Urban Boost

The Urban Boosting Design Experience initiative invites reflection on how design can contribute to improving the city experience in its various areas of activity. Based on this exhibition, we invite various actors from the city and region, in education, public entities, social solidarity institutions and companies, to engage in a collaborative process to create solutions that contribute to better knowledge, integration and experience of the city and its public and semi-public spaces.

We therefore proposed the development of solutions in the areas of Game and Multimedia Design, Communication Design, Product Design, Ephemeral Spaces and Green Design. Each of the proposed exercises and experiences seeks to address issues or problems that we encounter in everyday city life. Some of the objectives of this experience are to get to know the city in a playful way, to better understand the routes and modes of transport within it, to find spaces for rest and individual communication in the midst of confusing environments, to find spaces for socialising and rest in public or collective spaces, and to mitigate problems related to extreme weather conditions.

This exhibition presents five basic prototypes for each of these areas, which allow us to reflect on the design processes that can be developed, based on a specific object and problem. These prototypes are open to transformation and appropriation through design exercises that can involve schools, universities, companies, and local institutions, so that they can give rise to commercial products with real applications in the city.

The Urban Boosting Design Experience Programme was included in an application submitted by the municipality in partnership with the Regional Tourism Authority and together with five other creative cities in the central region to the Integrated Territorial Intervention programme – Urban Networks programme, which aimed to develop an inter-city cooperation strategy through a network called “UNESCO CREATIVE CITIES OF CENTRAL PORTUGAL” within the thematic area of “Networks of Innovative Cities and Competitiveness”, whose strategies should promote urban innovation and competitiveness.