An ecovillage is a traditional or intentional community with the goal of becoming more socially, culturally, economically, and/or ecologically sustainable. An ecovillage strives to produce the least possible negative impact on the natural environment through intentional physical design and resident behavior choices. It is consciously designed through locally owned, participatory processes to regenerate and restore its social and natural environments. Most range from a population of 50 to 250 individuals, although some are smaller, and traditional ecovillages are often much larger. Larger ecovillages often exist as networks of smaller sub-communities. Some ecovillages have grown through like-minded individuals, families, or other small groups—who are not members, at least at the outset—settling on the ecovillage's periphery and participating de facto in the community.
Human ecology is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and built environments. The philosophy and study of human ecology has a diffuse history with advancements in ecology, geography, sociology, psychology, anthropology, zoology, epidemiology, public health, and home economics, among others.
Public art is art in any media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and physically accessible to the public; it is installed in public space in both outdoor and indoor settings. Public art seeks to embody public or universal concepts rather than commercial, partisan or personal concepts or interests. Notably, public art is also the direct or indirect product of a public process of creation, procurement, and/or maintenance.
In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.
Artistic freedom can be defined as "the freedom to imagine, create and distribute diverse cultural expressions free of governmental censorship, political interference or the pressures of non-state actors." Generally, artistic freedom describes the extent of independence artists obtain to create art freely. Moreover, artistic freedom concerns "the rights of citizens to access artistic expressions and take part in cultural life - and thus [represents] one of the key issues for democracy." The extent of freedom indispensable to create art freely differs regarding the existence or nonexistence of national instruments established to protect, to promote, to control or to censor artists and their creative expressions. This is why universal, regional and national legal provisions have been installed to guarantee the right to freedom of expression in general and of artistic expression in particular. In 2013, Ms Farida Shaheed, United Nations special rapporteur to the Human Rights Council, presented her "Report in the field of cultural rights: The right to freedom of expression and creativity" providing a comprehensive study of the status quo of, and specifically the limitations and challenges to, artistic freedom worldwide. In this study, artistic freedom "was put forward as a basic human right that went beyond the 'right to create' or the 'right to participate in cultural life'." It stresses the range of fundamental freedoms indispensable for artistic expression and creativity, e.g. the freedoms of movement and association. "The State of Artistic Freedom" is an integral report published by arts censorship monitor Freemuse on an annual basis.
The creative industries refers to a range of economic activities which are concerned with the generation or exploitation of knowledge and information. They may variously also be referred to as the cultural industries (especially in Europe or the creative economy, and most recently they have been denominated as the Orange Economy in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The creative class is the posit of American urban studies theorist Richard Florida for an ostensible socioeconomic class. Florida, a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, maintains that the creative class is a key driving force for economic development of post-industrial cities in the United States.
Social innovations are new social practices that aim to meet social needs in a better way than the existing solutions, resulting from - for example - working conditions, education, community development or health. These ideas are created with the goal of extending and strengthening civil society. Social innovation includes the social processes of innovation, such as open source methods and techniques and also the innovations which have a social purpose—like activism, virtual volunteering, microcredit, or distance learning. There are many definitions of social innovation, however, they usually include the broad criteria about social objectives, social interaction between actors or actor diversity, social outputs, and innovativeness. Different definitions include different combinations and different number of these criteria. Transformative social innovation not only introduces new approaches to seemingly intractable problems, but is successful in changing the social institutions that created the problem in the first place.
Environmental art is a range of artistic practices encompassing both historical approaches to nature in art and more recent ecological and politically motivated types of works. Environmental art has evolved away from formal concerns, for example monumental earthworks using earth as a sculptural material, towards a deeper relationship to systems, processes and phenomena in relationship to social concerns. Integrated social and ecological approaches developed as an ethical, restorative stance emerged in the 1990s. Over the past ten years environmental art has become a focal point of exhibitions around the world as the social and cultural aspects of climate change come to the forefront.
