The Urban Village Project – An Interview with Jamiee Williams

In the podcast interview with Jamiee Williams, Architectural Lead at SPACE10, we discuss the recently announced Urban Village Project. The project rethinks how we design, build, finance and share our future homes, neighborhoods, and cities. SPACE10 is IKEA’s global research and design lab. SPACE10 is on a mission to respond to the major societal changes expected to affect people and our planet in the years to come; alongside that, they’re here to inspire IKEA to find new ways of living up to their original promise of creating a better everyday life for the many people. Jamiee Williams, SPACE10 About the Urban Village Project “It is clear that unless we rethink our built environment, our cities will become increasingly unsustainable, unaffordable and socially unequal. For us, shared living can offer potential solutions to some of these urgent challenges. The Urban Village Project looks at how we can create new realities that promote a sense of well-being and turn the spaces we inhabit into healthier and happier places, all while being more affordable and efficient for those that live there,” says Jamiee Williams. Cities all around the world are facing rapid urbanization, aging populations, climate change and a lack of natural resources. At the same time, we are in the middle of a global housing crisis. ​We simply aren’t building enough affordable homes to keep up with the demand. 1.5 million people are moving to a city every week, meaning that in just a little over a decade, 1.6 billion people are projected to lack access to affordable, adequate and secure housing. So, we have a problem. On top of this, we face another challenge: people are living closer and are more connected than ever before, but we still feel increasingly lonely, anxious and stressed in our cities. It’s in the intersection of these pressing challenges where SPACE10 and EFFEKT Architects believe The Urban Village Project might offer a solution. We know that around 40% of the areas that will need to be urbanized in 2050 do not yet exist—meaning that as daunting as the task is, we have a blank canvas to explore how we want the future of our cities to look like and function. SPACE10 researched and explored the idea of shared living for two years. Together with EFFEKT Architects and IKEA, SPACE10 have condensed those insights into a concrete concept and vision that they now ask the world to give feedback on. Learn more about the project at urbanvillageproject.com. Send your feedback and questions to [email protected]. The images are courtesy of SPACE10 and EFFEKT Architects. Listen to the Interview (also on iTunes)