Memories
The Archive of a 20 -Year Journey
Memories are the foundation we build on. They shape how we understand the past, and how we prepare for the future Over the last twenty years, NUDA has been part of a long and evolving journey — one defined not by shortcuts or instant success, but by persistence, experimentation and the continuous pursuit of new ideas.
This archive exists for a reason. It represents the early roots of SgD (Symbiotic generative Dialogue), CBPT, IDEAS and Ideator COS — long before these concepts had names. The book IDEAS is as much a work of ideas as it is a narrative record of the path that shaped them.
Memories is a living archive.
It will grow over time with stories, images and fragments from two decades of work: insights that were ahead of their time, people who stood on the NUDA stage years before the rest of Norway discovered them, and early reflections on cities and systems that pointed toward futures few yet recognized.
It is a reminder that groundbreaking work rarely begins with recognition —
but with curiosity, endurance and the commitment to keep building, even when the world is not yet paying attention.
In every archive, information appears in many forms. Over time, NUDA has gathered a wide range of knowledge, and the journey is presented here through short glimpses. Some examples include downloadable PDFs, reports, drawings, films and subpages. Not everything is in place yet — the archive will continue to grow over time.
BATRA - Bienala de Arhitectura Transilvania
The EEA project in Cluj-Napoca had a difficult and narrow start when it began in 2014. The assignment was unclear, many actors were involved, and the collaboration with partners in Cluj-Napoca lacked a structured direction. This changed in 2015, when the Romanian Architecture Biennale was held in Cluj.
Håkon Iversen was one of the keynote speakers and — without prior announcement — declared that the project would launch an international architecture and urban design competition for the outdoor museum, Parcel Etnografic, which was our main task to solve.
This announcement transformed the entire project, and the MCP was formally introduced.
Connected: Things about future, cities and people
In 2011, NUDA was invited to the CULBURB Symposium – Shaping Cities in Prague. Among 40 of Europe’s leading NGOs, the concept “Connected” was developed as an idea and early sketch for an EU application, jointly formulated by NUDA and Zeppelin Magazine.
The project was approved and funded by the EU, with work beginning in 2012.
The final presentation — a keynote for nearly 600 people — was delivered in the former palace of Nicolae Ceaușescu in Bucharest in 2014, immediately after the digital and physical exhibition had been completed simultaneously in five European cities.
CULBURB - Symposium | Shaping Cities
CULBURB’s Shaping Cities Symposium + Workshop, held at the Centre for Central European Architecture on May 22–23, 2012, explored the evolving role of nonprofit organizations in shaping urban space. The event asked fundamental questions: What are nonprofit organizations today? Do they act as non-elected groups promoting their own interpretation of the public good, or do they serve as a litmus test for the level of democracy within a society? Who has the power to shape the life and form of the city — and how, and why?
As a foundation for the symposium, a unified web database of nonprofit urban organizations from across Europe was established.
City Lighting and New Urban Spaces - 2008
Light is an essential component of urban planning, accounting for more than 7% of global climate emissions. When NUDA introduced “urban lighting” as a theme, very few professionals in Norway had substantial knowledge in the field, and there were few strong domestic examples to refer to.
The introduction of German lighting expert Ulrike Brandi set a new standard for the discussion in Bergen. Since then, lighting has become a priority in cities, and with the growing adoption of the Dark Sky principle in urban projects, lighting is now — fortunately — recognised as a serious and vital aspect of responsible planning.
Public Spaces of the Future - 2007
The second NUDA conference featured an exceptional lineup of speakers — including two from Australia — and marked a turning point for Norway. The introduction of Fred Kent and Project for Public Spaces brought the concept of Placemaking to Norway for the very first time.
Since then, Fred Kent, Kathy Madden and Ethan Kent have returned to Norway multiple times, helping to deepen and expand the understanding of Placemaking. Today, this work continues through the organisation Placemaking Norway, which carries the knowledge forward into current urban practice.
The inaugural NUDA conference: Cities of Tomorrow
A Norwegian journalist in the professional magazine Arkitektnytt described the conference as a “Roadshow from England” — a slightly ironic reference to Peter Hall’s book of the same name. It was NUDA’s first conference, the first Urban Design conference ever held in Norway, and by coincidence most of the speakers happened to be English.
The exceptions were Norway’s own Arvid Bjerkestrand and Jan Gehl’s co-founder Lars Gemzøe, who later became a board member of NUDA.
Cluj-Napoca EEA project
This project has been referenced in several contexts, but its scope expanded significantly over time as multiple sub-projects emerged. What began as an extensive cultural initiative centred on the restoration of two historic stave churches evolved into a far more ambitious destination-development project through the application of the MCP method.
NUDA, in collaboration with CARDO, was initially engaged to support the restoration process. As the project progressed, however, its scale grew, ultimately leading to an international architecture and urban design competition. The winning proposal became the regulatory framework for what is now being built and developed at the outdoor museum Parcel Etnografic
Waterfront Synopsis 2010
In 2010, NUDA organised a large three-day conference and workshop in collaboration with the Municipality of Stavanger. The event, initiated by NUDA and Project for Public Spaces, drew just under 200 participants — yet they represented more than 14 countries.
The discussions became highly influential, centring on the future of waterfront development, and over the course of the three days Stavanger received concrete proposals and strategic directions for its waterfront.
It was during this conference that the concept of “architecture of place” was first formulated — a term that has since become a defining element in NUDA’s work and in the broader discourse on spatial quality and urban identity.
The resulting publication, Waterfront Synopsis, has since been referenced internationally as a benchmark for exemplary waterfront development.
Disrupted City seminar 2018
In 2018, NUDA held its final conference, Nordic Urban Assembly — a two-day event structured around a shared thematic core: Disrupted Cities.
The first day, hosted in the newly renovated University Aula in Bergen, drew more than 200 participants. The second day — the main conference, featuring profiles such as Dr. Ayesha Khanna and Dr. Rachel Armstrong — took place in Grieghallen.
The programme set the agenda for emerging discussions on AI and technological transformation in cities, punctuated by a powerful keynote from Rashik Parmar MBE.
Much of the thematic foundation of Disrupted Cities is revisited in the book IDEAS, where several direct quotes and arguments from the speakers are woven into the larger narrative.