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re:imagine your city — rethinking urban paradigms

reimagine your city publication
2022-2023

The publication re:imagine your city invites us to explore and rethink current paradigms that shape our urban environments. It offers insightful perspectives on commemoration and heritage, city planning and gentrification, migration and post-pandemic changes, solidarity and new urban practices. The publication results from a collective effort by an engaged cross-disciplinary network of educators, researchers, artists, designers and architects in the framework of the international design lab for urban practices and transformation re:imagine your city.

The publication has been realized in the framework of the international design lab reimagine your city (2022-2023), funded by the Federal Foreign Office in the framework of the Eastern Partnership program. 

Curatorial text

We find ourselves in times marked by high levels of temporality and uncertainty. In this publication, we have chosen to examine these changing urban environments and offer fresh, diverse perspectives. Its pages hold a curated selection of contributions collected through an open call, including essays, articles, interviews, illustrations, and photographs. These contributions explore the topics of commemoration and heritage, city planning and gentrification, migration and post-pandemic changes, solidarity and new spatial practices.

The idea for the publication emerged from the educational program reimagine your city (2022-2023), which explores interactive and creative practices for empowering young people and fostering their engagement in the sociocultural transformation of cities. 

The publication serves as a platform for emerging and established interdisciplinary professionals, researchers, creative thinkers, activists, urbanists, architects, and artists worldwide. Its objective is to amplify diverse voices and perspectives that contribute to discussions surrounding reimagining urban landscapes in a changing world. Each sub-theme — New Urbanism Practices, Solidarity Activism, Rethinking Heritage, and Shifting Paradigms — offers an additional lens for this broad and multifaceted topic.

The re:imagine your city publication allows readers to rethink the possibilities within public spaces. Unfurling case studies, theoretical frameworks, and practical approaches that unravel the potential of public spaces to shape the urban fabric. 

We hope that this publication serves as an inspiration to dive deeper into various dimensions and facets of urban spaces, challenge conventional narratives and discover new perspectives beyond traditional urban discourse. We want to thank all the contributors who generously shared their work, making this publication possible.

Anastasiia Zhuravel and Katya Romanova

Curators: Anastasiia Zhuravel, Katya Romanova
Editors: Rowan Coupland, Anastasiia Zhuravel

Contributors: Nor Greenhalgh, Michael W Mehaffy, Cindy Menassa-Kuelby, Moritz Ruben Hahn, Sophie Dilg, Michael Brummer, Katya Romanova, Philippe Nathan, Anaïs Alfieri, Guerilla Architects, Yanru Chen, Anastasiia Zhuravel, Anton Kuzmin, Natasha Krymskaya, Michał Romaniuk, Dasha Podoltseva, Fricka Lindemann, Catherin Schöberl, Bui Luu Quynh Nguyen, Luigi Barraza Cardenas, Liang Zhenru, Confronting Monuments, Daniel Fennell, Fábio Peixoto, Sofiia Korotkevych, Alexandre Kurek, Leah Hamilton, NOWY ZŁOTY: Magdalena Kreis, Yuriy Biley , Jian Luo, Offener Kanal Europa: Nora Spiekermann, Jeremy Knowles, Sara R. Ahmed, Andrea Conte, Maria Cecilia Daniele, Tinatin Gurgenidze, Placemaking Europe, LOCUMENT, Maja Esakova, Assemble Berlin, Eva Holts, Loukia Batsi, Luana Thor, Melina Daphne Papageorgiou 

Cover photo: Stewart Lawrence, Palmdale, California, USA, Alexandre Kurek 
Art direction & design: Helena Melikov
Published by SHIFT BOOKS in September 2023
ISBN 978-3-948174-23-1