🏙️ Urban MAESTRO Project Summary: Urban Design Governance
Urban MAESTRO was a Coordination and Support Action that aimed to identify, document, analyze, and encourage innovative strategies for the governance of urban design. The core focus was to look beyond sophisticated, formal regulatory frameworks (‘hard-power’)—which often lead to disappointing urban quality—and explore the contribution of alternative, non-regulatory (‘soft-power’) approaches.
🎯 Overall Objectives and Core Focus
The project was driven by the observation that while existing laws prevent the worst development, they often fail to ensure high-quality, sustainable, and livable places.
- Soft-Power Governance: Urban MAESTRO emphasized strategies where public authorities act as enablers, brokers, or inspirational leaders rather than just regulators or direct investors.
- Tool Synergy: The project focused on the synergy between formal tools (like zoning) and informal tools (like architectural competitions, peer review, temporary interventions, and non-mandatory guidance).
- Financial Mechanisms: A particular focus was placed on the relationship between informal tools and financial mechanisms to enhance the effectiveness of both approaches in achieving better design and social objectives.
đź’ˇ Main Results and Key Outputs
Over the project’s lifespan, the team conducted a Europe-wide survey, developed detailed case studies, and engaged with stakeholders through workshops and a Policy Dialogue.
Key Deliverables and Outputs
- Typology of Urban Design Governance Tools: Conceptualizing a new framework to categorize and relate different formal and informal practices.
- Case Studies: Collected data on over 95 governance practices and elaborated 37 detailed case studies focusing on innovative approaches.
- Policy Recommendations: Summarized key findings into a set of practical recommendations for public authorities, disseminated through an online publication.
🚀 Progress Beyond State-of-the-Art and Impact
Urban MAESTRO’s primary innovation was the unique, pan-European focus on the full gamut of informal urban design governance tools, moving the debate beyond traditional regulation.
Contribution Beyond the State-of-the-Art
- New Policy Agenda: Successfully placed informal urban design governance on the policy agenda in Europe.
- Common Language: Established a typology of tools and formulated a new common language for discussing urban design governance practices.
- Value Connection: Demonstrated the link between urban design governance tools and instruments of development finance, showing how this synergy can enhance place value.
- Guiding Principles: Identified six overarching principles for effective urban design governance practice.
The project aims to provide a boost for less advanced practices globally, ultimately leading to a widespread improvement in the quality, sustainability, and liveability of the built environment.
