Lecture Lucy Bullivant: Masterplanning Futures: the ideals and processes of masterplanning in the 21st century

While spatial masterplans for cities historically set their physical structure and form, today’s masterplanners attempt to bring about the physical, social and economic revival of urban centres or districts on a more holistic basis. Today’s masterplanners don’t prescribe a rigid blueprint, but use multidisciplinary, participatory, adaptive, retrofitting-oriented strategies to incrementally incubate new realities.

In a one hour lecture the author, critic and curator Lucy Bullivant considers the various principles underlying some of the best contemporary masterplans in process for urban districts globally, and the roles being played by architects in the face of changing social, economic and cultural realities. Based on her ongoing research into this topic for her book Masterplanning Futures, which will be published by Routledge in 2012, which includes interviews with architects and clients in the public and private sector. The lecture is illustrated with examples of some of the most prominent ongoing masterplans for cities around the world today by architects including Foster, MVRDV, OMA, Zaha Hadid, LAND, KCAP, Alejandro Echeverri, Elemental, Entasis, Urban Think Tank, Groundlab, Field Operations, Vicente Guallart, Michel Mossessian, TEN, Graft, West 8, ARU and Michael Hart, among others.