ATLAS: Exchanging Knowledge is a free lecture series run by the European Council of Interior Architects. It presents six events to share knowledge within the interior architecture discipline. Lecture number three speculates on a city where everything you need daily is just a few minutes walk from where you live: The city of proximity, an emerging scenario for sustainable and resilient cities by Prof. Ezio Manzini.

In conversation with Dr. Albert Fuster, this talk invites us to imagine a city in which a functional proximity of the so-called 15-minutes city is matched by a relational one thanks to which citizens feel closeness with others. At that, the discussion will pay special attention to European cities like Paris, Barcelona, and Milan amongst others.

For over three decades Ezio Manzini has been working in the field of design for sustainability. His interests focus on social innovation as a major driver of sustainable changes. In this perspective he started DESIS: an international network of schools of design for social innovation. In 2024, the Design Research Society awarded him the Lifetime Achievement Award.