International architects and urban planners develop regeneration proposals for Jelgava bus station and prison area

An article from the City of Jelgava, Latvia website (https://www.jelgava.lv/jaunumi/starptautiski-arhitekti-un-pilsetplanotaji-izstrada-attistibas-priekslikumus-jelgavas-autoostas-un-cietuma-teritorijai/)

ABOVE: Planner and architect Adam Bonosky shows a concept for regeneration of a street in Jelgava. (Photo by IMCL.)

Education News Municipality City

10/07/2026

NOTE: Translated from the original Latvian.

From July 7 to 10, one of the most internationally recognized architecture and urban planning events – the 63rd conference on creating livable cities “International Making Cities Livable” (IMCL) will take place in Jelgava, which this year is dedicated to the theme of recovery and resilience, “Regenerative Architecture and Urbanism: Recovery and Resilience After an Age of Disruption”. The conference has brought together more than 65 architects, urban planners, academics, municipal leaders and other industry professionals from Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and other countries of the world.

On the first day of the conference on July 6, participants got acquainted with the Old Town, the Art Nouveau quarter, the Blackhead House and other examples of the capital’s development. On July 7, the guests arrived in Jelgava to get to know the city and its development directions. During the excursion, the participants visited the Old Town quarter and its buildings, as well as two territories for which the municipality is looking for a new development vision in the future – the Jelgava bus station territory and the Jelgava prison complex, which was recently taken over by the municipality. These territories became the central objects of the international conference’s practical workshops, where the participants analyzed both territories, developed planning sketches and development proposals, offering the municipality ideas for the future development of existing buildings and the surrounding urban environment.

On Wednesday, at the conference opening in the Jelgava Castle Hall, the Chairman of the Jelgava City Council, Mārtiņš Daģis, gave a presentation “Lessons from Jelgava”, introducing the participants to the city’s history, development, most important urban projects and future challenges. Former Carmel (USA) Mayor Jim Brainard shared his experience in the presentation “Lessons from Carmel” about how one of the most significant urban transformations in the USA was implemented, while Kyiv Deputy Mayor Kostiantyn Usov spoke about everyday life in the Ukrainian capital during wartime and ensuring the city’s resilience. At the end of the opening, a panel discussion was held, with the participation of Mārtiņš Daģis, Jim Brainard, Kostiantyn Usov and Westfield (USA) Mayor Scott Willis.

ABOVE: Susan Henderson of Placemakers LLC examined the historic. market square of Jelgava, destroyed during World War II and a source of ideas for regeneration today. (Photo by IMCL.)

“We are honored to host such high-level international architects and urban planners in Jelgava. It is especially valuable that the participants discuss urban development and also work with real Jelgava territories, offering ideas that could become the basis for the revitalization of our city in the future,” emphasized Mārtiņš Daģis, Chairman of the Jelgava City Council.

From July 8 to 10, plenary sessions, lectures, thematic sessions and practical workshops [took] place in Jelgava Castle. At the end of the conference, participants present[ed] the developed ideas and development proposals for the Jelgava bus station and former prison territories, providing the municipality with an international vision of their future development.

ABOVE: Participants examine proposals for the two regeneration areas. (Photo by IMCL.)

During the conference, the IMCL award ceremony was also held at the Ģederts Elias Jelgava History and Art Museum, where several world-renowned architecture and urban planning professionals were honored. A special honor was also awarded to Jelgava – the IMCL Livable Cities award in the nomination “For Exemplary Leadership in Regenerative Urban Development”, recognizing the municipality’s work in urban renewal and sustainable development.

ABOVE: Mārtiņš Daģis, Chairman of the Jelgava City Council, receives the IMCL 2026 award from IMCL Executive Director Michael Mehaffy, while IMCL board member Jim Brainard (left) and IMCL staff assistant Jude Chanter (right) look on.  (Photo by the City of Jelgava.)

ABOVE: Frederick Biehle and Erika Hinrichs, practitioners and professors at Pratt Institute in New York, look on as the proposals are presented for Jelgava regeneration. (Photo by the City of Jelgava.)

ABOVE: Architect Sandy Vitzthum, who led the workshop, presents the results and notes the group of participants. (Photo by IMCL.)

