THE COLLECTIVE
A research-led collective of professionals for rethinking how cities are designed, developed, and experienced to become genuinely desirable through ecological sustainability, social well-being, and thriving urban spaces
Desirable Cities is a research-led collective for rethinking how cities are developed, experienced, studied, and improved.
It begins with a simple but urgent question: how can cities become more desirable and attractive without compromising the ecological sustainability of planet Earth and the well-being of people?
Urban development has achieved remarkable milestones, driven by function, form, efficiency, and economic growth. These conditions remain important, but they are not enough to guarantee ecological sustainability and people’s well-being. Cities depend on natural ecosystems, are influenced by cultural life, and are shaped by infrastructures that affect how people feel, act, and think about their cities.
Desirable Cities proposes a comprehensive approach to urban development, one that brings together the natural, cultural, and built environments: the ecological systems make life possible, the social dynamics give life meaning, and the built spaces support urban experiences.
The project is grounded in John Villar’s doctoral research and is developed through an interdisciplinary framework, professional experience, and empirical testing. This collective brings together urban studies, architecture, ecology, sociology, psychology, semiotics, communication, economics, ethnography, and visual research methods to help all city stakeholders better understand and develop truly desirable cities.
THE PURPOSE
Bridging the gap between city makers’ and city users’ emotions, actions, and ideas about their cities.
Cities are home to more than half of humanity, and their influence will continue to grow. Yet many urban environments still struggle to balance ecological responsibility, social well-being, and thriving public life. Desirable Cities responds to persistent gaps in city-making:
City makers: Policymakers, planners, developers, designers, engineers, and builders often work from strategic intentions, while city users: residents, commuters, and visitors experience and adapt the city through everyday life tactics. This gap between technical knowledge and lived experience is not addressed by the traditional urban projects, as people’s feelings, actions, and ideas are harder to identify and communicate.
Desirable Cities aims to bridge this gap by helping all the different types of city stakeholders identify, communicate, and comprehensively satisfy their expectations for desirable urban experiences.
THE EXPERTISE
Desirable Cities supports projects to align with ecological sustainability, social well-being, and city stakeholder communication.
Comprehensive project frameworks
Helping projects integrate ecological sustainability, social well-being, and spatial quality into one coherent development approach.
Research-led design consulting
Applying research, empirical methods, and interdisciplinary analysis to urban projects, public space strategies, city stakeholders’ activities, and city experience studies.
Urban desirability study
Identifying what makes places desirable by studying city stakeholders’ emotions, actions, and ideas towards their natural, cultural, and built environments.
City stakeholder engagement
Designing methods that improve communication between city makers and city users.
Semiotic urban study
Using semiotic analysis, visual methods, and didactical tools to reveal how people perceive and interpret urban environments.
Developing participatory tools
Developing analogue and digital tools that transform lived urban experiences into structured, shareable, and actionable insights.
City stakeholder engagement
Designing methods that improve communication between city makers and city users.
THE TEAM
John Villar
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Fabien Pfaender
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Julian Amaya
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Jing Qian
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Selina Mak
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Dominique Badariotti
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Esteban Guarin
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Tania Guerra
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Ernesto Duran
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…Invitation to collaborate:
Desirable Cities is open to collaboration with people and organisations committed to creating more sustainable, inclusive, meaningful, and desirable urban environments.
We welcome conversations with city governments, urban planners, real estate developers, architects, designers, researchers, universities, cultural institutions, community organisations, technology teams, citizens and any city stakeholder who wants to better understand how people experience cities.
Together, we can explore how urban spaces are perceived, what they make people feel, do, and think, and how these insights can support better decisions for cities’ future.