A smart city is a technologically modern urban area that uses different types of electronic methods and sensors to collect specific data. Information gained from that data is used to manage assets, resources and services efficiently; in return, that data is used to improve operations across the city. This includes data collected from citizens, devices, buildings and assets that is processed and analyzed to monitor and manage traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities, water supply networks, waste, Criminal investigations, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services. Smart cities are defined as smart both in the ways in which their governments harness technology as well as in how they monitor, analyze, plan, and govern the city. In smart cities, the sharing of data is not limited to the city itself but also includes businesses, citizens and other third parties that can benefit from various uses of that data. Sharing data from different systems and sectors creates opportunities for increased understanding and economic benefits.
The creative city is a concept that argues creativity should be considered a strategic factor in urban development. In addition to cities being efficient and fair, a creative city provides places, experiences, and opportunities to foster creativity among its citizens.
Charles Landry is an author and international adviser on the future of cities best known for popularising the Creative City concept. His book The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators became a movement to rethink the planning, development and management of cities.
Creative Cities is an international project designed and managed by the British Council. It shares experiences across Europe on the ways creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation can help improving people's lives – making cities better places to live, work and play.
Chiang Mai Creative City is an initiative to develop Chiang Mai into a creative city. A creative city is a city where cultural and creative activities are an integral part of the city's economic and social functioning. The experience of other cities which have implemented such strategies has shown that they can be more successful than cities which have not. On 31 October 2017, Chiang Mai has been designated as a UNECO Crafts and Folk Art Creative Cities Network.
Abbas Gharib,, is an Italian-based architect of Iranian origin. His approach to planning and design, which goes beyond the traditional modernism or contemporary format, has made him well known as an influential figure in the research, practice and teaching of post-contemporary art and architecture.
The social sciences are the sciences concerned with societies, human behaviour, and social relationships.
Post-contemporary (PoCo) is a forward-looking aesthetic philosophy distinguished by a re-constructive, global, human ethos which posits that the aesthetic experience is universal to humanity, and that this experience can inspire understanding and transformation. It has developed in tandem with new theories of Emergence in Complexity science, as well as advances in Biosemiotics. In art historical terms, “modern” and “contemporary” arts are limited to their era and are defined by stylistic and philosophical parameters - chief among them, a critique of the classical European tradition and constructive philosophy, and secondly, the Contemporary ethos is characterized by an emphasis on transient or exclusively contemporary issues which reflect the zeitgeist. Following the legacy of Modernism, Post-Modernism and Contemporary art follow the tradition of Deconstruction and questioning, while Post Contemporary emphasizes generating new, constructive hypotheses. However, modeled after the Scientific Method, both modes are inter-dependent as the question|answer cannot exist without each other. Thus, Post-Contemporary views the history of the humanities as branching and pluralist, rather than a linear path of development. Consequently, PoCo has chosen a forking path, builds upon knowledge from all eras, and values quality, sublimity, and empathy above novelty. PoCo emphasizes empathy for all, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed.
Maurizio Carta is an Italian urban planner and architect. He is full professor of urban and regional planning at the Department of Architecture at the University of Palermo, he teaches urban design and planning and he is the author of several scientific publications.
A creative economy is based on people's use of their creative imagination to increase an idea's value. John Howkins developed the concept in 2001 to describe economic systems where value is based on novel imaginative qualities rather than the traditional resources of land, labour and capital.: Compared to creative industries, which are limited to specific sectors, the term is used to describe creativity throughout a whole economy.
Nuqat (نقاط) is a nonprofit organisation based in Kuwait that focuses on cultural development in the region. What was a small consortium in 2009 teaching typography design, has transformed into an internationally recognised organisation that engages thousands of eager learners. Diverse participants from all over the world join Nuqat throughout the year to discuss design, entrepreneurship, architecture, fine arts, technology, culture and every aspect of life that creativity permeates.
