Since the launch of the Norman Foster Foundation, its mission has been to promote interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations to anticipate the future. In order to respond to the growing importance of urbanization and its challenges, the Foundation is now embarking on a new initiative addressed to those who wish to improve the quality of life in cities worldwide, the Norman Foster Institute.
Its first program, On Sustainable Cities, will combine practical on-site experience with academic input from the foundation’s network of international experts, using the most up-to-date digital tools. Each year, scholars will visit three pilot cities to engage directly with their planners and managers.
'On Sustainable Cities' Program
The first course is related to the Norman Foster Institute, a 36-week program that consists of three stages —Foundations, Transformations and Interventions— with time divided between classrooms, labs, studios and cities.
- Foundations will consist of an in-depth study of the concepts and processes necessary to understand a city, from its history, governance, ethics and metrics that define sustainable cities. Special emphasis will be placed on understanding the ‘importance of a place’, building upon concepts such as ‘townscape/cityscape’ as well as different strategies of urban-space making.
- Transformations will provide an understanding of the challenges and opportunities for change in each city. It will study six of the fields in which a city could be defined: climate & natural environments, networks & mobility, planning & building, resources & energy, economy & social activity and culture & the arts.
- Interventions will enable ideas that reduce embodied and operational emissions and improve public health, creating a new vision for the community. This stage is dedicated to testing a range of strategies for sustainable improvement in each field for pilot neighborhoods.
The course will start with tools and skills that can be used to address wide-ranging issues in cities. For instance, leadership, advocacy, communication, presentation, diagramming, mapping, and the understanding and interpretation of data. These could be applicable to cities all over the world, as well as informal settlements and suburbia. Towards the end of the year, the scholars will present their findings to the city administration, and the lessons from these real-life experiences will be documented and presented in a public event. In Norman Foster's words, "The course is like an hourglass; starting wide in its scope, then narrowing down to focus on tangible issues that can be quantified and addressed, and finally, opening up to a wider debate."
The Norman Foster Institute Lab
As part of its program, the NFI (Norman Foster Institute) will have an innovative laboratory that will support the scholars in the development of sustainability strategies for the pilot cities. The NFI Lab will bring together recent technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality and interactive interfaces coupled with data-driven and evidence-based design methods to allow students to explore, test and evaluate their interventions.
The Norman Foster Institute has assembled an integrative team of professionals. Norman Foster, President of the Norman Foster Foundation, and Kent Larson, Head of the City Science group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, Co-Directors of the On Sustainable Cities Program, will lead a body of distinguished global experts drawn from diverse backgrounds and disciplines. The course will be overseen by an academic council that includes Professor Edgar Pieterse as the NFI's Provost; and architects Alejandro Aravena, Francis Kéré, and Deborah Berke, Dean of Yale University's School of Architecture. The academic chairs include Associate Professor Director of the Harvard Healthy Buildings Program, Joseph G. Allen, Arup Director and Holcim Board Member, Stuart Smith, among others.
The Norman Foster Institute is accepting applications now for its first academic program On Sustainable Cities, starting in Madrid in January 2024.
