CITYMAKERS

Meet Jana Brokate, who is supporting our CITYMAKERS platform as digital content manager. She strongly believes in a people-centric and inclusive approach as a foundation for creating liveable cities.

Meet Jan Siefke, who is supporting our CITYMAKERS platform as photographer and host of C*SPACE. City making for him means to question the visible environment – checking the heartbeat of your surrounding, feeling the space – and if possible act on it in your personal style, with your personal skills.

Get to know Silvan Hagenbrock, who has been part of our CITYMAKERS core team since 2016 and contributes his creative energy as filmmaker and editor on urban issues. For him, CITYMAKERS is a (virtual) sphere where the supposedly “other” becomes a little more familiar.

Get to know Anusha Venkatachalam Iyer, who participated in the CITYMAKERS Virtual Walk Project with her documentary film ‘Walking the Chinese Countryside’, drawing a parallel between urban and rural spaces in China. Anusha believes that enabling a  healthy lifestyle in harmony with nature is one of the most important missions in city making.

Get to know Gerrit Manke, who is supporting the CITYMAKERS team as a student assistant. Gerrit is studying Urban and Regional planning at the Technical University in Berlin and is fascinated by the Chinese perspective of urban development.

Knut Wimberger ist Partner von Green Steps in Shanghai. Die auf Umweltbildung für Kinder und Jugendliche, Schulen und Firmen fokussierte Organisation vermittelt einen zukunftsfähigen Umgang mit den Ökosystemen Shanghais. Im Gespräch mit Silvan Hagenbrock warnt Knut Wimberger: Die Biodiversität der Shanghaier Wetlands könnte in den nächsten fünf Jahren bereits zerstört sein.

Meet Prisca Arosio, shaping our cities and spaces as an urban designer and architect. Prisca Arosio and her colleague Bobby Born participated in the CITYMAKERS Virtual Walk Project with their film ” A conscious walk during pandemic in Amsterdam”. highlighting the influence of the culture of walking on urban planning and development.

Meet Ping Kong, who is a trained urban planner with international working experience in the field of UNESCO World Heritage. She believes in city making as a participatory approach that serves as a knowledge reservoir to nurture innovation and collaboration towards a better living environment.

Get to know Noémie Koenig, who developed her interest in city making throughout her bachelor’s in social science, during which she worked in several city planning projects. She believes that a decentralised global network like CITYMAKERS enables intercultural learning and building processes as well as gaining a better understanding for the differences and similarities between China and Europe.

In 2002, architect and Feng Shui consultant Howard Choy and his wife Gyda Anders, also an architect, opened their office arqitektur in Weißensee, Berlin. In this interview, Howard Choy explains his understanding of Feng Shui and his attachment to the district Weißensee.

Get to know Edna Peza-Ramirez, who is specialized in the creation of safe public spaces through bottom-up solutions and human-scale approaches. For her, city making is defined by the degree in which cities tend to the safety of their most vulnerable users.

Meet Marlene Welzel, social entrepreneur and founder of the Vienna-based housing platform Wohnbuddy. For her, city making is about being innovative, about creating and providing solutions to the challenges you are identifying – and also about communicating, getting in touch with people from different organizations and gaining new insights.

Meet Sonja Broy, who is working at the intersection between urban architecture, city development, science, art, culture and journalism. Being a city maker for her means to interact and change arguments, visions and inspirations with all kinds of different people – and to shape the future of living areas and communities.

Daniel Zhang is an architect based in Changsha who studied architecture at Carnegie Mellon University in the US and continued a doctorate in India and Germany. He is also the founder of P8 Community in Changsha.

Laura Bruns, co-founder of StadtStattStrand, speaks with Kika Yang about the project “Urbane Liga”, the importance of lobbying and building trust as well as their publications launched to empower citizens to ‘just do it’. This podcast is part of our series recorded at the CITYMAKERS Social Entrepreneurship Competence Lab.

In this podcast, Kika Yang talks to Erik Ackner, Country Manager at Startup Grind and former organiser of Startup Grind in Chengdu, about the innovation ecosystem in China. This podcast is part of the series recorded against the background of the CITYMAKERS Social Entrepreneurship Competence Lab.

With her broad experience within start-ups and social organisations, Jah Ying Chung identified a gap that she is now dedicating her time to fill: Her consultancy “The Good Growth Co” helps companies after their successful launching period to develop a consistent strategy for their development. This podcast is part of our series recorded at the CITYMAKERS Social Entrepreneurship Competence Lab.

Combining their backgrounds in stage design, architecture and movement-based expressive arts, Andrea Weigt & Cyrus Khazaheli offer an environment in which people can connect with nature and with themselves – and generate new ideas. They see themselves as a part of a movement towards a new model of community life in the countryside. This podcast is part of our series recorded at the CITYMAKERS Social Entrepreneurship Competence Lab.

Jonas Schorr talks with Kika Yang about his journey: From growing up in East Berlin to moving to West Germany and then step-by-step turning into a cosmopolitan social entrepreneur with his recently founded company, Urban Impact. This podcast is part of our series recorded at the CITYMAKERS Social Entrepreneurship Competence Lab.

For sociology M.A. student LI Mingjiu, healthy city-making means enhancing human rights instead of adhering to neoliberal concerns. For him it is paramount that the individual person is centered as the end to urban health initiatives and not mobilized or discarded as an instrument in the name of urban stability and “harmony.” Read this analysis to learn about his thoughts on healthy city making.