URBAN AND TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY
María José Masnou Morera
Coordinator
Maria José Masnou, is an architect from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia-ESTAB. She is an urban design consultant and specialist in urban processes in the Asia Pacific region. Currently, she is an associate professor in the Master's Degree in 'Studies on Asia Pacific in the Global Context' at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona.
She has been a visiting professor at the Beijing College of Landscape Architecture (2017), Hangzhou Normal University (2018), and the Department of Landscape and Architecture at Central South University of Changsha (2015). In 2019 she was a researcher at the Lincoln Institute of Urban Development and Land Policy - Beijing University. She focuses her current research on comparative urban planning.
The working group on development and sustainability is presented as an initiative in action that aims to address the strategic issues that are influencing the future of cities in Europe and China and promote a framework for dialogue, exchange and cooperation.
The impact of climate change and global disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, pose the need to incorporate new transdisciplinary paradigms in the transformation and construction of 21st-century cities. We believe it is necessary to incorporate into urban and territorial development the concept of a green deal ─'Green Deal'─ widely understood within the framework of a circular economy that also includes citizens as main actors. Ecosystem urbanism capable of incorporating these variables is considered a necessary instrument.
Complementarily, the knowledge of the urban framework and the context of the maturity of urban governance in each environment - very different - will allow us to understand the dynamics that can hinder or favour the successful implementation of this new scenario.
These questions will be the axis on which the group's activities will take place, in the form of webinars, articles for reflection, workshops, cooperation projects.