Contributing to liveable and loveable cities

This article was written for Uncover magazine - Meaningful Leisure Experiences. 

Authors:  Fereshteh Adi Saatlo Anzures and Simon de Wijs have been involved in the core team of the Urban Life and Placemaking specialisation since the beginning.

Since the programme was launched, nearly 100 students (20-25 annually) have joined ULP. Five years in, we are reflecting on what has been achieved, what is changing, and what lies ahead - for both the programme and the urban contexts we aim to shape. In an ever-changing world, reflection is key to staying relevant and impactful.

Bridging theory and practice
Our curriculum is designed around the interplay between (academic) knowledge and real-world application. Courses such as Community Development, Concepting, Place Branding, and Vision provide students with theoretical grounding, but always link back to practice. Assignments are based on real-life urban challenges presented by external partners including Bühne in Breda, the City of Eindhoven, Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend, and Festival Popmonument. These collaborations are more than just assignments; they are stepping stones to professional networks.

A defining feature is the Urban Scope course, during which second-year students go on field trips, each shaped around a theme (Eventful Rotterdam, Inclusive Amsterdam, Sustainable Tilburg, Creative Nijmegen, Futureproof Eindhoven, Safe Gent, Youthful Antwerp, Narrative Bergen op Zoom, Hospitable Den Bosch, Playful Breda) and involving  visiting multiple locations and organisations. These field trips expose students to the multiplicity of urban stakeholders, reinforcing one of our core competencies: learning to act with and by stakeholders. This principle underpins all of our partnerships and builds the foundation for sustainable collaboration.

What becomes clear is that cities are complex ecosystems of people, interests, identities, and environments. Learning how to navigate these systems is not something that can be taught solely in a classroom. It requires experience, conversation, observation, and trial and error in real contexts.

Projects for the City
And that is where the Projects for the City (PFTC) course comes in, where students recruit and execute their own projects in real urban contexts. These projects range across topics such as experience design, community development, event production, marketing, and promotion. The course encourages initiative, creativity, and ownership while offering students the chance to build professional portfolios.

Over the years, ULP students have completed around 60 projects, commissioned by more than 45 partners including city marketing organisations, cultural events, hospitality companies, and municipal departments involved in urban planning and regeneration. Many of these collaborations continue beyond the project itself, showing how meaningful and lasting connections can be formed between students and the field.

Live and study in a European City
The third-year international semester provides a unique opportunity to live, study, and work in European cities such as Bologna, Krakow, Thessaloniki, and Trondheim. Our motto is live like a local, act like a professional. In these cities our students undertake real-life projects embedded in local contexts ranging from city exhibitions based on Urban Scope perspectives to hands-on interventions addressing local issues. These activities culminate in our own yearly Social Interventions Conference, held both in Breda and online, where students present their work to a broad audience of stakeholders. During their stay abroad students in earlier years did projects with local organisations such as Torino Stratosferico, Tourne Bilbao, Booklovers Club Valencia, Erasmus Student Network, and Porto i/o.

Alongside these projects, BUas weekly delivers online courses, creating a European classroom that connects all cities involved. This results in a rich learning environment that fosters intercultural exchange and collaboration. In doing so, students do not only gain professional experience; they also expand their personal horizons. Living abroad fosters resilience, open-mindedness, and a deeper appreciation of diversity - qualities that are vital for professionals who want to shape urban life with empathy and creativity.

Placemaking Week Europe
We also engage with external platforms like Placemaking Week Europe (PWE), which brings together a large group of placemaking experts and enthusiasts from across Europe every year to share insights and practices around greening, mobility, inclusion, and more. When visiting the PWE with students and lecturers, we often notice, however, that leisure, despite its potential, is not as foregrounded in the discussions as it could be.

This observation encouraged us to reflect more critically on our own curriculum. If leisure and events are to be understood not just as a goal but as a means to improve urban life, we must ensure they remain central to our teaching, projects, and research. This reflection became an important moment of co-creation with our students.

Futures literacy with students
Looking ahead is just as vital as looking back. We invited our current second-year students to reflect on possible, probable, and disruptive futures (for ULP). While many aspects of our programme are already outward-looking and collaborative, students even called for more activities beyond the classroom, diverse and real-life learning environments, and deeper collaboration with stakeholders. This desire is mirrored in their preferences for themes such as diversity, inclusion, social cohesion, and cultural collaboration, all of which highlight the human and social dimensions of urban life.

Students also expressed a wish to engage more broadly within BUas - collaborating with other specialisations, academies and programmes, and learning in open, flexible environments. One particularly resonant suggestion was to engage with multi-stakeholder environments, such as living labs that apply multiple helix models of innovation.

When it comes to disruptive futures, students demonstrated awareness of macro challenges. From over-construction, lack of space and housing shortages to loneliness, social media, AI, climate change, and political instability. While this shows a strong connection to current global trends, many voiced concerns and a somewhat pessimistic outlook. This feedback inspires us to foster greater futures literacy, helping students imagine alternative, more optimistic scenarios where their role as change makers is possible and relevant.

Some also expressed concern about the job market, questioning whether their ULP background would be recognised or outperformed by other, perhaps more conventional, programmes. This only reinforces the importance of positioning leisure clearly and confidently at the heart of urban innovation.

Putting leisure centre stage
Together with our students and partners, we are reasserting the centrality of leisure and events - not just as outputs of the urban experience, but as drivers of positive change. We aim to educate students who can work across scales and contexts: from specific neighbourhoods and projects to macro-level urban strategies.

To help reinforce this approach, we have developed the Wheel of Themes (Figure 1), a curriculum design tool that keeps liveable and loveable cities at its core. Each semester or term then takes on a leisure-driven theme, such as The Creative City, The Eventful City, The Attractive City, The Fantasy City, The Playful City, as focal point. This structure gives students clear thematic grounding while keeping the programme vibrant and relevant.

These central themes (the core rings) then allow us to explore a wide range of urban dynamics through a leisure lens, connecting theoretical and practical dimensions from the other rings. In this way, the themes act as creative frameworks that open up new questions, ideas, and partnerships within each combination or rings.

Urban Living Lab Breda 
It is no coincidence that at this very moment we have the opportunity to deepen our collaboration with Urban Living Lab Breda. The lab is at the intersection of research, education and practice and facilitates collaborations with public, private, and societal stakeholders. Here, we learn from others and share our belief: leisure is essential to build better cities.

This is our passion: we are the connectors. We join forces to create cool places making urban life better and more fun. By continuing to be curious, to learn, experiment, and co-create in ways that celebrate both the complexity and joy of urban life. And above all, to continue striving together with our students, partners, and the community for cities that are not only more liveable but also more loveable.