For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about the planned revitalisation of the downtown districts of Kuala Lumpur. There's no point bringing new life, new businesses and a sense of renewed creativity and vigour to a neighbourhood unless its residents and those that use it feels safe. ...
Think City recently announced the launch of the first part of an ambitious new urban regeneration project, the Kuala Lumpur Creative and Cultural District, a wide-ranging initiative that it is spearheading in the downtown areas of KL. That phase, a Community Grants Programme linked to the landmark Merdeka 118 development, was created by PNB Merdeka Ventures Sdn. Berhad (PMVSB), a wholly owned subsidiary of Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB). Concentrating on sports, arts, heritage and business, its focus is on initiatives that will have a positive impact on the local community in the precincts surrounding Merdeka 118....
Downtown. Sometimes all the noise and hurry masks underlying problems that you don’t notice when you’re listening to the music of the city. Kuala Lumpur’s heritage core has hollowed out...
Often, when we talk about building resilience we talk about the strategies and programmes that are being used to achieve those policy goals. This week we look at the Think City Institute (TCI) and its mission to create a new generation of placemaking experts who will help to reshape the towns, cities and communities they live in. ...
Today we talk to a homegrown citymaker, Qhawarizmi Norhisham of Qhawarizmi Architect (QWA), about his winning blueprint in the Penang Bay International Ideas Competition (PBIIC) and his vision to sustainably...
This week we have the great pleasure of talking to Shahira Ahmed Bazari, Think City board member, and Managing Director of Yayasan Hasanah, the grant-making foundation dedicated to the growth...
What are the key ingredients in creating a happy? Is it the buildings, the people or perhaps there’s some indefinable secret sauce or magic that creates a liveable and loveable city? In conjunction with the UN International Day of Happiness on 20th March, Think City Managing Director Hamdan Abdul Majeed spoke to BFM89.9 about his vision for the development of happiness in Malaysia’s cities, and the crucial role that a city’s inhabitants have to play in defining the future development of their urban environments. ...
The Penang State Government recently announced the top prize winners of the Penang Bay International Ideas Competition. Launched in August 2020, the competition was designed to invite innovative ideas from around the world to transform the Penang Bay area into a Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) compliant city zone and economic area. ...
Last week we talked to Aishwariya Krishna Kumar about Think City’s role in establishing NGOhub’s Homeless Services Registry. This week we speak to Joel Goh, a senior Analyst at Think City, about the growing role of realtime and near-realtime data in helping to shape urban policies and strategies and to provide instant feedback to make those policies more reflexive and adaptable. ...
Once offered as a perk, remote working is increasingly being looked at by companies as a way to boost employee wellbeing, to increase productivity and to potentially reduce costs. Which raises an interesting question for cities: if people no longer have to live where they work, what will cities have to offer to retain or attract them? The Citymaker speaks to strategist, speaker and writer Lauren Razavi, a future work specialist and experienced nomad about global natives and the future of the work from anywhere movement. ...
The Citymaker speaks to citymakers Charlot Schans and Siënna Veelders, advisors at Dutch urban development bureau STIPO about their vision for placemaking in a post-pandemic world and their roles as co-curators of The City at Eye Level Asia, a new book showcasing some of the most creative approaches to creating liveable and lovable cities in South East Asia....
As we trade a harrowing 2020 for a hopeful 2021, we look at one of the few bright spots of the last year: the renewed sense of conversation between the...
The world has been tried and tested in 2020. What we do in 2021 may determine how we bounce back, and who will benefit the most....
For the past few weeks we’ve been focusing on sustainable urbanisation as outlined in the World Cities Report 2020, launched by UN-Habitat at the end of October. The Citymaker spoke to one of the report’s early contributors, Think City’s Programme Director, Dr Matt Benson, about the urgent need for cities to be more reflexive and to cope with the pandemics and shocks that are expected in the future. ...
Continuing our theme of sustainable cities In conjunction with UN Habitat’s World Cities Report 2020,...
On this week’s Reflexive City we take a look at the contrasting forces fuelling city development: people and machines. We celebrate the launch of the UN Habitat’s World Cities Report...
On today’s episode of The Citymaker podcast we talk to Charles Landry, founder of the Creative Bureaucracy Festival 2020, about the social innovation, community and generation of trust that are...
Cities have and will always be an integral part in bringing societies across the world together, and to do so successfully, most cities have adapted to the changing circumstances brought...