Luis Palacios holds a PhD in Architecture from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, partner of the architects firm Arenas Basabe Palacios and guest lecturer at UIC Barcelona School of Architecture. He trained as an architect in Rotterdam, as a researcher in Berlin and as a teacher in Ahmedabad, India. 

What is the main challenge facing cities or neighbourhoods?

The main challenge is to create more democratic cities. We are used to seeing that only the big players have a say in the production of new neighbourhoods: public authorities and large private investors. However, the city's production needs to be opened up to different parties: small developers, cooperatives, or the voice of citizens, which should also be represented. 

All of them coordinated by a team of multidisciplinary technicians who are not only architects or town planners, but sociologists, experts in mobility, energy, economics; all those disciplines that are linked to the production of the city.

If we can achieve this, we will be able to carry out collaborative urban planning processes in which all these agents are included with a voice and a vote in the production of the contemporary city.

What role does the architect play?

The architect must play the role of coordinator, of an orchestra director at the negotiating table. We architects don't know much about anything, but we do know a little about many disciplines, their requirements and demands. We can understand the economic needs of the private developer, as well as the social needs of the citizens, the policies of the city council, and the technical conditions for communicating with multidisciplinary teams of experts. 

Architects can guide the negotiation between these players who sometimes have extreme, even opposing positions on what the contemporary city is. We can be a qualified arbitrator able to understand all parties with the aim of making urbanism more democratic. We have had the opportunity to participate in several negotiating tables during the last decade in cities in central Europe. 

Could you give me an example of a city or democratic neighbourhood?

I think that the example that best represents this alternative to the conventional urban planning we know in the cities of our country would be the Viennese model. Over the last 15 years, we have had the opportunity to participate in this type of collaborative planning process with the design and construction of two neighbourhoods in Vienna.

Vienna is an example of how to define an urban model, in which all political actors, even across party lines, have a say and agree on the vision of the city for the next 20 years. It's a programme called Step 05, now Step 25 is coming up. According to the agreed approach, parts of the city will be designed through collaborative planning at negotiation tables with all the actors involved. So I think if we look at the Viennese model as an alternative to the conventional, we can learn from it and adopt it into our cities.

What role does the university play?

I believe that the role of the university has to be closely linked to the professional. This relationship between the teacher and researcher and the professional architect is necessary for the training of our students.

All the knowledge we have been able to acquire about collaborative urbanism has been brought to the classroom through academic simulations. We try to teach the student that other ways of producing the city are possible.

Tomorrow these students will be the architects designing cities, but others will be involved in private promotion and others as representatives of public authorities. If we manage to transfer this alternative to conventional production in the city now, I am convinced that it can be implemented in the years to come.