The Citymaking Circle
One hundred and fifty members. The number is Dunbar’s.
A year-round community for anyone with a stake in how cities are lived in — planners and architects, yes, and equally investors, artists, operators, clinicians, educators, civil servants and community organisers. Members work across the themes we programme: adaptive neighbourhoods, urban software, and placemaking & legacy. The Circle is not the largest membership we offer; it is the one that carries the others.
This is our inaugural year, and we are building the Circle in the open. Read the note.
Three things to know
It stays small.
One hundred and fifty members. Beyond Dunbar's number, a community becomes a list.
It moves at the pace of the work.
Applications are welcomed on a rolling basis and reviewed as they arrive. Seats are taken up as the right people arrive, calling by calling.
It is joined by conversation.
Every layer comes by invitation, and every invitation begins with a conversation. Nothing is sold on this site; dues follow the invitation.
“The size of human social groups is naturally limited to about one hundred and fifty individuals — beyond that, relationships stop being personal and become administrative.”
The Circle is capped at one hundred and fifty. The number is not arbitrary.
What a Circle year looks like.
The Circle convenes through in-person gatherings, online sessions, and the longer thread of introductions and private conversation. The festival anchors in Singapore every two years; between festivals, the Circle travels.
The Art of Citymaking Festival
One day, one room. Held biennially — Singapore in 2026 and 2028, travelling in between. The festival is the cohort's convergence.
Salons between festivals
Intimate gatherings hosted in member cities across ASEAN and the Asia Pacific — Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Mumbai, and beyond. The Circle travels in the years the festival doesn't.
Leadership for Cities programmes
Priority access to In Residence, Studio, and Labs — convened annually alongside the Circle.
The work between
Introductions. Briefings. Private conversation. The long thread of relationship that makes a community more than a list.
What the Circle carries.
The Circle is not a larger version of the Fellowship. It is the part of the community that supplies the rest: the rooms we gather in, the bursaries that widen who can join, and the mentoring given freely to Fellows who ask for it.
That is what membership here means. Not a level of access, but a share in holding the work up — and the standing that comes with having done so.
What each layer carries
The layers differ by what a member carries into the work, not by what they are allowed to read or attend. Each begins with a conversation, and dues are shared on request once we understand the fit.
A presence in the salons — turning up, introducing people, and lending judgement when it is asked for.
Salons in member cities across ASEAN and the Asia Pacific, priority on Leadership for Cities programmes, and a seat at The Art of Citymaking Festival in June 2028.
Mentoring, given freely to Fellows, and the occasional room where the Circle can gather.
Everything a Citizen holds, with a guest at the 2028 festival and a place in the published record of the Circle.
A room held for the Fellowship through the year, and bursaries for Fellows who could not otherwise join.
Everything a Placemaker holds, with two guests at the 2028 festival and a voice in the programmes ahead.
Bursaries at scale, a host city, and the standing to open doors the Fellowship cannot open for itself.
Everything a Custodian holds, with three guests at the 2028 festival and acknowledgement from the stage.
The underwriting that lets the work be planned in years rather than seasons — bursaries, publication, and the rooms the Fellowship meets in.
A named seat on the Patrons' Council, a public role at the 2028 festival, and a hand in what Leadership for Cities takes on next.
A small Circle. A year-round practice.
Every seat begins with a conversation. Tell us who you are and what you have made, and we will take it from there.
The Fellowship is for individuals. The Circle is for those who carry a city, an institution, or a portfolio.
Friend · SGD 18.80 a year — Fellow · by application
An individual membership. Friends follow the work and keep the Commons in view. Fellows are admitted by application — SGD 188 a year, or SGD 350 for two — and go deeper: films, session recordings and the fuller record as it lands.
About the Fellowship →One hundred and fifty seats · dues on request
A year of convenings, salons and closed-door work across ASEAN and the Asia Pacific. The Circle is not a larger membership — it is the one that carries the others, supplying the rooms, the bursaries and the mentoring the Fellowship draws on. Five layers, joined by invitation and conversation.
You are hereField Notes
Correspondence from the people building better cities.
Occasional notes on the festival, the field, and the Circle. Unsubscribe any time.