AIR and NAi010 Publishers and NAi Booksellers present the book launch of Designing Change, Professional Mutations in Urban Design 1980 – 2020 by Eric Firley.

What influence do urgent urban challenges have on the work of urban planners and designers and how can the profession prepare for the future? A conversation with among others, the author of the new book ‘Designing Change’ Eric Firley, the Director of Urban Development of Berlin Regula Lüscher and the City of Rotterdam. AIR and NAi010 Publishers will explore how the urban design practice and work methods can improve the common good, enhance shared authorship with citizens and market parties and enhance the good growth of the city.

Designing Change tries to answer these and many other questions through in-depth discussions with 12 leading professionals. The book contributes to the discourse on the future of the built environment. It offers an unorthodox combination of project analysis and theoretical debate that addresses the complexity of the topic through a rigorous focus on process, commissioning and development initiatives.

Eric Firley is of French-German nationality and was born in Düsseldorf, Germany. He studied economics, architecture and city design in Fribourg, Lausanne, Weimar and London, and started his professional career in the real estate sector in Paris. In 2011 he became assistant professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture. Firley is the initiator and co-author of Wiley’s Urban Handbook Series.

Regula Lüscher worked the first part of her career as an architect in mostly Zürich. In 2007 she left her home country and moved to Berlin to head the planning and building department of the German capital. At the moment she is in her third term as Senatsbaudirektorin.