IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section A

Abstract

This paper examines the potential of a cultural design ethos to humanize cities and to affect positive change despite growing regressive ideological and political efforts. Using a study abroad course conducted in June 2022 as an impetus, the paper focuses on Copenhagen, a city whose design philosophy has been centered around social and environmental well-being post-World War II. Voted the happiest city on earth in 2019, the recent change in Denmark’s political climate threatens to reverse the progress made by this design-centric, eco-centric, human-centric, and forward-thinking city in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and marks a dangerous trend occurring across Europe today. By exploring a series of historical and contemporary case studies, the paper will analyze how Danish design has permeated urban life to demonstrate the benefits of a consciousness that places the city in harmony with human beings and the environment. Following 15 female Arab students through the “happy city”, we measured the impacts on a culture that prioritizes humanized design. Through documented experiential, autoethnographical research and creative production culminating in a multimedia journal, students generated a collection of independent and collaborative mappings of Copenhagen, exposing a willingness to experiment found throughout all aspects of design in attitude as much as practice. Finally, the paper questions the power of a collective attitude of environmental and social responsibility to stand in the face of a surging right-wing movement in the hopes of making a case for a cultural design ethos toward urban futures.