Streets are rich and layered societal spaces. They are an integral part of our daily living environment: as social spaces that function as public, collective, and democratic spaces; as natural spaces, providing habitats for flora and fauna, including trees, soil, and water; and as mobility spaces, serving as essential components of broader mobility networks, offering large-scale connections and local accessibility.
In recent decades, the way streets are used and transformed has fundamentally changed. In many cities, towns, and villages across Europe, we can find beautiful, inspiring, meaningful, and collectively created examples of recent street projects. These go beyond the scale of a single project, involving a transformation of the entire street network and living environment. A rich spectrum of possible solutions – making streets collective spaces – is available to everyone, often based on social and natural values, where mobility is rebalanced to reduce its dominance in street spaces.
As society rapidly evolves and major social challenges emerge, we must question how we use and design our streets. This raises the critical question: ‘If we know all the solutions, why can’t we accelerate the action?’
Our second international conference, the Future Design of Streets, will gather actors/players from diverse fields and contexts to reflect, debate, and share knowledge and experiences on designing and planning better streets for current and future generations. Over two days, it will connect academia with practitioners, bridging theory and best practices.
The conference is organised by ´the Future Design of Streets association’ in collaboration with the ‘EAAD School of Architecture, Art, and Design’ and the research unit ‘Landscape, Heritage and Territory Laboratory (Lab2PT),’ both from the University of Minho, and will take place at the Centro Cultural Vila Flor in Guimarães, Portugal.
SPEAKERS
Maria Vassilakou
Maria Vassilakou served 2010-2019 as Viennas Vice Mayor for Urban Planning, Traffic & Transport, Climate Protection, Energy and Public Participation. She is an experienced urban leader, devoted to open, inclusive and green cities, with a passion for urban transformation processes leading to sustainable change. Having founded Vassilakou Urban Consulting GmbH – Vienna Solutions, Maria Vassilakou now works as an expert strategist and global advisor on urban transformation and transition management, sharing her experience and know-how from the worlds most livable city Vienna with cities, NGOs, organizations and corporations worldwide.
Michael Glotz-Richter
Michael Glotz-Richter (Dipl.-Ing. SRL) is an internationally recognised mobility consultant and transport engineer.
His career includes almost 40 years in various local and provincial German authorities (Berlin, Cologne, Bremen) and as freelance consultant. Michael initiated and conducted many internationally recognised projects on sustainable mobility. A key area is liveable street space in urban neighbourhoods – promoting sustainable modes and integrating shared mobility services.
Within the European Commission’s Expert Group on Urban Mobility (EGUM), he chairs its working group on street space.
David Sim
With some 25 translations to date, the book “Soft City” has established David Sim as a thought-leader in urban livability and sustainable planning.
A well-respected practitioner, David Sim has an impressive portfolio, personally leading master plans, urban strategies and design work across the globe, from the Highlands of Scotland to the lakes of Patagonia, from suburban Melbourne to downtown Tokyo, from finding new ways to build IKEA stores to rebuilding Christchurch after the devastating 2011 earthquake.
After 17 years At Gehl in Copenhagen, David Sim is now based in Sweden, creative director at Think Softer Planning.
Giacomo Gallo
Giacomo (1988) is an architect and urban designer, founder of NEW ENVIRONMENTS, an urban design agency from Amsterdam. He works internationally on urban assignments connecting different disciplines and scales. Climate-positive design and wellbeing act as core pillars for his projects.
Giacomo is committed to education: the driving force for critical thinking and activism. He is design critic and guest lecturer at the Amsterdam and Rotterdam Academies of Architecture, where he pursues learning through urban practice.
He gained experience at UNStudio, KCAP, and MUST, working on complex international and Dutch urban design projects involving multiple stakeholders.
The conference will feature many more speakers. More information will follow soon.
CONFERENCE ORGANISATION TEAM
Daniel Casas-Valle
Daniel is an urbanist – urban designer and planner – with a broad experience based on urban planning practices and academic activities. He is for more than two decades connected to urbanism, as a designer and researcher. Currently, he works on various urban design projects and planning studies at his office Urban Dynamics in Porto/Amsterdam, at the MDT/CEAU/FAUP as a researcher and is director of the Future Design of Streets association. Daniel holds a master on urbanism (Amsterdam, NL), and completed his PhD at the Faculty of Architecture, Porto University, in 2018 (cum laude). As responsible team leader he also won several urban design and planning competitions.
Chair of the second international conference the Future Design of Streets 2025.
Ivo Oliveira
Architect (FAUP, Porto, 2000) with a Master in Architecture Territory and Memory (FCTUC, Coimbra, 2007) and PHD (EAUM, Guimarães, 2015). Professor at the EAUM since 2004, and since 2015 researcher of LAB2PT at Minho University. Is researcher on topics as road infrastructure and public space in widely urbanized territory. Ivo contributed to different research work as “NO Void – Ruins and vacant land in Portuguese cities: exploring the dark life of abandoned urban spaces and alternative planning proposals for the perforated city” (2015-19) and “The Sea and the Shore, Architecture and Marine Biology: The Impact of Sea Life on the Built Environment” (2018-20). He is director of the Integrated Master in Architecture program and member of UM-Cities board from 2017, a platform that seeks to promote and value exemplary practices in the city and territory, namely how they can contribute to a more sustainable and fair society.
Chair of the second international conference the Future Design of Streets 2025.
Catarina Breia Dias
Catarina Breia Dias, Cacém (1994). Master’s in architecture at the Lisbon School of Architecture (2018). Catarina has been working as an architect between Lisbon, Ghent and Porto. Currently she holds a fellowship from Lab2PT, at Minho’s University and is part of the Future Design of Streets platform. Catarina advocates for a social, multicultural and age inclusive city, a cohesive territory on the city centre, but also the outskirts, and, for new paradigms that bring out the community involvement within the design process.
Curently, she works on her PhD research Street transformations towards mobility, social and urban nature spaces: concepts and practises.
Carina Gomes
Carina Gomes, Braga (1990). Master in architecture at the School of Architecture, Arts and Design at University of Minho in Guimarães (2016) and Postgraduate in Spatial Planning and Urban Project at Faculty of Engineering – University of Porto (2023). Carina began her professional career in Vienna and works currently at the office Urban Dynamics in Porto. She is passionate about creating inclusive, equitable, and vibrant urban environments that encourage community involvement and sustainability, with a particular focus on how public spaces can serve as catalysts for social interaction and cultural expression within diverse communities.
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