

Urbanistica Podcast - Cities for People
Mustafa Sherif
A podcast about how we plan and design cities for people. Tune in and join listeners from over 145 countries.
I'm Mustafa Sherif, an Urbanist, Placemaker and studio manager based in Sweden. In this podcast, I interview people working in architecture, Palcemaking, urban planning and design about their projects, processes, methods, handbooks, challenges, leadership, and passions in life.
It’s not just about projects, it’s about the people behind projects.
In collaboration with AFRY (Urban Planning and Design section in Stockholm).
I'm Mustafa Sherif, an Urbanist, Placemaker and studio manager based in Sweden. In this podcast, I interview people working in architecture, Palcemaking, urban planning and design about their projects, processes, methods, handbooks, challenges, leadership, and passions in life.
It’s not just about projects, it’s about the people behind projects.
In collaboration with AFRY (Urban Planning and Design section in Stockholm).
Episodes
Mentioned books

Oct 17, 2024 • 19min
474. Build a relationship with a place - Thieu Besselink
Dr. Thieu Besselink, PhD, Founder of the Academy of Place and the Townmaking Institute, ass. prof. at Utrecht University
Thieu Besselink is an urbanist, philosopher and educator. He learned to love the complexities of place during his research with prof. Richard Sennett at the LSE Cities Program and went on to establish two organisations that aim to learn from and develop places as living wholes. The Academy of Place initiates regenerative development processes at landscape scale, and the Townmaking Institute is an R&D institute for urban commons and Societal Asset Development. As an educator Thieu leads the Regenerative Cities Program at Utrecht University where he developed place-based pedagogies to learn and develop with place.
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 16, 2024 • 24min
473. Placemaking Asia - Jia-Ping Lee
Jia-Ping is the founding Chairperson of PLACEMAKING Malaysia, under the auspices of the Malaysian Institute of Planners and a member of the Board of Advisors for PlacemakingX. With her current role as co-chair at PLACEMAKING Malaysia and her position as a director of POLLIN8, a place consultancy, she actively shapes, drives, and grows the placemaking movement in Malaysia and the region.
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 15, 2024 • 30min
472. Game Plans for Neighbourhood Co-Creation - Julia Barashkov and Mihal Ronko
Julia Barashkov(a) (PhD Candidate at Delft University of Technology) and Mihal Ronko (Practising architect at Schaffer Architects)
About their workshop during Placemaking week:
Our workshop, “Common Ground: Game Plans for Neighbourhood Co-Creation,” brought together an incredible group of urbanists, designers, researchers, and community leaders and focused on self-coordinated formations of stakeholder consortiums and decentralised governance of shared resources through a hands-on role-playing game.
Our workshop was structured as a two-phase interactive role-playing game where participants assumed different roles within urban ecosystems. The task was to collaboratively define a project space, negotiate value and costs, and arrive at shared solutions for multi-use common. Throughout the process, participants tackled real-world challenges, such as shared resources and balancing competing priorities.
Our joint work is: The Common Catalogue
https://common-catalogue.myportfolio.com/work
https://www.instagram.com/commoncatalogue
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 14, 2024 • 34min
671. Discovering the City with Our Senses - Tímea Szőke and Elena Enrica Giunta
Tímea Szőke (PhD Fellow at UIC Barcelona) and Elena Enrica Giunta (Design director at Studio Shift; Adjunct professor at School of Design - Politecnico di Milano and Libera Università di Bolzano)
BIO about their workshop:
City Flows - Discovering the City with our Senses. This participatory walkshop is designed to explore the connection between the city and the water. Through walking, observing and engaging with other placemakers, we look and map the presence and traces how water forms part of the city.The first half of our walkshop, will take the participants to a playground of public space. Through a ‘Walk&Sense’ session we will explore the surrounding environment by using our senses. This experiential exercise will emphasise how we perceive, sense, frame and construct the places we inhabit.The session will conclude with a joint reflection and analogue data visualisation exercise. This will allow participants to share their experiences and insights, showcasing the traces, marks, and narratives related to water that define our cityscape in the public space itself.The walkshop will be conducted by the members of the Bosch Alumni Network’s Placemaking Impact Field.
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 13, 2024 • 23min
470. Urban tourism and its impact on cities and their local users - Ko Koens
Ko Koens has been involved in sustainable tourism for over twenty years. His work focuses on understanding the impact of urban tourism and designing it in ways that maximize benefits for all. Over the years, he has authored over 30 academic publications and is one of the authors of the UNWTO report on overtourism. Currently, he leads the "Expertise Network Sustainable Urban Tourism." However, he finds the most value in collaborating with practitioners to drive positive change. To this end, he operates "Urban Leisure and Tourism Labs" in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where they actively engage in Regenerative Placemaking activities to enhance the quality of place for both residents and visitors.
Links from Ko Koens (all open access):
https://www.ensut.eu/projects/urban-tourism-a-call-to-action/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212571X24000416
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517724001304
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 12, 2024 • 28min
469. The 1.5-minute Place - Kristen Zupancic and Josef Conning
Josef Conning (Urbanist and strategist, Sweden) and
Kristen Zupancic (Founder, Plot Twist Placemaking, Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands)
Kristen and Josef facilitated a session where they promoted the concept of the "1.5-minute place", and in the workshop participants created dynamic and vibrant places based on that concept. Bringing the core principles of the 15-minute city down to a much smaller scale, the basic idea behind the 1.5-minute place is about mixing different functionalities in the same place. When places offer multiple functionalities and facilitate several experiences, they tend to be more relevant to a more diverse group of people, attract people throughout different times of the day, and increase the bandwidth of the emotional connections people form to them.
