Designing future cities for the benefit of people, place, and planet encourages us to recognise that wellbeing is a dynamic rather static concept. Rather than simply designing cities to cope with demand, it is clear we need to improve wellbeing and quality of life for all beings, actively and consciously through their design.

This keynote will explore key issues including:

•How do we design for millions of individuals?
•Understanding diversity and difference in cities and designing for the life course.
•Establishing the interrelationships between people and place to understand how we can choreograph ‘collective effervescence’.
•Examining how current trends and innovations such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and wearable technologies might affect our experience of and expectations for future cities.

It will propose that designing future cities requires us to radically rethink the boundaries of the design disciplines by considering places as superorganisms that can support humans and non-humans. In doing so, it explores the various opportunities, challenges, and barriers to deliver wellbeing in future cities for everyone. To conclude, the lecture will examine the notion of flourishing and how we can design for all to ensure sustainable, equitable, and convivial futures for collective life.