The United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development Habitat III in Quito, Ecuador has been the first gathering in 20 years where the international community, led by national governments, has collectively taken stock of fast-changing urban trends and the ways in which these patterns are impacting on human development, environmental well-being, and civic and governance systems worldwide.

Cities are where most of the planet’s population now live, and they offer the best opportunity to effect practical change at scale, and in a context to which people can relate.

In the framework of the congress, in the Pop-Up Public Space – a temporary urban micro intervention demonstrating the importance of public space – IAAC Co-founder Vicente Guallart presented the Fab City global initiative.

The Fab City is an international initiative, started by IAAC, MIT’s CBA, the Barcelona City Council and the Fab Foundation and leaded by Tomas Diez Director of the IAAC Fab City Research Lab, aimed at developing locally productive and globally connected self-sufficient cities.

It comprises an international think tank of civic leaders, makers, urbanists and innovators working on changing the paradigm of the current industrial economy where the city operates on a linear model of importing products and producing waste.