habitat III

Habitat III is the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development held in Quito, Ecuador, from 17 – 20 October 2016 (after the Habitat I – Vancouver 1976 and Habitat II – Istanbul 1996). The Conference started at 17, but many activities and official preparatory meetings started on 15th of October. The Conference held in City of Quito, the capital of the Ecuador. It spreads along the slopes of the Pichincha Volcano (Ands) at the attitude of 2818m. It is founded in the 16th century (by the Spanish) on the Inca\’s ruins and despite of strong earthquake from 1917, it has the best preserved historical centre respect all Latin American cities. It is protected by UNESCO as cultural heritage of outstanding universal value from 1978 (1 of 8 sites protected for the very first time).
According to greatly increasing population and urbanization, the Conference focused on rethinking New Urban Agenda for new models of sustainable development. Stressed out by almost all keynote speakers presented, the keyword for the urban future is recapturing the cities.
The Conference was organized trough series of parallel events, side events, stakeholders’ roundtables, high-level roundtables, special sessions, plenary meetings, assemblies, dialogues, networking events, training events, urban stage, urban talks, urban library, urban future, one UN pavilion and urban journalism academy. Most of the events were open for the participants. In the name of Urban Thinker Campus “The City We Need: Open for art”, in front of the Department of Architecture, Design and Urbanism in Alghero, University of Sassari and Public art & Public space from Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, we were invited and participated as a speaker at the side event called “Implementing the New Urban Agenda? The Role of Urban Thinkers Campuses and The City We Need”. The topic of the meeting was summing up the lessons learned and key messages from 26 Campuses held all around the world during 2015 and 2016. Further, the discussion took the direction towards possibilities for the implementation of the concepts highlighted by the Campuses.
Another aspect of the Habitat III Conference was \”Quito Implementation Plan\” . It refers specific voluntary commitment about the implementation of the outcomes of the Habitat III Conference and the New Urban Agenda. The commitments are looking for “concrete actions, measurable and achievable, focused on implementation, and with great depth of information for future accountability and transparency.” (Habitat III, 2016)
Parallel activity with the Conference program was Habitat Village. It was constructed on the streets of Quito with the purpose to offer an experience of the New Urban Agenda. A series of pavilions representing world countries or/and innovative solutions (like pop-up talks on placemaking, mobile class e-waste or innovative urban furniture) was build and different side events took a place in Habitat Village. Side events were like a living laboratory of urban innovations realized by particular organisation(s) who are previously applied and been accepted to implement the spatial installations and performances.

And the \”New Urban Agenda\” is adopted.

habitat III / gallery