Layers of Care: Co-designing a City Laboratory of Bio-cultural Dialogue

The stories we tell about our city speak both to a city’s history and heritage, as well as of a city’s presence and possibility. If these stories are presented in a dynamic way in our urban streetscapes, as locally specific, narrative layers of care and carelessness for people and place, the city itself might become a novel form of bio-cultural dialogue which encourages future care-taking of people and planet. This chapter examines five examples of cross-cutting co-creation between design and literature that took place between 2012 and 2016 in UNESCo Creative Cities of Dunedin and Melbourne. All involved intercultural dialogue, the notions of exchange and transition, and a weaving together of different creative practices over time. This collective case study will provide the basis for developing scenarios and possible coordinates for a future city of literature–a city that cares to communicate both the human creative contribution to the city and impart lessons of sustainability and growth to ensure a sustainable city.