Our Approach & Strategy

Citilinks is a global and independent planning and design network dedicated to urbanism, transport and mobility, nature, architecture and research with a holistic approach of our physical and digital environment. We are building the missing links between planning, design, engineering, governance, technology, environment and strategy.

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Building the Missing Links

Citilinks projects globally cover urban development issues, public spaces, infrastructure planning, transport innovation, environmental studies and architectural design with a holistic, sensitive and knowledge-based approach. « Think Global, Act Local » defines the philosophy of our teams. We permanently build bridges between various disciplines, between cultures and backgrounds, and between stakeholders and local communities to continuously improve the livability of our environment and share our experience and knowledge with our networks.

We have worked collaboratively across 20 countries and more than 60 cities, and our clients are as diverse as we are, from municipalities to shared mobility services, developers, international institutions and local communities. Our Link Lab started recently in Chengdu, Athens and Kinshasa to transform some of our ideas in innovative products for cities and people, designed to influence from mobility choices to decision-making processes.

How Citilinks Happened

Citilinks was born from the desire of building bridges between disciplines and cultures to create better cities and livable urban environments that are responsive to people’s expectations. Everything started in 2009 around the campus of Tongji University in Shanghai, where a group of European, Chinese and African urbanists, architects and engineers decided to work together on the future of African cities, for the African Pavilion of the World Expo 2010.

Citilinks is made of European urbanists and architects that have experienced the rapid urbanization of megacities in China, Chinese technologists and urbanists that have studied in Europe and worked in Africa, planners and engineers from central and eastern Africa that have worked in America and China. Different backgrounds, different approaches but same values unite us and make it possible to work together for better urban environments combining genius loci and global knowledge.

Rethinking the Way We Move

Since a decade, we have grown knowledge and innovation about the mobility and flows of the future, based on healthier and smarter habits. Citilinks creates solutions based on a fair and connected use of the spatial environment for every user with adapted transport solutions to local communities, visitors and urban logistics.

Next Generation Infrastructure

We believe that intelligent infrastructure will not be only data-sensitive, digital and shared but actually greener, healthier and allowing a diversification of use according to collective and individual times. From New York to Shanghai, Conakry and Athens, we work on the future of streets and on the next generation of mass transit infrastructure.

Link Water Energy Environment

We consider water, energy and environment as a fertile ground on which the circular economy and ecology comes to life. Respecting and working with natural cycles, such as water cycles, seasons, the local climate brings life and health back into our urban environments. Each of our project is driven by a circular and resilient design approach.

Empowering Innovations for African Cities

From Dakar to Nairobi and Kinshasa, we work on the future of African cities and citizens in the digital age, through on demand transport projects, urban mass transit, sponge public spaces, smart ports, and digital innovation incubators.

Belt & Road Cities

Over the years, Citilinks has built a network of city making professionals along the Belt and Road, from coastal Chinese cities to the heart of Europe, with partners based in Central Asia and Russia, Eastern Europe, South and Southeast Asia. The vast amount of infrastructure projects planned to link and connect Eurasia will not only transform connectivity and accessibility at the global scale, it will also transform the cities along those axes and let emerge new forms of development and modernity.

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