// The plea for the urban economy and its place in the city is echoing ever louder. For several years, LAP has taken on the theme of Productive Cities as a viable place for production and living, education, leisure, recreation, and ultimately climate machine. Industrial sprawl is still common practice in the dismembered zoning approach to urbanity. The place of the economy in the city, seems increasingly difficult.

But there is hope. Focussing on cities such as Leuven, Toronto, Brooklyn, Ljubljana, and Vienna, the thesis research ateliers on Productive Cities formulate design answers and design research questions that imagine possible futures for hybrid productive urbanities.

Looking at the spatial needs of new economies and how they can also be urban, intertwined and sustainable, has lead to several contributions to exhibitions (Breuckland De Singel, A Good City has Industry BOZAR, IABR 2016 Rotterdam) and publication contributions such as Hybrid Urban Factory (Actar) and several symposium presentations at Yale University, TU Delft, Bouwacademie Rotterdam, Amsterdam, TU Vienna, UGent, Kask amongst others.