Honouring young creative minds worldwide, The Rookies “was created to discover and showcase the outstanding talent emerging from higher education facilities and help launch graduates into careers at the world’s top studios”.

Established in 2009, The Rookies have “created 74 paid internships and over $900,000US in prizes has been given away”. Featuring categories for Architecture, Industrial Design, Robotics, Motion Graphics, Illustration, Graphic Design, Photography, Film Making, Next-Gen Gaming, Virtual Reality, Web, Mobile, VFX and Animation, this year’s awards attracted over 2,000 entries.

Supported by forty-two leading creative, design, film and technology companies including Lenovo, Vimeo, Dreamworks, and Wacom, The Rookies 2016 will award winners and runners-up a stellar bounty of production prizes, together with internships, press, and networking opportunities.

​A member of the international jury, which features Joe Letteri [4x Oscar-winner for Best Visual Effects for films including Avatar], Anna Cronin [Director of Content Rocket Digital, Google Square, Global Advisory Board Tech for Good], Gino Acevedo [Creative Art Director on Avatar, further works including Dawn of the Planet of the Apes], it was a pleasure to support the awards, and in doing so see an exciting array of works by some of the world’s best young creatives.

Several of the Architecture finalists explore nature-related themes in their works, notably Yan S. Dong of Suzhou in China, whose entry (above) speaks of a young woman conversant in the foremost progressive architectural narratives of the present and past, and whose artistry, ideas, and array of production skills leave no doubt that she’s a fast rising star on the creative horizon.
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View The Rookies finalists at: 
http://www.therookies.co/category/architecture/

The inaugural Festival of the Future City, held 17-20 November 2015, was the largest ever of its kind. Born of an 18-month programme of "work that brought together planners, academics, writers, artists, think-tanks, governments and the public to debate and explore sustainable, resilient city futures", the festival culminated in a series of 69 events, featuring 209 speakers and 7,423 audience members.

Many and varied outputs have come from the festival, including further talks, together with articles, collaborations, and confirmation that 2017 will see a similarly ambitious Festival of the Future City. Having delivered three presentations at the inaugural festival, it was a pleasure to contribute an essay to its official commemorative book, as pictured above. 

Fellow authors include Darran Anderson [Imaginary Cities], Rana Dasgupta [Solo, Capital: A Portrait of the Twenty-First Century Dehli], Bradly Garrett [Explore Everything: Place Hacking the City], Melissa Harrison [Hawthorn Times, Rain: Four Walks in English Weather], Leo Hollis [Cities Are Good for You: The Genius of the Metropolis], Eimear McBride [A Girl is a Half-formed Thing], amongst others. 

In 'The Ecologically Smart City' [pages 114-119], I discuss the imperative to create cities inclusive of indigenous, migratory, invasive, and domestic species, and some of the ways in which we can learn from historical precedents. 

Download the book at: http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk