Organisation profile

The Urban Design: Transformation and Mobilities research group (UTM) is the only urban design research group in Denmark and we customize interdisciplinary and critical-creative research methods to the specificities of people and places, to inquiry into critical agendas for cities and territories. The groups seeks to create knowledge that can influence the creation of sustainable urban futures. Doing research, the critical investigate how, what and for whom these urban futures are for. Our dynamic research in the field of urban design is grounded by two key components. The first, how we can reimagine our built, lived and experienced environment to create new futures, and the second to situate our findings and results through action, in the form of practical design solutions, policies, curatorial experiments and strategies.

The research covers the rapid change of our cities in the post millennium period, focusing on the investigation of different methods and approaches in order to create tools that can support a more sustainable and long-term proof urban development. Our research pays particular attention to the entanglement of the physical and built environment with social, cultural and political aspects of urban life. How commuting, everyday life transport, digital media, new production and consumption patterns have effects beyond mere displacement of people, information and goods. Thus, the networked patterns of contemporary urbanity are sites of social, spatial, cultural, and technological transformation, which is explored in the interdisciplinary research agenda of transforming and mobile cities.