Some cities change through big plans, the kind voted on in meeting rooms. Others change because someone planted a flower bed, started a neighbourhood workshop, or talked ten neighbours into stepping outside. New Urban Habits is about the second kind.
On 20 and 21 June 2026, at the Mihai Eminescu Amphitheatre in Bucharest, we’re holding the second edition of the festival. Two days, free entry, more than 25 workshops, 12 speakers (so far — the list is still growing), exhibitions, film screenings and live music. Here’s the short version of why, with whom, how and where — and why we think it’s worth blocking out your weekend.
Why we’re doing this
Because cities get talked about a lot and acted on very little. We hear constantly about sustainability, mobility, green space — words that sound great at conferences and tend to stay there. New Urban Habits started from a simple idea: change in a city doesn’t come from a report, it comes from a habit. A new one — cycling instead of driving, composting your kitchen scraps, looking differently at the façade of the building you live in.
Last year, at the first edition, we saw it work. Strangers sat down at the same table to talk about their neighbourhood. Kids built model cities. The festival made national news. So this year we’re going further — a bigger space, a fuller programme.
In short: we’re not here to lecture you on what your city should look like. We’re here to build it together, for two days, hands on.
With whom
The festival is organised by UrbanizeHub, the community we’ve been building for years around the idea of a better city. But nothing you see in the programme would happen without the people taking the stage and running the workshops.
Xavier Matilla Ayala is coming — the former Chief Architect of Barcelona, the mind behind the “superblocks” that handed streets back to people on foot. So is Chris Bruntlett from the Dutch Cycling Embassy, who turned pedalling into a serious matter of urban policy. Lotte Bech speaks on planning cities for cyclists, Pietro Elisei on applied urbanism. Alongside them, Romanian names worth knowing: Andreea Raicu, who connects personal wellbeing to how we live in the city; Marius Tudosiei and Roxana Triboi on food and food systems; Claudiu Butacu of EFdeN, Serin Geambazu, Cătălina Frâncu of Zeppelin magazine, Ștefania Neagoe, Ciprian Sipoș. And more we’ll be announcing over the coming days.
Behind them stands a network of partners who genuinely pitch in: Garanti BBVA, the Sector 2 City Hall, the Mihai Eminescu Cultural Centre, together with the Embassies of the Netherlands and Denmark, PPC, M100, iVelo, UAUIM and others. The festival is also part of EU Green Week.
How we’re doing it
Not through long speeches, but through things you do with your own hands. The programme runs on three tracks, so it’s easy to plot your own route.
Educate is the workshops and UrbanTalks: neighbourhoods, heritage, climate, mobility, food. This is where you roll up your sleeves — dyeing wool with natural pigments, cycling virtually through Copenhagen to imagine a Bucharest built for bikes, learning to turn food waste into compost, crocheting alongside grandmothers at an upcycling session. There are workshops for adults, and plenty for children too: building cardboard cities at the Pop-Up Factory, urban gardening at the Little Garden Lab, innovation at the Mini UrbanLab.
Inspire is the part that stays with you: new media art, exhibitions, film screenings and music. Byron & Muse Quartet play live, and the installations transform the amphitheatre once the sun goes down.
Connect is the reason to show up in person rather than read about it the next day: real encounters between communities, public administration, the creative sector, and people like you who want to get involved.
You register through the form on the website, and each workshop has its own sign-up sheet, since places are limited. The full programme is in the PDF agenda.
Where
At the Mihai Eminescu Amphitheatre, set right inside a park in Bucharest. We chose the spot on purpose: it’s open, it’s green, and it has exactly the energy a festival about the city needs — a place where you can sit on the steps for a talk, drop by an exhibition, and stay for an evening concert, no ticket and no rigid schedule. For two days, the festival turns an ordinary public space into what it could always be: an open-air forum.
Why you should sign up
Because it’s free, and because, honestly, this is the kind of weekend you don’t come across often. In one place you’ll find the former Chief Architect of Barcelona, hands-on workshops, things for the kids to do, evening art, and people who think about the city the way you do. You don’t need to be an architect or an activist to get something out of it — you just need to live in a city and care how it looks.
What’s truly unique about New Urban Habits is that you don’t leave with ideas alone. You leave with a new habit, a connection that matters, or a perspective you didn’t have before. That was the point from the start: to turn words into action.
See you on 20–21 June. Bring a friend.
