CLEAR VILLAGE founder and strategy director Thomas Ermacora gives his vision on CLEAR VILLAGE in 2012.
“CLEAR VILLAGE is growing more and more roots in England and abroad. Our projects in Atina, Havering, Kiel and Helsingborg have generated interest from locals and municipalities to the point where we believe in dramatically deepening our ties. New projects in Helsinki, and possibly in Mallorca and China, are also exciting news which shows that places that are in need of strategy and process to move forward recognize the appeal of participatory techniques.
During my recent travels to China and Bhutan and through my recent work, including as an urban projects curator-to-be for Helsinki design week 2012, I have been promoting the CLEAR VILLAGE agenda and spreading the word on this new form of place-making. I am confident that more and more organisations and public administrations will adopt a favourable attitude to adapting to this significant trend. We are quickly shedding the layers of convincing that used to be necessary to get work done in this way, and many decision makers, elected or not, are beginning to appreciate that best practice involves the inclusion of people in complex planning decisions in early stages.
It is therefore with hope and redoubled efforts that CLEAR VILLAGE has entered 2012, strengthened by a world-context where solutions that are capital-intensive and flashy are hard to carry out. Together with our newly-found UK partner Space Makers, we are excited to continue our work on the point where design, economic development and environmental science align to bring forth a new competitive advantage built through pluri-disciplinarity and methodological fusion.”