ABOVE: A group of participants takes a photo in the courtyard of gthe Jelgava Palace, the venue of the conference. (Photo by City of Jelgava.)

63rd IMCL Conference Ends on a Hopeful Note

Attendees recognize challenges, but also note significant progress in making cities livable and sustainable in a time of disruption

ABOVE: A group of attendees gathers in the courtyard of the beautiful Jelgava Palace, the primary host venue of the 63rd IMCL Conference.

JELGAVA AND RIGA, LATVIA - The 63rd International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) Conference has just concluded here, bringing together an intimate gathering of urban leaders, researchers, architects, planners, and practitioners from around the world, to confront one of the most urgent questions of our time: how can cities and towns recover, adapt, and regenerate under disruptive social, economic and technological forces?

Hosted in the historic cities of Riga and Jelgava, the conference theme — “Regenerative Architecture and Urbanism: Recovery and Resilience After an Age of Disruption” — reflected a sobering reality. Cities today face overlapping challenges: climate change, social fragmentation, housing crises, economic uncertainty, geopolitical conflict, and the continuing impacts of rapid and sometimes destabilizing technological change.

Yet the message emerging from Latvia was not one of despair. Instead, participants found remarkable examples of courage, creativity, and renewal, and powerful reminders that cities have always been places where human communities come together to solve problems, rebuild, and create better futures.

The conference opened in Riga City Hall with presentations from the city’s leadership, including City Architect Pēteris Ratas and Deputy Mayor Māris Sprindzuks. Participants were welcomed not only into a beautiful historic European capital, but into an active conversation about the city’s future — how its remarkable heritage can continue to serve as a foundation for innovation, sustainability, and quality of life.

Riga itself provided a living classroom. Its extraordinary urban fabric — from medieval streets and squares to its celebrated Art Nouveau districts and contemporary regeneration efforts — illustrated one of the conference’s central themes: that the most successful cities are not static artifacts, but living systems. They adapt, evolve, and regenerate over time.

ABOVE: City Architect Pēteris Ratas welcomes attendees and gives an overview of the City's work.

ABOVE: Address by Artom Uršulskis, Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Attendees then participated in study tours of Riga, including its splendid Art Nouveau district, and its sobering Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. The first day concluded with a reception at the spectacular House of the Blackheads, where attendees and city officials were joined by the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, Mr. Artom Uršulskis.

The next morning, the group toured the spectacular Riga Central Market, one of the world's largest covered markets with over 700,000 square feet of space and over 3,000 stalls. The group heard about the history of the market and its vendors, and

ABOVE: One of the five pavilions of the Riga Central Market, built from converted zeppelin hangars in the 1920s during Latvia's first Republic.

The discussion continued in Jelgava, where the Chair of the Council (Mayor), Mārtiņš Daģis, joined other city development officials, municipal staff, and officials of the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, to provide exceptional hospitality, facilities, and support for conference participants. Jelgava’s own story — a city shaped by destruction, reconstruction, and renewal — offered a compelling context for exploring how communities can recover from disruption while preserving identity and strengthening resilience.

ABOVE: Participants examine conference workshop results for the regeneration of Jelgava neighborhoods.

Participants engaged directly with local challenges, including the regeneration of post-war urban environments, the improvement of public spaces, and the transformation of existing buildings and neighborhoods into healthier, more connected places. Rather than treating these challenges as merely technical problems, the discussions emphasized the social and cultural dimensions of regeneration: how places support community, belonging, memory, and everyday life.

ABOVE: Kiev Deputy Mayor Kostiyantin Usov speaks to IMCL board member Jim Brainard, long-time mayor of Carmel, Indiana, about the challenges of urban resilience and regeneration.

A particularly powerful dimension of the conference was the participation of representatives from Ukraine, including the Deputy Mayor of Kyiv, Kostiantyn Usov. At a time when Ukrainian cities face unimaginable pressures from war and destruction, the discussions highlighted both the immediate challenges of reconstruction and the deeper questions of what kind of cities should emerge afterward.

In such cases, the goal cannot simply be to rebuild what was lost. It must be to regenerate — to create places that are stronger, healthier, more beautiful, more resilient, and more supportive of human flourishing.

