A partnership between XDG Labs and Leadership for Cities. Small, senior rooms — governments, developers, institutions, investors — around the questions defining the next generation of cities.
The Festival makes the conversation public. The Circle holds the community. NXA holds the learning.
Across Asia Pacific and Africa, the next generation of cities is being shaped in real time. The decisions are technical, financial, ecological, cultural and political — and they are being taken now by leaders who rarely get a room to think with their peers. NXA is that room.
We work with people building the next thing, not only writing about it. Every Lab and Studio is anchored to a live decision in the room.
We brief in boardrooms and walk in streets. Singapore is the anchor; the region is the field. Theory is paired with the place that proves or breaks it.
Our faculty are practitioners first — the planners, developers, regulators and operators who run the systems we study, alongside the researchers and writers who frame them.
Cohorts are deliberately small. The relationships built in the room continue inside the Citymaking Circle long after the programme ends.
A pragmatic urbanist, researcher and creative strategist. Two decades advising cities, companies, universities and communities across South and Southeast Asia, the Gulf, the UK and Australia — with a portfolio that has included the Mayor of London, the World Bank, India's Ministry of Urban Development, LSE's Urban Age, NUS Cities and Singapore's Centre for Liveable Cities.
Convenes Leadership for Cities, The Art of Citymaking Festival and the Citymaking Circle. NXA is the formal expression of a practice he has been running informally for years: putting the right twelve people in a room, framing the right question, and giving the work the conditions to happen.
Principal, Peter Hyland Advisory and Industry Fellow in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Queensland. A 40-year career building and leading professional services firms across urban planning and development, urban economics and real estate strategy — for the public and private sectors.
With undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in urban planning and urban economics from the University of Queensland, Peter is regarded as one of the Asia-Pacific's most respected urban land-use strategists, with major projects led across Australia, the Asia Pacific, the Middle East and the United Kingdom — a trusted advisor to major private and public companies and all levels of government.
Co-convenes the Legacy Cities Spotlight with Anupam — an NXA arc on the decade of decisions around Brisbane 2032 and the cities that host the world's largest events.
NXA holds the executive learning. Five pillars, one platform — each tuned to a different register of leadership.