The Conference The Future Design of Streets in Guimarães last week provided a wonderful stage for finding allies and deepening willpower to create better streets and more human-centred (rather than tech- or car-centred) planning. I was also happy to contribute to a little bit of controversy, by challenging the collection of ever more data as a desirable goal in itself. Below I share some of the key ideas that stayed with me:

🕺Many “Third Cultures of Mobilities” – cross-cultural inspirations and practices – are circulating in the world of thinkers on streets… ❤️💚💜💙

💡Questioning: what objects were there before the car became a dominant vehicle, which will survive even when the car is gone? How can infrastructure be re-used (this was discussed in the lecture by Eric Alonzo, referring also to David Lynch’s book on waste). I felt this was inspiring also in line with Dougald Hine’s “At Work in the Ruins”: which of those parts are indeed worth bringing with us into the future, and which can / should we let go of?

✍🏾🎨The beauty and solidarity that can be created when students are invited to engage locally and draw layered impressions of Everyday Streets, in a close, non-extractive way (Agustina Martire, and with a shout-out to the beautiful open access book “Everyday Streets” )

🌇🕴️Ground floor spaces as relatively accessible catalysts for changing the feel of a street – it’s something I have thought of often and feel everyday, and yet seeing interventions by Rés do Chão, presented by Margarida Marques, was so inspiring

💬🗯️Conflict can often be easier to deal with in larger groups rather than very small ones… interesting hypothesis / experience shared by Margarida Marques!

🌳🪲🐝🐕🐈🐓…In architecture and design, nature is increasingly considered – yet is it enough? The Nature session made me look back on my Questioning Streets article and realize with shock that I hadn’t included a relationship with more-than-humans and nature in the list of themes, despite this being so close to my heart! I invite everyone to consider this an 8th theme whenever considering the origins, uses and futures of streets! (For the other 7 themes, see the open access article here)

👀🙌Look for your allies, they are often hidden, but they exist! (Thank you for the reminder, Maria Vassilakou)

💪 Everything is impossible, until it isn’t! – Demetrio Scopelliti

💃🏼And finally, I found out about the Outta Climate Festival, presented by Hara Liakou – what a beautiful initiative! The MobileWorlds Festival will look different, yet I hope to achieve a bit of that spirit, and I sure feel inspired. More such work on the intersection between arts and urbanism is sorely needed!

As Gabriela Antunes Armstrong also put it, there is even more space to go beyond Europe, but there was already a beautiful mix represented here. Perhaps the next conference can broaden its scope to consider streets as even more diverse, and perhaps not always as thoroughly “designed” as those that were the focus during this conference.

🙋‍♀️Thank you Daniel Casas Valle, Ivo Oliveira, Catarina Breia Dias, and the whole organizing team for the wonderful conference!

Thank you also to the wonderful people – some previous, some new, acquaintances – who discussed with me in various moments throughout the conference to make it an even richer and inspiring two days. I look forward to counting you all among my allies in future! You can certainly count me in among yours.

Find some impressions from the conference in the photo gallery below:

Denne bildekrusellen krever javaskript.