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What is “Shaping The Future” video series?
Shaping The Future is a new video series aimed at empowering cities and businesses towards sustainable & zero carbon design, covering various topics around sustainable cities.
Season 1 will take viewers behind the scenes at URB headquarters in Dubai Design District, to learn more about designing cities that will shape the future. Topics include Smart Cities, Liveable Cities, Resilient Cities, Biophilic Cities, Green Infrastructure, Productive Cities, Empowering Cities, Inclusive Cities and more.
The videos aim to enable an edutainment knowledge platform, for cities and businesses to think holistically about the various challenges that directly impact quality of life, whilst promoting multi-functional solutions to reduce their impact on the environment. Rapid increase in urbanization, climate change and population are creating severe pressure on cities’ infrastructures as well as people’s quality of life.
This requires a more resilient approach to creating the next generation of sustainable cities that address food security, water conservation, waste recycling, renewable energy, building materials, mobility, biodiversity, air pollution, wellbeing and much more.
S1 E1: Empowering Cities
Episode 1 of “Shaping The Future” documentary series follows Baharash Bagherian, CEO of URB, who has masterminded designs of various sustainable cities currently under construction, to learn more about the importance of empowering cities to promote entrepreneurship from the bottom-up. This inward investment will create more green jobs whilst enabling a new breed of sustainable innovators to foster a new way of thinking about cities.
Baharash Bagherian highlights the backbone to the next generation of sustainable cities which is about empowering people at all levels. Empowering cities will flip the top-down system of urban planning, enabling an ecosystem for innovators from the bottom-up to address the social, economic, and environmental challenges facing so many cities worldwide. This will promote a culture of entrepreneurship within the built environment.
S1 E2: Sustainable Cities
In episode 2, Baharash Bagherian talks about the challenges and opportunities of the next generation of sustainable cities. The concept of a sustainable city is rapidly evolving as urban challenges grow, lifestyle habits change, socio-economic challenges expand and new technologies emerge. The increase rate of climate change is also fuelling new thinking in the planning of the next generation of sustainable cities, for which benchmark models are emerging.
S1 E3: Reinventing Cities
In episode 3, Baharash Bagherian discusses the opportunities of developing the next generation of sustainable cities. In this episode, Baharash Bagherian talks about the competitive advantage of sustainable developments, as well as the importance to access relevant knowledge on affordable sustainable practices.
S1 E4: Resilient Cities
In episode 4, Baharash Bagherian talks about the planning of resilient cities with a focus on green & blue infrastructure. A resilient city should have the capacity to maintain the same level of “quality of life”, should there be any future shocks to its built or natural environments, as well as its social or economic fabric.
S1 E5: Biophilic Cities
In episode 5, Baharash Bagherian talks about Biophilic cities and the importance of green spaces in our cities. Biophilic cities understand the benefits of incorporating nature into their urban fabric, with the objective of making people feel healthier and happier.
S1 E6: Productive Cities
In episode 6, Baharash Bagherian talks about the next generation of sustainable cities and how they are incorporating many different urban farming methods such as community gardens, bio domes, aquaponics, vertical farms & biosaline agriculture. Such cities are planned with productive landscapes that strengthen the resilience of cities, whilst providing youth with better understanding of the food system.
S1 E7: Smart Cities
In episode 7, Baharash Bagherian talks about the next generation of smart cities, which will have the capacity to analyse the exact amount of resources and services that is being consumed in real-time. This means understanding the exact amount of water, energy or waste and food that is being consumed in each part of the city, as well as understanding where key services are most required such as emergency and security. This allows for better management and efficient use of resources and services.
S1 E8: Liveable Cities
In episode 8, Baharash Bagherian talks about the importance of landscape in creating liveable cities and how the well-being of people are influenced by the quality of green spaces within the city.