This message was echoed by many participants working directly with affected communities. Susan Henderson of PlaceMakers LLC, who has been collaborating with communities in the Lviv region of Ukraine, reflected on the extraordinary resilience she has witnessed among residents living through conditions of profound stress and uncertainty. She noted that the determination, creativity, and commitment of city residents themselves are not only inspiring today — they are a profound source of hope for the future.

ABOVE: Susan Henderson discusses the comparison between the rebuilding of Ukraine and the city of Jelgava. Its former market square, destroyed during WWII, is shown in the slide.

That observation captured a recurring theme of the conference: resilience is not simply a property of infrastructure, technology, or institutions. It begins with people. Cities endure because people care for them. They recover because residents maintain relationships, traditions, knowledge, and shared commitments. The physical city — its streets, buildings, public spaces, neighborhoods, and landscapes — can either strengthen those connections or weaken them.

This understanding points toward a broader transformation now occurring in urban thinking. For much of the last century, cities were often treated as machines: systems to be optimized through separation, specialization, and top-down planning. Today, a growing body of research and practice recognizes cities as complex living systems — networks of relationships among people, places, cultures, economies, and ecosystems.

Regenerative urbanism builds from that understanding. It asks not only how we can reduce harm, but how we can restore and strengthen the conditions that allow communities to thrive.

Throughout the conference, participants presented inspiring examples from many parts of the world: projects restoring historic neighborhoods, creating more walkable and connected communities, improving public spaces, addressing climate adaptation, supporting social inclusion, and developing new tools for collaborative planning.

Another recurring theme throughout the conference was the importance of learning from the accumulated wisdom embodied in the world's successful towns and cities, and in their detailed urban patterns and spatial logics. Participants emphasized that traditional urbanism is not simply a matter of preserving historic buildings or replicating old architectural styles. Rather, historic cities embody generations of practical experimentation—what might be called embodied intelligence—about how human settlements can best support health, sociability, resilience, commerce, and everyday life. Conference participants argued that understanding these enduring patterns allows us to move forward more intelligently, adapting proven principles to meet contemporary challenges while avoiding the costly mistakes that have too often accompanied twentieth-century models of urban development.

The diversity of examples reinforced an important lesson: there is no single formula for creating livable cities. Successful solutions emerge from careful attention to local conditions — climate, culture, history, ecology, and the needs and aspirations of residents themselves.

At the same time, common patterns appeared again and again. People need access to welcoming public spaces. They need neighborhoods where daily life can unfold conveniently and safely. They need buildings and streets that support health, interaction, beauty, and a sense of belonging. They need the ability to participate meaningfully in shaping the places they call home.

The setting of Latvia offered a particularly powerful reminder of these lessons. Riga and Jelgava are cities that have experienced profound historical disruptions — war, occupation, political transformation, and economic change. Yet they also demonstrate the remarkable capacity of cities and cultures to endure, adapt, and renew themselves.

Their experience has special relevance today, as communities around the world face their own forms of disruption. The challenges differ, but the underlying questions are similar: How do we preserve what is valuable while adapting to new realities? How do we repair damaged places and damaged social connections? How do we create cities that are not merely efficient, but genuinely livable?

ABOVE: Anjan Mitra discusses the lessons of regeneration and resilience for Kolkata, India.

The 63rd IMCL Conference did not pretend that these questions have simple answers. But it offered something equally important: evidence that solutions are already emerging. They are emerging in historic European cities finding new relevance for old patterns of urban life. They are emerging in communities rebuilding after conflict. They are emerging in neighborhoods experimenting with new forms of participation, design, and regeneration. And perhaps most importantly, they are emerging from the commitment of people who refuse to give up on their cities.

The generous partnership of Riga and Jelgava, the insights of international participants, and the courage of colleagues from Ukraine provided a powerful reminder: even in times of disruption, cities remain among humanity’s greatest tools for cooperation, creativity, and hope.

ABOVE: Chair of the Jelgava Council (Mayor), Mārtiņš Daģis receives the 2026 IMCL Livable Cities Award from IMCL Board member Jim Brainard for the City's progress in regenerating after the devastation of WWII. The background shows photos from the city's rich urban past.

