Living City Block is a Colorado bases not-for-profit corporation that aims at building the future of the city one city block at the time. It aims to improve the energy, waste and water management of existing city blocks. Living City Block works with communities to retrofit existing city blocks and reduce energy consumption by 50% and better and similar improvements in water and waste management. Its focus is on mixed-use urban city blocks consisting of small to medium scale buildings. It will create a replicable, exportable, scalable and economically viable framework for the resource efficient regeneration of such city blocks. Living City Block is currently working on pilot projects in Denver, Colorado, Washington DC and Brooklyn, New York. Urban Progress is working with Living City Block on the New York Gowanus Urban Design Study and on an analysis of best practices in city block solutions for sustainability.

 

 

The region of Parkstad Limburg is preparing to engage in a ten year IBA program, following the example of the German Ruhrgebiet and other innovative regional developments in Germany and around Europe. Luc Vrolijks is member of the expert team preparing this program. Urban Progress will carry out an analysis of European regional innovation strategies and contribute to the start conference on June 30, 2011. Key themes for Parkstad’s future are demographic shrinkage and the transition towards renewable energy supply. 

 

 

 

Urban Progress is working with De Stad bv and Tilburg University to deliver a strategic vision for the Arnhem-Nijmegen, a city region with a daily urban system of around 1 million people. Following a series of interviews on the future of the region, the team is currently testing the robustness of the region's long-term perspective against scenario's reflecting the key uncertainties for the region, including long term economics, cultural orientation and climate change implications. 

 

 

 

Every two years, Archiprix International highlights the best graduation projects in the world. It does so with the aim of introducing the latest generation of talented designers to a broad public, of bringing the designers themselves into contact with one another. The 2011 edition of Archiprix International will take place in Boston and New York. This edition carries 154 graduation projects from around the world. Around 100 of the world’s selected best recent graduates will participate in the Archiprix design workshop “The Capital of Your World” at MIT in Cambridge. In the workshop, twelve teams will rethink Manhattan through architectural and urbanist design. After an intense week of workshops, the teams of archiprix winners will bring their radical speculations to New York City. They will present and discuss them at the AIA Center for Architecture at Laguardia Place, on June 10th from 4.30 PM to 8.00 PM. The program is co-organized by Urban Progress. It includes a review of the workshop proposals by prominent New Yorkers, including key government officials, architects and developers, will debate the ideas and discuss how these inform the debate on the future of New York.

 

 

 

Luc Vrolijks is working with Maarten Konigs and Frank Bosboom of the Holland Branding Group to develop a Cityinnovators, a Master Class for Alliances in Urban and Regional Development. The Master Class aims to strengthen capacity and effectiveness in working in alliances for sustainable urban and regional development. Participants will improve their understanding of the wide range of planning and sustainability practices throughout Europe, learn effective strategies for working in complex alliances, and increase their abilities in directing urban and regional development towards sustainability goals.

 

 

Urban Progress is working with Bosch-Slabbers, Deltares and the American Planning Association to deliver climate change adaptation expertise to intensive cities internationally. The project starts by working on pilot studies and climate adaptation strategies in pilot city regions in the Netherlands and the US, and will subsequently branch out to cities in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The growing body of work on pilot projects will be used to build a ‘community of practice’ on urban climate adaptation, and to deliver handbooks, on-line tutorials and other best practice guidance. 

 

 

 

The Brooklyn-Rotterdam Waterfront Exchange is a collaboration of the City of Rotterdam and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It provides a forum for exchange of waterfront expertise and is co-sponsored by the Government of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Water Partnership. Following a workshop in New York and a high level meeting in Rotterdam, the team is now preparing four pilot studies in the New York area. Urban Progress will participate in two of those projects.