In a plenary session on 26 July at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, as part of the three-day ‘Poiesis: Interdisciplinary Interventions on Urban Transformation’ symposium, Professors Ricky Burdett (LSE), Saskia Sassen (Columbia University), Richard Sennett (NYU/LSE) together with architect Michael Arad (Handel Architects) discussed whether ‘Urban Democracy by Design?’ was a fruitful notion.

The Poiesis symposium is the culmination of a three year research project on the making and remaking of cities led by Richard Sennett and Craig Calhoun in partnership with the Herbert Quandt and Gerda Henkel Foundations. Over three days, the international, interdisciplinary, group of scholars and practitioners involved in the project – from architects and filmmakers to physicists, sociologists and lawyers – will be convened by Cambridge geographer Ash Amin to discuss the future city.

A new blog series run jointly by LSE Cities and the British Politics and Policy blog at the LSE, one of the UK’s most widely read politics blogs, was launched last week and focuses on various public policy aspects of the London 2012 Olympics. The series kicked off with an article by LSE Cities’ Researcher Juliet Davis on the prospects of an Olympic legacy for communities in East London. New posts will be published from every Wednesdays over the period of the Olympic Games and can be read here.

Richard Sennett, renowned sociologist and Professor of Sociology emeritus at the LSE, was today officially admitted to the Honorary Fellowship of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The award of an Honorary Fellowship is one of the most prestigious awards that the School can bestow and is given to members of the School whose achievements are of conspicuous merit and have rendered outstanding service to the School. As part of the LSE Honorary Degree Ceremony, Professor Ricky Burdett delivered an oration on Professor Richard Sennett’s achievements. Richard Sennett, who has helped to create the Cities Programme at LSE, is also a long-standing contributor to the work at LSE Cities and currently serves as Chair of the Advisory Board and member of the Governing Board.

Two new publications, ‘Public City’ and ‘The Politics of Design’, were launched on Tuesday 26 June by the ‘Cities Programme’, LSE Cities’ graduate education branch.

The 2012 MSc Studio publication Public City, centred on the Barbican arts centre and housing development. The Barbican is a massive multi-level, multi-entry, modernist labyrinth in the City of London comprising the largest arts centre in Europe and a dense housing development, as a site for thinking about the problems and the potential of the ‘public city’. The Studio explored the public character of the city not simply in terms of designated spaces, but in terms of different kinds of use, of users and of urban interaction.

The second volume of the Cities PhD researchers’ publication citiesLab: The Politics of Design, is a compilation of working papers that focuses on different forms of ‘design’ in the city – from the design of policies to that of buildings and public spaces – and considers the ways that these practices and processes of design are implicated in various kinds of politics, both official and informal.

In a round table discussion organised by influential Berlin-based Academy of the Arts, LSE Cities Director Ricky Burdett together with Andy C. Pratt (King’s College) and Alain Thierstein (TU Munich) discussed how mega events and the creative economy shape the development of cities. Burdett, who was Chief Adviser on Architecture and Urbanism for the London Olympics, asked to what degree mega events can be planned sustainably.

Today’s “Urbanization day”, organised by the Institute of City Planning at Braunschweig University of Technology, had Executive Director Philipp Rode deliver a talk on transport equity in three rapidly urbanising cities: São Paulo, Istanbul and Mumbai. The one-day event invited four international practitioners and academics to speak about their work on various aspects of global urbanisation. The event has been supported by the Alfred Herrhausen Society, the international forum and charity of Deutsche Bank that also supports the Urban Age Programme.