The Recode the City Festival takes the Human Cities programme to London from 21st to 23 September 2015. Organised by Clear Village in collaboration with the Machines Room and Lime Wharf, and curated by Thomas Ermacora, founder/ creative & strategic director of Lime Wharf, Machines Room and Clear Village.  Recode the City will bring together representatives from the Human Cities partner network for an action-packed programme of events during the London Design Festival.

Recode the City will include two major events open to the general public. From 18:00 to 21:00 in the evening of Monday 21^st September, Open Mile will offer a trail of workshops, open studios and activities to explore East London’s thriving Maker Mile. And from 14:00 to 18:00 in the afternoon of Tuesday 22^nd September, the Recode the City Symposium will offer a half-day of talks and discussions on how to transform the urban realm and empower people through digital fabrication at the advent of the quantified city.

The Human Cities programme, which is led by The Cité du design and co-funded from 2014-2018 by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union, aims to explore how people can reclaim their cities and (re)invent city life. Recode the City will contribute to this wider goal by examining the link between technology and placemaking, especially as evinced by the rise of maker culture in recent years.

Open Mile
Monday 21st September, 18:00-21:00

The Maker Mile is one square mile of open workshops, artist and design studios, fabricators, galleries, micro-factories, shops and businesses, centered on Mare St. between Bethnal Green and London Fields stations. On Monday 21st September, as part of the Human Cities programme and the London Design Festival, the Maker Mile will launch with the Open Mile event – a trail of workshops, open studios and activities throughout the evening.

Open Mile activities will include:

• East London Printmakers will be running printmaking demonstrations, giving visitors the opportunity to have a go at screenprinting their own poster or tote bag.
• OpenDesk will be teaming up with THOSE design collective’s Woodpecker, a CNC writing machine.
• The Carpentry Club will be making their signature LIMBITS – little creatures designed to be made from CNC wood off-cuts.
• FabLab London is teaming up with Codasign to bring their FabBike to the V&A Museum of Childhood.
• FabPub will be running a workshop called Cut it / Print it where guests can cut and construct miniature architectural maquettes.
• MakeWorks are down from Scotland doing a screening and Q&A of their Make Works films, all focused around manufacturing and design.
• The Cocktail Factory will be giving tours of their micro-factory and running cocktail tasting.
• BikeWorks will be running an open, drop-in Fix Your Own Bike session.
• RCA Design Products graduates will be holding an exhibition at Machines Room.
• Fixperts will be running a Fixperts A&E using Sugru and hosting a screening of their favourite FixFilms at the Machines Room Maker Library.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Keep an eye on www.makermile.cc for details and grab a hand printed, locally produced map to follow the trail.

The Recode the City Symposium
Tuesday 22nd September, 14:00-18:00

The Recode the City Symposium will be an afternoon of talks and discussions on how to transform the urban realm and empower people through digital fabrication at the advent of the quantified city.

14:00 OPENING ADDRESS
FRANK VAN HASSELT (Chief Executive, Clear Village)
NAT HUNTER (Strategic Director, Machines Room)

14:15 PERSPECTIVE: The Maker Age and Global Urban Development
TOMAS DIEZ (Director, FabLab Barcelona)
THOMAS ERMACORA (Founder/ creative & strategic director of Lime Wharf, Machines Room and Clear Village.)
Panel moderator: LUCY BULLIVANT (Co-author of Recoded City)

15:15 INPUT: INDY JOHAR (DarkMatter_Labs Co-founder, 00 [zero zero])

15:30 BREAK

15:45 ZOOM: Re-localisation and distributed manufacturing networked clusters
ELIZABETH CORBIN (Open Workshop Network)
FI SCOTT (Make Works)
NICK IERODIACONO (Open Desk)
Panel moderator: GARETH OWEN LLOYD (Machines Room)

16:45 INPUT: JONATHAN KNOWLES (Explorer, Autodesk) via SKYPE

17:00 META: Building public realm futures and new civic processes
JOHN ELKINGTON (Executive Chairman and Co-Founder at Volans Ventures)
PROFESSOR DANIEL CHARNY (From Now On, Fixperts, Maker Library Network, Founding Director CRL)
Panel moderator: THOMAS ERMACORA (Founder/ creative & strategic director of Lime Wharf, Machines Room and Clear Village.)
GUEST INPUT: JOSEPH GRIMA (Adhocracy/IdeasCity)

Tickets are available on eventbrite.