Design, fabrication, and the future of vibrant cities

By Lorenzo Bona

Urban Spaces and Their Everyday Impact on People

Most of us share the everyday experience of living and working in cities or urban environments. Streets, buildings, and everyday architectural elements influence how we move, interact, and feel in our daily routines, often in ways that are subtle but deeply influential. Over time, they contribute to shared habits, practices, and values – many of the elements that together form what we could call our culture.

Recognizing the influence of these urban and architectural experiences makes it easier to see why the goal of building better cities and more thoughtful spaces to live and work is closely connected to improving the quality of life for many people.

Culture and Architecture from an Economic Lens

The everyday influence that buildings and other architectural spaces have on our lives can also be approached through a more analytical framework.

From economic perspectives that draw on insights from fields such as sociology and psychology, the notion of culture can be understood as encompassing beliefs, habits, and social practices, along with tangible products and intangible values connected to human creativity.

Within this framework, architectural spaces or objects may emerge as particularly visible manifestations of culture. In other words, architecture as a professional and research field could be largely seen – similarly to disciplines such as interior design or fashion design – as fostering creations that lie at the intersection of material function and immaterial meaning, producing both practical utility and cultural or emotional value. Consider, for instance, the Brooklyn Bridge: its role in facilitating pedestrian and vehicular mobility appears essentially inseparable from the aesthetic experience, the sense of history, and the emotions it tends to evoke, illustrating how a functional infrastructure can simultaneously act as a cultural object or product.

The Role of Manufacturers and Skilled Artisans

To build on this perspective and better understand how the buildings we live and work in influence daily experience, it may be useful to consider not only the forms of creativity typically associated with architects, engineers, and design-build professionals – who often conceive buildings as coherent whole systems – but also other expressions of creativity and entrepreneurship, such as the efforts of fabricators or manufacturers, as well as skilled artisans, whose craftsmanship in shaping individual architectural elements may profoundly affect how these buildings are experienced.

In a similar vein to ideas introduced earlier, it may be observed that the art or creative work of producing carefully designed and masterfully crafted architectural elements, for example, a door or window, may also be conceived as operating at the intersection between functionality and forms of cultural and emotional expression.

When thoughtfully designed and masterfully fabricated, such elements might be seen as more than purely functional, as they may share important analogies with cultural and creative goods.

In other words, it does not seem an exaggeration to observe, in some architectural products, a coexistence between their material presence and intangible qualities that may evoke various emotions, such as a sense of aesthetic comfort or beauty, or possible perceptions linked to the passage of time – qualities that often shape how individuals experience spaces and how communities relate to their surroundings.

Architectural Products and Everyday Cultural Value

Unlike standard economic goods, whose use is typically exclusive to individual consumers, products that reflect a cultural character in their fabrication – such as aesthetic comfort or a sense of design excellence – can be enjoyed simultaneously by many without diminishing their value, a quality often associated with cultural goods or artistic expressions, such as paintings, sculptures, or films.

Beyond their individual aesthetic and cultural value, and much like artistic creations, well-conceived architectural products also seem capable of generating social experiences.

For example, a carefully crafted door or set of exterior windows seems able to be appreciated simultaneously by many people, not just for their function but for the aesthetic and emotional experience they convey, contributing in small but meaningful ways to the quality of shared spaces and experiences. In this way, architectural products may appear to subtly contribute to a sense of connectedness between people and places, even if these effects are not always immediately or fully evident. Perhaps a useful historical example relevant in this regard is Lorenzo Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise in Florence, which – while operating as functional architectural doors – seem to be frequently admired for their artistic and cultural qualities.

Urban Implications and Historical Insights

At the urban scale – when viewed through the lens of economic development – these lines of reasoning may invite further considerations.

Cities that value architectural craftsmanship and design quality may be better prepared to foster trust, inclusiveness, and long-term resilience.

Historical examples, such as Florence and Siena during the Renaissance, illustrate this effect: high levels of civic trust, robust social cohesion (reflected in the shared use and pride in beautifully designed piazzas, streets, and public buildings), and economic resilience (supported by the thriving trade, banking, and artisan economies) were reinforced by durable, well-crafted urban infrastructure, networks of guilds or professional organizations, and citizen participation in public life.

At the same time, just as cultural institutions and events tend to attract individuals seeking intellectual and emotional enrichment, well-conceived design work and thoughtful product fabrication efforts seem able to quietly but powerfully enhance urban life and socio-economic vitality.

Towards Enhanced Collaboration Across Professions and Borders

We live in a time that seems marked by the rise of what could be described as apparent forms of protectionism, yet even in this context, globalization continues to offer remarkable opportunities for human progress, also in relation to the goal of creating or revitalizing cities and urban spaces in ways that can significantly enhance the quality of life for everyone.

The achievement of this goal may very likely depend on several factors. For example:

• A combination of local and international artisanal expertise, which could be further reinforced by higher levels of international collaboration and trade.

• The emergence of new forms of multi-professional collaboration between architects, design-build professionals, fabricators of architectural products, and other professionals connected to the construction sector.

In other words, collaborative dynamics of this kind may appear consistent with the possibility of a greater integration – beyond current practices – between craftsmanship, innovation, and human-centered design. These dynamics, which may help shape built environments that are not only more efficient but also more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable over time, could perhaps have magnified effects if they increasingly draw on opportunities present at both local and global scales.

Strategic Approaches for Designers and Architectural Product Fabricators

• Focus on projects where artisanal and well-crafted architectural elements can be meaningfully integrated to foster cultural reflection and shared values.

  Possible benefits:
  - For designers: Strengthens the cultural resonance and long-term meaning of their projects.
  - For architectural product fabricators: Reinforces the potential for craftsmanship to act as a vehicle through which cultural value and identity can be expressed.

• Focus on projects that create space not only for customization, but also – where appropriate– for architectural elements to incorporate artistic and expressive references.

  Possible benefits:
  - For designers: Broadens artistic and formal possibilities during the conceptual phase of projects, enriching the expressive character of projects while maintaining coherence with the overall design intent.
  - For architectural product fabricators: Encourages experimentation and the refinement of expressive, high-skill production capabilities.

• Focus on project opportunities where joint efforts can be developed in ways that combine local artisanal expertise with cross-border collaboration and trade, integrating craftsmanship, innovation, and human-centered design across both local and global scales.

  Possible benefits:
  - For designers: Expands design knowledge through exposure to diverse techniques, materials, and cultural perspectives, reinforcing the potential appeal of their projects across diverse cross-cultural contexts. 
  - For architectural product fabricators: Facilitates knowledge exchange and enhances opportunities for greater recognition of the value of their products, while supporting potential improvements in their business’s international positioning.