6 Questions to Better Understand Urban Creatives - Budapest Based Multidisciplinary Design Community

6 Questions to Better Understand Urban Creatives - Budapest Based Multidisciplinary Design Community

6 Questions to Better Understand Urban Creatives - Budapest Based Multidisciplinary Design Community

Urban Creatives are proud to launch its new blog and invites you to enjoy monthly interview series with the creatives in our community. Here is the very first interview with Ahmet Uzun, the founder of Urban Creatives. Sit back, relax and enjoy!

1 // Who are you? What is Urban Creatives? What is it all about?

Urban Creatives is a multidisciplinary design community and creative agency based in Budapest, standing on the fields of urbanism, architecture, photography, graphic design and product design. We work across diverse areas such as gastronomy, event management, travel consulting, business development and branding. Basically, you can see people of Urban Creatives organizing events, thematic markets and workshops, making handcrafted furniture, cooking passionately and so on.

Thanks to Budapest experience, we are also able to offer gastronomy related services such as talks, workshops, cooking classes and thematic personalized banquets. In a wider context, we also provide creative solutions for small and middle scale organizations and companies, brand design and development services.

Urban Creatives consists of passionate designers, artists and creatives living in Budapest, Vienna and Istanbul, who aim to create something valuable for all while enjoying the pleasure of collaborating with professionals from a wide range of areas. We invite and encourage people to discover the power of collaboration and the benefits of being together.

2 // How did you come up with this idea? What is the story behind Urban Creatives?

I personally have been always keen on the idea of multidisciplinary design and I started to form the idea of Urban Creatives as an open platform after Uneven Growth - Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities Workshop that took place in MAK Vienna in 2014. Meanwhile, with one of my friend from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, we have been working on a mobile application design, so called futurewien, for City Hype Competition which is organized by Vienna Business Agency. All these experiences encouraged me a lot to kick-start my own initiative and right after I came back to Istanbul, I started work on Urban Creatives model and finally on August 31, 2014, I launched the Facebook page as an open platform with the help of friends who value the collaboration and multidisciplinary works.

3 // What is multidisciplinarity and multidisciplinary design for Urban Creatives?

Shortly, multidisciplinarity represents various disciplines, redefining the opportunities of collaboration for all. Multidisciplinary design includes designers and creatives from different disciplines and lifestyles with a new collective design approach they didn’t experience before, which provides them a new open platform to work, learn and enjoy the whole production process collaboratively to find a new hybrid solution for complex tasks and issues. We deeply believe that there is a lot to learn from this creative togetherness. In Urban Creatives, we enjoy being and collaborating together.

4 // How does Urban Creatives work?

Urban Creatives exist to apply its own unique collaborative design perspectives to form a creative matter by offering strategic multidisciplinary solutions. What excite us about all these things is the opportunity to open up the doors of collaborating with creative professionals for enjoyable and profitable actions based on our values and beliefs.

As Urban Creatives, we aim to offer something different to the creative minds. Different than a design studio, architectural office or an event company. We are seeking for “bored” creatives who are looking for challenges outside of their comfort zone and their profession. Urban Creatives relies on three elements; The first one is Core Team that is responsible for realization of ongoing projects and they are true partners and supporters of the whole journey of Urban Creatives since the beginning. Second, Urban Creatives Network Database which includes like-minded creatives and initiatives all around the world who want to collaborate with us depending on the various projects. And finally, Ideas & Projects Database that contains tons of expandable ideas, as well as current and also future projects within Urban Creatives. Depending on the project, we basically come together and create something unique and valuable together. There is strong link and communication between these three elements to achieve better all the time. Also we positioned Urban Creatives as a bridge between creatives, clients, initiatives and organizations to provide various services and benefits to each other continuously. In this manner, Urban Creatives itself is also a beneficial networking platform for all the parties which take part of in our community.

5 // What are your remarkable projects?

I must say our very first project, futurewien mobile application means a lot to us since we developed the idea and the design in a very difficult environment that time. The app provides an open platform for everyone to share their ideas about the city and the urban life. Users can organize and advertise their own events via futurewien and they can as well promote the previously shared ideas or join the activities happening around Vienna.

Emotionally, Hagia Sophia Hurrem Sultan Bath renewal project of the changing sections is also remarkable for us because the building itself was designed and built by Mimar Sinan, the chief Ottoman architect in 16th century. This project focuses on the renewal of changing areas for both gentlemen and ladies therapists and the staff. Frankly speaking, we are are more than proud to be somehow part of this 450-years-old fantastic building.

We participated Restaurant Day event in Budapest on May 16, 2015. After we established the Facebook page of Restaurant Day Istanbul, we organized an event, namely Restaurant Day Istanbul - Turkish Cuisine 101 in Istanbul as well for the first time in the city on August 16, 2015. We provided participants a place to open up their small restaurant in the collaboration with KapCup Garden Terrace Kadikoy which is located in a vibrant district of the city, Kadikoy. 

We also kick-started a brand new homemade food themed event series so called “Food For Friends – Tasty Gatherings // Cosy Atmosphere” on October 2016. Food For Friends events aim to offer quality homemade food in a cosy and friendly local atmosphere to all friends and food lovers in Budapest. The first theme was homemade Turkish/Mediterranean and Hungarian food. During the event campaign, an Instagram Photo Challenge was launched and followers were asked to upload and tag a photo a day according to defined theme and hashtags. It was deliciously fun, I must say.

6 // Future Plans and Projects?

Nowadays, we are quite excited about our brand new project about the beautiful city of Budapest. You will hear the details soon on our social media accounts. Give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook to keep in touch. Also we are planning to start monthly interviews with the creatives (aka Urbanouts) within our lovely community. We aim to promote them, their works and contributions to Urban Creatives community. Simply, stay tuned and start enjoying with us. For more information or possible collaborations, feel free to contact us anytime. Cheers!