Architect, academician, urban designer Laura Narvaez, Associate Partner in the Urban Design Group at Foster + Partners, will be WAC's new guest architect in WAC's Live Interview Series. 

The talk, themed as Towards A Smarter, Healthier, Greener City, will discuss the principles and multi-dimensional facets of smart cities and will explore how the existing urban morphologies are changing in the post-Covid era. 

Laura will briefly touch upon the main elements that make up inclusive urban space, the importance of nature and community involvement in the design of smart cities.

In addition, she will discuss Foster + Partners' latest masterplans, including the South Sabah Al-Ahmed City Masterplan in Kuwait and the New Slussen Masterplan in Stockholm, Sweden, which are currently under construction. 

The talk will be moderated by WAC's editor-in-chief Berrin Chatzi Chousein on Thursday, November 4 on WAC's Instagram account.

Laura Narvaez, Associate Partner in the Urban Design Group at Foster + Partners. Image © Rob Sheeran

She is an Associate Partner in the Urban Design Group at Foster + Partners, the largest architecture firm of the UK. She leads projects on people movement and spatial data analytics for informed decision-making in the studio's master planning projects. 

Receiving her Bachelor's Degree in Architecture in 2004 and Master's Degree in Urban Design and Sustainable Development in 2006 from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, Narvaez later gained a Master of Science Degree in Advanced Architectural Studies and a PhD in Architecture and the Built Environment from the Space Syntax Laboratory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL in 2015.  

At Foster + Partners, she develops urban strategies for a wide range of projects, from new cities to complex buildings, assessing how issues such as pedestrian footfall, economic activity and social interactions will impact the viability, growth and long-term evolution of the projects. 

Foster + Partners' South Sabah Al-Ahmad City Masterplan, Kuwait is currently under construction. The masterplan will accommodate approximately 288,000 people, offering abundant green open spaces and multi-modal transportation systems. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners

Laura is currently leading two major masterplanning projects: South Sabah Al-Ahmed City Masterplan in Kuwait and the New Slussen Masterplan in Stockholm, Sweden.

In addition to these, she works for other projects worldwide at the firm to foster an integrated approach starting from the use of space syntax techniques and pedestrian movement behaviour modelling of cities and buildings to model key indicators related to accessibility, microeconomics, movement data and pedestrian forecasting as an input to design projects. 

Foster + Partners' New Slussen Masterplan in Stockholm, which is currently under construction. It is designed as "one of the largest urban transformation projects" in Sweden. Image courtesy of Foster + Partners

Laura has practiced in Mexico and the UK in architecture, master planning and urban research projects for over 16 years.

She is currently a Visiting Lecturer at ETH Zurich, and is a Contributor and Advisor of Urban AI –an international multi-disciplinary think-tank that investigates the ethical modes of governance and sustainable uses of artificial intelligence in cities.

WAC's new live talk will be the 28th episode in the WAC's Live Interview Series. We are adding more live talks to the schedule, so keep checking the WAC's Live Interview Series Schedule for the latest confirmed talks and timings. 

Centred around specific themes, WAC's live interviews are held as 30-40 minute live talks to deliver a quick glimpse of the current projects of the architect and the office and to provide a fast-paced discussion on the architects' design philosophy.

WAC Instagram Live Interview

Theme: Towards A Towards A Smarter, Healthier, Greener City

Host: Berrin Chatzi Chousein, WAC editor-in-chief

Date: Thursday, 4 November / 10:00am (GMT) / 12:00pm (CET)

Venue: WAC Instagram