How can the use of data inspire a new perspective on urban planning in cities?

The challenges faced by cities and their inhabitants are many and varied. If we consider a house as the smallest individual space that integrates a city, the area outside of it, the streets and facilities, would need to be rethought as a project in constant transformation, inspiring, and allowing the members of this other common space to experience it as close, cohesive, and their own.

The IFC team carried out a series of participatory workshops for the exhibition “Dream the City,” curated by Prensa Ibérica and the Generalitat de Catalunya at the Palau Robert in Barcelona from March 20 to May 20, 2023. The exhibition wanted to be presented as a way to reimagine the dreamed city and turn it into reality. A way to bring this narrative closer to the public, visualising how urban space can be rethought from various perspectives.

The participants, architecture students from the University of La Salle in Barcelona, responded to the question: How do we rethink the city model with the architects of tomorrow?

Through a workshop exploring the city’s data (open data and citizen data), with a special emphasis on citizen science, work was done in 3 phases to immerse the participants in the creation and actions of a participatory work process around the main issues affecting the city.