The quality of urban environments derives from various projects, interventions, and policy decisions over time. They are the collective work of multiple stakeholders – public, private, and community – but are not always of a quality that we would aspire to see.

Urban Maestro examines how the soft (non-regulatory) powers of the state can shape the decisions that help to deliver better-designed places. These approaches often combine different, informal tools in order to guide, encourage, and enable better design.

European countries and cities apply these informal tools often in innovative ways; therefore, Urban Maestro aims to capture how these tools are put into practice, with what purpose, and what impact they have on real-life solutions.