At Marko&Placemakers, we increasingly see the role of the architect as mediator and enabler of a participatory and collaborative processes reaching beyond the physical aspects of design. We believe that successful city making needs to combine both bottom-up and top-down approach, in order to sustain growth and genuine character of places. This means not only engagement of local people and stakeholders, but also lobbying and negotiating with decision makers to ensure that energy invested into bottom-up initiatives will have a genuine and lasting effect on the whole community, not just communities of interest.
 

Recoded City sheds light on this new epoch in the relationship between cities and civil society by presenting an emerging range of collaborative solutions and distributed governance models. The authors draw on their own fresh research of global pioneers forging local design strategies, public-realm interventions and new stakeholder dynamics. Because of its close engagement with people, place and local identity, the field of participatory placemaking has huge untapped potential. Responding to the challenges of the Anthropocene era, Recoded City is for decision-makers, developers and practitioners working globally to make better and more liveable cities.

​