Design competitions are an opportunity to contribute towards an optimistic way forward via design research, granting freedom to explore with a curious and open mind. In partnership with creative city building strategist and author Paul Kalbfleisch, we participated in the 15-Minute City competition with The Charette, a leading architectural and design competition platform that seeks to disrupt traditional approaches to contemporary issues with bold new ideas. On July 15th, 2022 we learned that our submission, “The New 15”, was awarded the third-place prize, amongst an impressive international field of great ideas.

15-minute cities are defined as communities in which the population can travel from their homes to everything they need by foot, bike or public transit in 15 minutes or less. This concept has taken on heightened importance as cities around the world face issues surrounding climate change, affordability, and inclusivity.

We argue that within 15-minute cities, where distances are naturally shorter and isolating sectors is near impossible, a new design approach is achievable: one that shifts focus from efficiency to moving through the city as a social adventure. Our work focuses on what we call "social scatterings", which offer routes with mini destinations as opportunities to slow down for spontaneity and connection. We consciously designed various building blocks to further enhance the journey: experimenting with factors like form, permeability, smart density, and diverse land uses and mixes. Built form was thought of as a tool to shape delightful spaces and routes which in turn are community-building venues.

One of the competition’s judges said that The New 15 “…offers the sense of a human-centered creative and curiosity-inspired drive to create unique micro sites across the city fabric.”

Check out our submission, along with the other prize winners, honourable mentions, and top 30 at:

thecharette.org/15-minute-city-2022-results