After Saint Etienne, London and Milan, the international creative urban planning-architectural conference "HUMAN CITIES/ SHARING CLOUD”, gathered partners from eleven European cities - Saint Etienne, London, Milan, Ljubljana, Graz, Cieszyn, Helsinki, Bilbao, Tallinn, Brussels and Kragujevac - in Kragujevac's First Gymnasium.
The conference was organized by Belgrade Design Week, which has chosen Kragujevac to be the topic of its HUMAN CITIES/ focus, because of the city's important historical urban planning and industrial heritage in the heartland of Serbia, as well as current challenging historical crossroads between a post industrial town and key regional university centre, with 20.000 students.
“The Grand Park is a combination of the tradition and decades-long habit of the citizens of Kragujevac of all generations to gather in it, as well as this modern approach for the future development of the park. If you design the park so that everyone in it feels relaxed and free, just like in their own living rooms, if you offer a variety of content, then you have succeeded in the primary intent. I recognize that intent as the objective of the entire international project gathered today in Kragujevac. And that is to create a humane society, a positive environment, socialization, no feeling of loneliness - in a word, an improved quality of life for every person in the city“, said Ms. Dragica Nikolić, Serbia’s First Lady and the chairwoman of the “Foundation Dragica Nikolić“, at the opening of the conference.
"The partners from eleven European cities presented their own case studies at the conference, with results of exploring the way in which the inhabitants reclaim the constantly evolving contemporary city and ways of (re)inventing city life, as sources of wellbeing and quality of life. These are all projects that are dedicated to the idea of design as a basic asset for transformation of urban and public spaces" stated Jovan Jelovac from Belgrade Design Week.
The all-day event ended with the vernissage of the open-air exhibition of works of participants of the Human Cities/ project, on the city-square in front of the First Gymnasium. Hundreds of curious Gymnasium students and citizens of Kragujevac visited the vernissage, with the exhibition open for the following two weeks. The exhibition presented also the results of the competition for new urban park mobiliar of the Grand Park, produced in cooperation with the Faculty of Philology and Arts in Kragujevac.
“Human Cities / Sharing Cloud”, Kragujevac, 2017. Belgrade Design Week report on the launch of their international creative urban planning and architectural conference in Kragujevac, Serbia.