Learning from Europe: Thoughts on the Contemporary Design of Cities

There’s been a lot of travel for some of our team recently. Principal Sloane Mayor went on a five country European tour with her daughter that began in Florence, Italy. From there they traveled by train to Switzerland only stopping for one night in Lucerne, then on to Stuttgart, Germany, and Berlin, continuing north to Amsterdam where they spent the most time, and then ended their trip in London.

The biggest takeaways for Sloane were the openness to contemporary design within the context of a deep building history and an attention to the human condition. She found that community was front and center with gathering spaces for people at every turn.

Amsterdam had 36" square depressions with trampolines for kids (or anyone) to randomly jump in the middle of leafy parks between streets. All through Stuttgart were accommodations for bikes and strollers on stairs, on trains and on subways.

Traveling by train through the countryside revealed quantities of solar panels, big energy producing windmills, green roofs, and the clustering of communities leaving the rest of the land as open farmland. Sloane and her daughter rented bikes in Amsterdam and were able to go anywhere in or outside the city knowing there would be a bike path to get them there safely.

“Bikes ruled!” - Sloane Mayor