Urban Qualities in the Experience City – Social and Cultural Exchanges by Design

Name, title and affiliation
Gitte Marling (marling@aod.aau.dk)
MA Arch., Professor Ph. D
Department of Architecture & Design,
Aalborg University, Denmark

Short Biography
Gitte Marling (born 1950) is MA Arch (1977) School of Architecture and PhD (1990) from Aalborg University, Department of Development and Planning, Denmark.
She has worked as a research fellow at The Aarhus School of Architecture and as a coordinator of sector planning at The Regional Planning Office, Aarhus County.
In 1984 Gitte Marling was associate professor in technology and planning at Aalborg University, Department of Development and Planning and from 1990 associate professor in urban design and planning at the same department. In 2001 she became associate professor and in 2008 professor in urban design at Department of Architecture and Design, Aalborg University.
Gitte Marling has been leading several research projects, support by The Danish Research Council. Present research is in the field of cultural planning and city stages: the project, “The experience City – Hybrid Cultural Projects and Performative Urban Spaces” is supported by Fonden Realdania and is running until 2012.
Gitte Marling has been head of the Ministry Research Board, Ministry of Cities and Housing in 2002 – and she has participated in several ministerial expert groups, research network and international scientific assessment committees and boards.
Gitte Marling has been teaching at all levels and in a broad planning and urban design curriculum.
She has written a long list of articles and books and she had edited anthologies and research journals. Books and journals the last ten years are:
 ”Bymiljøindikator – bymiljøvurdering i danske boligbebyggelser”, Gitte Marling og Mary-Ann Knudstrup Aalborg Universitet 1998.
Urban Welfare, Lifestyles, Architecture and Resource Consumption “. Gitte Marling (ed.) Aalborg University Press, Aalborg 1999.

Mapping the Modern City: Gitte Marling & Angsana Boonyobhas, ed.(2003) Department of Architecture and Design. Aalborg University & Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University. Bangkok.
Songlines / hverdagslivets drømmespor. Gitte Marling. Aalborg Universitetsforlag. 2003
Urban Lifescapes (ed.) Marling, Kiib, Jensen and Bech Danielsen. Aalborg University Press. Aalborg, 2004
Bangkok Songlines: Gitte Marling (2005). Department of Architecture & Design AAU
Big Global Cities – Mapping outside in and inside out. ed. Nordark #307. Department of Architecture and Design, Aalborg University.
FUN CITY: Gitte Marling & Martin Zerlang ed. (2007). Arkitektens Forlag. Copenhagen
Designing the Experience City: Gitte Marling ed. (2008). Nordic Journal of Architectural Research. 1. 2008. Throndheim.
www.exp-city.dk

Abstract
Lifestyle communities, gated communities, lifestyle clubs, lifestyle design … everything seems to be related to lifestyle, even the way our cities are used.  Urban everyday life becomes more and more social segregated in lifestyle hubs (Zygmunt Baumann). Even if we move around the city, using widely spread out areas our territories are related to the lifestyle communities we feel a belonging to. (Gitte Marling)
The paper discuss how this social segregated urban life can be developed to a more social inclusive urban life by design of new urban spaces or redesign of old ones or wasteland.  It questions how urban spaces can be transformed to public domains (Martin Haajer & Arnold Reijndorph) and how lifestyle territories can be more mixed. Finally it discusses the role of cultural projects and event, as dynamos for such a transformation.
Cases about urban design and cultural projects will illustrate the challenges and the perspectives.