can be seen at face-value as green and sustainable, how sustainable they are when applying a CO₂ cost to them?
Liz Halsted is the NZ Advisory Services Leader for global infrastructure company Arup. She led our March talk, which explored human-centric transportation and how we can bring about social, environmental, economic and cultural improvements through road strategy and design that support all transport modes, including walking.
Stantec’s Daniel Chapman discussed the role of walking in vibrant and creative urban places, ingredients of walkable urbanism, and inspiration from elsewhere of successful transformations from suburban stasis to urban dynamism.
