Inaugural Festival
- —Full-day programme: keynotes, panels, film & immersive experiences
- —NYT Oxford-style debate finale
- —Lunch, refreshments & closing cocktail reception
- —Room of senior city leaders, investors & practitioners
Limited capacity · Secure your seat
The New York Times Debate — Festival Finale
“The way we measure city success is fundamentally wrong.”
The Art of Citymaking Festival
Cities are shaped every day — through people, culture, and the rhythms of lived experience.
The Art of Citymaking Festival brings together urban leaders, creatives, policymakers, and practitioners to explore how cities evolve as places to live, connect, and participate.
Across conversations, ideas, and collaborations, the festival focuses on creativity and innovation as essential forces in citymaking — revealing how neighbourhoods adapt, how participation deepens, and how the experience of place is shaped.
This is a space for those working at the intersection of city, culture, and change.
Festival Themes
The festival is organized around three themes: Adaptive Neighbourhoods, Urban Software, and Placemaking & Legacy.
How cities adapt to the people who live in them — across a lifetime.
How connection, participation, and lived experience shape cities in practice.
How culture and identity shape places that endure and evolve.
The Programme
A day of conversations on how cities are made — through lived experience, creativity, and the forces shaping their future.
Four acts, from morning masterclass to the New York Times Debate finale. Keynotes, panels, films and an after-hours mixer.
The Voices
A gathering of practitioners, planners, and city-makers from Singapore and around the world — convening at the Glass Dome on 17 June 2026.
- Sanjeev SanyalEconomic Advisor to the Prime Minister of India
- Yu-Ning HwangChief, Urban Innovation & Excellence, Ministry of National Development
- Helen MarriageFounder, Artichoke
- Charles LandryFestival President & Author, The Creative City
- Lily KuoJournalist, The New York Times
- Mich GohDirector of Public Policy, APAC, Airbnb
- Carla BartoliFarm Cultural Park / Countless Cities
- Melissa KweeCo-founder, Beautiful People
- Manvendra Singh ShekhawatFounder, Dhun Life
- Digvijay Singh KathiwadaChairperson, Kathiwada Foundation
- Mei ChouGroup Director, Conservation & Urban Design, URA
- Jen WilliamsCEO, Committee for Brisbane
- Jakob Norman-HansenDirector of Partnerships, Bloxhub
- Ann-Britt Elvin AndersenHead of Communications, Bloxhub
- Samantha HayesFounder, Bioneering Australia
- Prantik MazumdarInvestor and President, TiE Singapore
- Anupam YogFestival Director & Founder, Leadership for Cities
- Peter HylandChair, Leadership for Cities & Industry Fellow, University of Queensland
- Raj AhujaFounder, WSDM Haus
- Tulsi GroverSenior Partner, weareMIXD & Founder, re.vorG
Lineup in formation.
Festival Partners
The Art of Citymaking Festival is built in collaboration with a founding network of partners across urban design, real estate, culture, academia, and media — bringing together the ideas and practices shaping cities today.
The Citymaking CircleA standing community around the festival — for people who want to stay close to the work between editions. Join the Circle
Organisations whose work and good company travel alongside the festival.
Correspondence from the people building better cities.
Occasional, considered notes — essays from the field, programme updates from the Glass Dome, and dispatches from the Citymakers’ Circle. No daily digests. No algorithms.
Read past issues in the Journal →