The Institute for Urban Design is currently preparing for the first annual Urban Design Week, a public festival created to engage New Yorkers in the fascinating and complex issues of the public realm and celebrate the city’s exceptional urbanity. Through a rich roster of charettes, summits, installations, film screenings, exhibitions, and tours, UDW will draw in citizens from every borough and walk of life and highlight the idea that cities are made by collective effort, and that each of us can be a part of that great endeavor.

The Institute for Urban Design is organizing UDW with more than 50 non-profit partner organizations and city agencies. By incorporating a wide variety of viewpoints at locations around the city, we hope to highlight myriad opportunities for individual citizens to get involved in the process of shaping the urban public realm, and give more New Yorkers to the tools to do just that!

To learn more about UDW or participate in planning for the festival, which is funded in part by a generous grant  from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Cultural Innovation Fund, please contact the Institute for Urban Design via email at info@ifud.org.

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By the City / For the City is a public ideas competition that will lead up to Urban Design Week. From April 11-30, New Yorkers can submit their ideas for designing a better New York at this site. From May 16-June 17, designers will choose sites and situations around the city to address, and their proposals will be published in an Atlas of Possibility for the Future of New York, which will be the subject of a major exhibition during September’s festival.