Luisa Bravo is a global academic scholar, educated in Italy, France and the UK, a social entrepreneur and a passionate public space activist. After completing her PhD, with a thesis on contemporary urbanism, at University of Bologna in Italy (2008), she has been researching, teaching and lecturing in several Universities, in Italy and Europe, the United States, Middle East, Asia and Australia. Visiting scholar at IURD - Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California Berkeley (USA, 2012), Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture and Design, Lebanese American University (Lebanon, 2015), Endeavour Executive Fellow the Queensland University of Technology (Australia, 2018), Instructor for the Advanced Urbanism Studio at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden, 2018), Luisa is Founding Member and President of City Space Architecture,a non-profit organization based in Italy with a mission to studying, making, spreading and sharing public space culture, through an interdisciplinary approach, involving art and architecture. She is Founding Editor, Journal Manager and Editor in chief of ‘The Journal of Public Space’, established by City Space Architecture in partnership with UN Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme.
Luisa is a renowned speaker at major UN-Habitat global summits, such as Habitat III conference in Quito (Ecuador, 2016), 9th World Urban Forum in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia, 2018) and 2nd Saudi Urban Forum in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia, 2018). She was also selected and invited to attend the 26th UN-Habitat Governing Council in Nairobi (May 2017), the High Level Meeting on the New Urban Agenda of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York (September 2017) and the Expert Group Meeting on public space promoted by UN-Habitat in Angelsberg (Sweden, 2018). Luisa’s lecture ‘Stand up for Public Space!’ - www.standupforpublicspace.org - has been included in the UN Habitat Global Urban Lectures series (season 4 - 2017), one of the UN-Habitat’s most publicly shared online outreach initiatives.
