Rewilding the city: designing with non-humans

Mark Cridge

Executive Director of the National Park City Foundation and London National Park City

Mark is the Executive Director of the National Park City Foundation and London National Park City; a long-term grassroots movement for people making their cities greener, healthier and wilder.

For the previous seven years he was Chief Executive of mySociety, a UK based social enterprise, who help people be active citizens. mySociety's popular services FixMyStreet.com, TheyWorkForYou.com and WhatDoTheyKnow.com are used by over 11 million people each year; with their open source technology and research used by individuals, journalists, and civil society in over 40 countries worldwide.

Prior to mySociety, Mark enjoyed a diverse digital communications career including stints as COO at design consultancy BERG, as a senior advisor at political campaigners Blue State Digital in London, and served on the national executive of the Green Party of England & Wales for five years.

Originally studying Architecture at Strathclyde University, he got his commercial start in 1996 working for a small web design agency in Birmingham before setting up glue London, the UK's first digital advertising agency in 1999, going on to become global managing director of Isobar, following glue’s acquisition in 2005.

@markcridge  |  mark.cridge@nationalparkcity.org

Annekee Groeninx van Zoelen

Graduate MSc Architecture, Urbanism & Building Sciences at Delft University of Technology

As an ambitious and enthusiastic student in architecture, I have many different interests: from travelling with and working on my self-built campervan, to creating new designs for my sustainable clothing brand. But most of all, I enjoy nature, especially by hiking, trail running or surfing. I often wonder how we can improve the world, both for us as for nonhumans. As a result, I am very passionate about my graduation project connecting the built environment and nature, because in my view, we as designers should take responsibility for creating a sustainable, future-proof environment. My wish is to bring our human world back into balance with nature and I see myself working at an architectural firm committed to this. I am very much looking forward to meeting people and exchanging knowledge at this conference!

Mischa Young

Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Environments at the Université de l’Ontario Français, Toronto, Canada

Mischa Young is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Urban Environments at the Université de l’Ontario Français in Toronto, Canada. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, and received his Ph.D. From the Department of Geography & Planning at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on urban biodiversity and how to leverage new mobility technologies to design more equitable and sustainable cities.