Istanbul95 Talks: Hanna Wright

India’s 100 smart cities mission presented a rare opportunity for national scale influence to move family life into the public realm. The Bernard van Leer Foundation led a comprehensive package of urban planning, design, best practice, policy and evaluation measures were developed to support the health and wellbeing of infants, toddlers and their caregivers (ITC’s). This framework aims to guide change for ITC’s through the mission’s pan-city and area-based developments in 100 cities across India.

In this Istanbul95 talk, Hannah Wright will invite reflections and share her lessons learnt from her experience on the project, including the rapid development of the framework, the challenge of neigbbourhood scale interventions and the potential for globally inspired and locally relevant interventions to support the move from surviving to thriving early childhoods.

Hannah Wright is an urban planner and knowledge integrator with international expertise in child-friendly planning and design. She has 7 years’ experience working at the interaction of research and practice to create safe, green and healthy places that enable children and families to thrive. Hannah has turned research into real interventions for city dwellers including through her role leading Arup’s Cities Alive: Designing for urban childhoods, as an international Urban95 advisor and as an urban planner for child-friendly masterplans and tactical interventions.

The ‘Istanbul95 Talks” event series previously hosted Samuel Williams, Elger Blitz and Darrell Hammond within the Istanbul95 program, which supports the development of socially and economically disadvantaged children ages 0-3.

Noting that children’s respectful city design is not just about the design of playgrounds, Wright will talk about the common characteristics of cities that put children at the center; see nature as an integral part of design and their infrastructure and public space projects.