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 11, 2024 • 19min
468. Translating children and youngsters' stories in public spaces- Koos Fransen
Koos Fransen (Founder of STR.AAT, Ghent, Flemish Region, Belgium)
Koos is currently employed as project leader for Projectbureau Ruimte (city of Ghent), specifically working on transdisciplinary, complex spatial projects. He is also the founder of STR.AAT (www.str-aat.be) - an urban think tank on storytelling, public space and co-creation, where he works on the projects (1) 'Straatart' (in collaboration with Alice Martha) - translating children and youngsters' stories in street art, (2) 'Comment ça vaas' - pass-me-on vases, (3) 'Van wie is de straat?' (in collaboration with Laura Zuallaert) - a documentary on urban street life in Ghent, in the past and present, and (4) 'De verhalenkaravaan' - linking (street) stories by children and elderly to construct a collection of immaterial heritage. Past work experience as a PhD in transport modeling and accessibility analysis at UGent, specifically focusing on the relationship between travel behavior, accessibility and spatial planning, and post-doctoral researcher at VUB and UGent. He is now a guest professor in sustainable mobility transitions at the Mobility and Spatial Planning research group at UGent.
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 10, 2024 • 30min
467. The Gendered City - Nourhan Bassam
Nourhan Bassam Ph.D. (Feminist Urbanist, Ph.D Urban, Design & Placemaking, Founding Director The Gendered City, The Gendered City Author, FEM. DES. Network Creator)
The Book
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPB49Y4Dhttps://genderedcity.org
The NetworkFEM. DES
https://genderedcity.org/fem-deshttps://femurbanatlas.com
Nourhan Bassam is a feminist urbanist and architect with a Ph.D. in Urban Design and Placemaking. She is the founder of The Gendered City, an initiative that began as a book and has grown into an organization dedicated to building gender-equal cities through feminist placemaking and active citizen participation. Nourhan also launched FEM.DES., the world's largest feminist design network, bringing together over 350 experts from more than 35 countries to support and advance gender-equitable urban environments.
The Gendered City collaborates with numerous global partners, including UN-Habitat's HERCITY, and primarily focuses on social justice in the built environment through its parent organization, GamingX. As a research professor, Nourhan mentors Master's students in placemaking and feminist spatialities, guiding the next generation of urban thinkers. Her book, The Gendered City explores the challenges women face in urban spaces and has been sold in over 23 countries around the world. Her upcoming book, Feminist Spatialities, will analyze 50 feminist projects in cities, further expanding the conversation on inclusive urban design."
The Gendered City Book How Cities Keep Failing WomenThe Gendered City book aims to illuminate the intricate richness and complexities of urban lives by exploring the experiences of diverse groups, encompassing women, men, and various identities. Through this exploration, we seek to understand the interconnectedness between urban environments and gendered experiences. Employing an intersectional feminist lens to analyze the physical structures of the built environment. Dismantling gender as a rigid category and examining how it influences our interactions and encounters with the world. Gender is not an immutable or homogeneous construct; it intersects with other social categories such as race, class, and sexuality. This intersectionality reveals how these diverse identity dimensions overlap and intersect, resulting in unique experiences of oppression and privilege for individuals.Drawing inspiration from those who have paved the way, we aspire to a world where individuals can thrive irrespective of their gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or background. We envision cities as places of hope, potential, transformation, and innovation.
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 9, 2024 • 19min
466.SWE En studie av hur lekplatser i urbana miljöer kan anpassas för barn med synnedsättning - Naser Adib Hasso
Naser Hasso (Stadsplanerare & student vid Karlstads Universitet)
Vi pratar om Nasers examensarbete.
Studien undersöker hur lekplatser i urbana miljöer kan anpassas för barn med synnedsättningar. Nedan kan ni ta del av de rekommendationer som studien har kommit fram till. Alla rekommendationer och parametrar är viktiga att ta i beaktning vid planering och utformning av lekplatser i urbana miljöer.
Tillgänglighet: Taktila informationstavlor och kartor informerar barn med synnedsättningar om lekplatsens utformning och vilka lekaktiviteter som finns på platsen.
Användarvänlighet: Lättanvänd och informativ resurs.
Inkluderande design: Informationstavlor och kartor som kan användas av barn som förlitar sig på andra sinnen än synen.
Trygghet: Förbättrar rumsuppfattningen för barn med synnedsättningar, vilket minskar risken för skador genom att informera om lekutrustningens placering och användning.
Läs gärna mer här: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1877920&dswid=-1407
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Oct 8, 2024 • 20min
465. The city of Happy Proximity - Seunghoon Han
Seunghoon HAN (City DesignerAffiliation : Chaire ETI (Entrepreneurship Territory Innovation) at IAE Paris Sorbonne University)
The "Happy Proximity" concept is an idea in urbanism that emphasizes the benefits of having essential services, amenities, and social interactions within a short distance from where people live. It revolves around designing cities and neighborhoods in ways that enable residents to meet their daily needs—such as work, shopping, recreation, and socializing—without the need for long commutes.
This approach seeks to enhance quality of life by fostering walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that encourage walking, cycling, and public transport. It aligns with goals of sustainable urban development, creating more livable and socially connected communities, reducing reliance on cars, and promoting environmental sustainability. By focusing on accessibility and convenience, "Happy Proximity" aims to make cities not only functional but also enjoyable and fulfilling for their inhabitants.
It shares similarities with the "15-minute city" concept, where all necessities are accessible within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. However, "Happy Proximity" places more emphasis on the emotional and social well-being that results from being close to places and people that matter.
In collaboration with Placemaking Week Europe, 2024, Rotterdam. Read more https://pwe2024.sched.com/
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Let's connect and talk further about this episode Mustafa Sherif Linkedin.
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