urbanNext is promoted by Actar Publishers, a publishing house based in New York and Barcelona, with more than 25 years of experience publishing books on architecture, photography and design. This project emerged as the logical next step for a group of editors engaged in redefining the task of disseminating, and generating content, by harnessing the capacities of the digital medium: its multiple formats, and the interaction with readers. For more than 4,000 years, human beings have been organizing collectively in different urban conditions. Information technologies, advances in engineering, social participation, ecological challenges, and new cultural references all add dimensions to this urban framework, making its discussion and conceptualization a much more complex task. Expanding on traditional categories like the megalopolis or the rural village, the small town or the city, we believe it is more relevant to talk about urbanization processes and how density and complexity are forces for differentiation. This expanded urban condition plays an active role in shaping and rethinking architecture and design practices as a whole: that is the focus of urbanNext. urbanNext’s main goal is to generate a global network to produce content focused on rethinking architecture through the contemporary urban milieu —urbanity that is conditioned by the specificities of the information society, sustainable awareness, globalized knowledge and leisure. urbanNext is designed to establish a working structure and a multidisciplinary authorial platform for collaborations between people who have an interest in working, thinking and reflecting on design practices and their future. Finally, urbanNext is dedicated to distributing content through multiple channels, formats and media (print, digital, audiovisual, and even exhibitions or events). This convergence of resources, teams and media allows for a new collective narrative, which we call transmedia.