The 63rd International Making Cities Livable Conference Begins in Latvia on "Regenerative Architecture and Urbanism: Recovery and Resilience After an Age of Disruption"

Riga and the nearby city of Jelgava are the venues, offering many lessons for how to make cities livable.

ABOVE: Riga City Architect Pēteris Ratas presents to the opening session of the 63rd IMCL conference at the Council Chambers of the Riga City Hall.

We are delighted to report that the 63rd International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) Conference has begun in Riga and Jelgava, Latvia — the next annual gathering of the venerable series, bringing together city leaders, planners, economic development professionals, researchers, designers, practitioners, NGOs, and others committed to creating more livable, resilient, and humane cities.

Our theme this year — “Regenerative Architecture and Urbanism: Recovery and Resilience After an Age of Disruption” — could hardly be more timely. Around the world, cities are confronting unprecedented challenges: climate impacts, social and economic disruption, rapid technological change, and in some places the urgent task of rebuilding after conflict. At the same time, cities also hold extraordinary resources for renewal: their cultures, communities, histories, public spaces, and shared capacities for adaptation.

Latvia offers a powerful setting for this conversation. Riga and Jelgava are cities with rich histories and remarkable urban heritage, but also places that have faced profound periods of disruption and transformation. Their experiences offer important lessons about continuity, recovery, and the regeneration of urban life.

Riga, a UNESCO World Heritage city, reflects nearly eight centuries of urban evolution — from its medieval street patterns and Hanseatic heritage, to its world-renowned Art Nouveau districts, to remarkable examples of adaptation and reuse such as the Riga Central Market. Its urban fabric demonstrates how cities can preserve memory and identity while continuing to change, adapt, and serve new generations.

Jelgava offers an equally powerful story of recovery and resilience. Once the historic capital of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia, the city suffered devastating destruction during the Second World War, losing much of its historic center. Yet it has continued the long process of rebuilding and renewal, preserving important cultural landmarks while exploring new opportunities for regeneration. The magnificent Jelgava Palace — one of the great architectural monuments of the Baltic region — stands as a symbol of endurance, adaptation, and continuity across centuries of change.

ABOVE: The beautiful Jelgava Palace, our venue for the bulk of plenaries and breakout sessions.

The conference began on Monday morning, the 6th of July, at 9:00 AM as the City of Riga welcomed participants at Riga City Hall. The Vice Mayor for Development, Māris Sprindžuks, greeted attendees, followed by a detailed presentation from Riga City Architect Pēteris Ratas. The opening presentation was followed by a study tour exploring the city’s remarkable urban fabric and lessons for contemporary urbanism. In the evening, participants will gather for a reception in the splendid House of the Blackheads, one of Riga’s most treasured historic landmarks and itself an extraordinary story of reconstruction and cultural recovery.

From the presentation by Riga City Architect Pēteris Ratas, showing the City's work to make Riga livable.

Senior representatives of the Latvian government are also on hand, including officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as officials from Riga and Jelgava. They are joined by mayors, planners, architects, economic development specialists, researchers, NGO heads and many others, for a fascinating interaction across borders and disciplines.

Our host city of Jelgava will welcome us to the splendid Jelgava Palace for the main conference sessions, as well as study tours and a hands-on workshop examining opportunities for urban regeneration in Jelgava itself, exploring how lessons from history, research, and practice can inform the next generation of urban transformation.

The Jelgava workshop will take these questions from theory into practice, using the city itself as a living laboratory for exploring approaches to urban regeneration. Participants will examine opportunities to renew Soviet-era housing districts, public spaces, streetscapes, and everyday urban environments — asking how existing places can be adapted and improved rather than simply replaced. This work reflects one of the central ideas of regenerative urbanism: that cities are not finished products, but evolving systems whose existing social, cultural, and physical patterns can become the foundation for a more resilient and livable future

For more than six decades, the IMCL Conferences have brought together people working across disciplines and sectors to ask a vital question: how can we make cities that better support human and ecological flourishing? From mayors and public officials to planners, architects, researchers, developers, and community organizations, IMCL provides a forum for exchanging practical knowledge and advancing the shared work of making cities more livable.

We look forward to learning from Latvia, sharing lessons from around the world, and working together toward more resilient, beautiful, and livable cities for all.


ABOVE: Scenes from Riga and Jelgava.