Urban Labs

Media HQ ltd., 2017
Area Planning Medium Film Type Journalistic series of films on the development of high quality architecture and planning in 5 cities on 3 continents.

Urban Labs is the visual report on the Urban Labs project as executed by the Netherlands Creative Industries fund in cooperation with the UN Habitat Urban Labs.
In 6 cities in the world a urbanisation research was executed by groups of hand picked architects and planners. In order to come up with a workable (and fund-able) plan to improve cities, make these cities resilient for the various challenges in the nearby future, these cities had invited the Urban Labs to come up with a workable proposal.
in each city a ream of 4 to 6 professionals analyzed the challenge and the current situation, then composed working methods with the local counterparts and in conjunction with these designs and solutions were made and delivered to the authorities.

The outcome was, in general, very innovative, inspiring and has been picked up by the local governments to be implemented.

Media HQ has been invited to document the process and to visualize the outcomes. The process of filming became and integrated part of the design process.

The films that Media HQ has produced had 3 very clear objectives;
1- to document the design process for future funding of the Urban Labs project
2- to create a document that local architects and authorities can use to convince funding parties to join.
3- to give a interactive boost to the design process.

the films did have that desired spin off; many of he projects are now well under way to get the right financial support.
ever better: the film have been watched over 100.000 through the Vimeo and YouTube channels and Media HQ has been invited to make more films for UN Habitat to document processes in a similar way. Other UN agencies are now using the same flim techniques too.

Surprisingly; local TV stations in the countries/cities where it has been filmed have aired the short films, both for creating leverage with the bigger audience for the upcoming changes in the cities, and for general public information too.

Links

Authors

  • valeton alexander Media HQ

Project Partner

Netherlands creative Industries foundation UN Habitat Urban labs