With this book, we share our reflections about what we do when we practice culture design. When working with identity design, culture building and placemaking it is often not easily explained what it is we actually do. With the publication our aspiration is to be as clear as possible about how we actually work inside Urgent.Agency and to share the methods and tools that continue to inspire us.

At Urgent.Agency we are engaged in knowledge sharing and knowledge production often with a very practical, hands-on approach. ‘Urgent.Practice – Culture design and design culture in the 21st century’ is part of this ambition and an introduction to our culture design practice.  

With this book, we share our reflections about what we do when we practice culture design. When working with identity design, culture building and placemaking it is often not easily explained what it is we actually do. With the publication our aspiration is to be as clear as possible about how we actually work inside Urgent.Agency and to share the methods and tools that continue to inspire us.

We call our practice culture design – but what exactly does that mean? We begin by exploring the concept and practice, sharing our thoughts and methods – frankly and honestly. We explore our own hybrid practice of culture and design methodology. With this backdrop, we explore three main obsessions of Urgent – building culture, creating places and designing identity – in a melange of professional reflections, methods and tools that inspire us. We mix our own reflections and cases with insights from some of our heroes and collaborators, including Hunter Tura from Bruce Mau Design (US), Martin Gran from Snøhetta (NO) and Carla Hjort from SPACE10/ArtRebels (DK).

“An essential component when understanding culture – whether it is understanding the social exchanges at a festival, the clashes of cultures in a company merger, or a film – is engaging in an interpretation of what you have in front of you. This interpretation entails a certain level of curiosity, empathy and imagination.”

Christian Pagh
Partner, Urgent.Agency

“By insisting on human experience and curiosity – and fusing practices from a variety of skilled people – we can, in fact,come up with more creative, more humane, more meaningful solutions to the urgent challenges of today and tomorrow.”

Christian Pagh
Partner, Urgent.Agency

We are very thankful to the Danish Arts Foundation for their generous support that made the book possible.