Audi and Columbia University reflect the most urgent issues about the mobility of the future in large cities with five hypotheses: asymmetric mobility , complexity, emigration, generosity and transgenerational capacity. In addition, with the Boston City project, Audi investigates the specific configuration that the different forms of mobility .
The Extreme Cities project, framed in the Audi Urban Future , focuses on megacities in 2050, when there will be as many people living in cities as those living today in nations around the world. This research project calls attention to possible opportunities and makes a reflection so that the city of the future can be considered as a resource. Five hypotheses, which Columbia University has developed in Cooperation with Audi , show in concrete terms where the innovative potential lies.
The objective is to bring the conditions of life in the urban environment to the extreme, to break the conventional patterns of thought and behavior. "We have identified five main factors for cities, which we analyze and lead to the limits. We consider these factors such as the most essential principles of urban density, catalysts that are generated by cities and evolve even more," says Marcos Wigley, dean of the Higher School of Architecture in Columbia and director of the Extreme Cities project.
In addition to a strategic look at the megacities of the future, Audi also pays attention to concepts of sustainable mobility in cities. With the aim of specifying the results of the Audi Urban Future , which were convened in 2012 for the second time, Audi brings together the winners, Howeler + Yoon Architecture, the creators of the project on the Boston/Washington region and Audi . Its mission is to treat the Boston City Dossier, a detailed social, spatial and technical analysis focused on the mobility of the city and the Boston metropolitan area.
The resulting knowledge would be included in a possible laboratory test on Mobility in Boston. Audi experts , belonging to several divisions of the company, including technical development and product strategy, will analyze what kind of innovations and knowledge they can accommodate in a mobility concept designed for the city of Boston. "We are investigating where there are concrete opportunities that offer us the possibility of closing the gaps in the chain of mobility," says Luca de Meo.
Both events were held from May 1 to 4 in parallel with the ideas City Festival of this year organized by the New York New Museum, which Audi has supported as the main sponsor since 2011. Interesting debates among the different actors of the fields of art, culture, education, urbanism and architecture planned to inspire the work of urban designers and architects, and to promote public discourse.
