X-Urban Design works beyond the conventional scales of territorial design, town planning, building or fabrication in designing a multi-scale habitat. As in the design of ecosystems, each level has its own rules of interaction and relation, and at the same time must comply with certain parameters that pertain to the system as a whole. The Studio focuses on projects that range in scale from the territory to the neighbourhood.

The idea of X-Urban Design is related to two issues: on one hand, the understanding of countries and cities around the world with emerging economies and cultures that, by virtue of their regional or economic position, can contribute value to the planet as a whole. In this sense the Studio seeks to identify the particular urban and territorial values of these places in order to construct more intelligent territories anywhere in the world, moving on from the Western idea that there is a single model of city (be it European or American) to work on the basis of more complex and more open values. The other issue related to intelligent cities has to do with their creation as intelligent territories that function in a multi-scalar way, emphasizing the relationship between nature, networks and nodes and promoting the ‘emergence’ of an urban intelligence through research on the application of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in different aspects of the urban infrastructure and public space.

X-URBAN DESIGN Research Studio is directed by Willy Müller.