Designing Cities Through Technology and Participation

Maciej Jakub Zawadzki — CEO, MJZ & LURE

In his talk at FABER Forum 2025, Maciej Jakub Zawadzki explored how design, digital tools, and emerging technologies are reshaping the way cities are planned, lived in, and co-created.

Rather than treating technology as a layer added after design, Zawadzki presented it as a core building block of more transparent, inclusive, and democratic urban environments. He highlighted how digital platforms, interactive tools, and participatory design methods can open planning processes to citizens — transforming them from passive users into active co-creators of their own urban futures.

Drawing on the work of MJZ and the urban think tank LURE, he shared examples of projects where architecture, technology, and community engagement converge. These initiatives demonstrate how cities can become more adaptable, responsive, and human-centered by embedding feedback, flexibility, and collaboration into their very structure.

His lecture offered a vision of cities not only shaped by experts, but continuously shaped by the people who inhabit them — powered by technology, guided by design, and rooted in public participation.