We live in a world nature moves away from cities cities move away from their nature. Our planet, humanity all other creatures are paying the price of this alienation by facing irreversible disasters such as the climate crisis. As cities break away from the ecosystem of which they are a part, they turn into a machine that produces pollution, disasters injustice. It loses its resistance. On the one hand, it contains people, that is, vitality, on the other hand, it becomes a robotic space.

İZPA, which brings together the ecosystem values of the city with the participation of academic data citizens by introducing a brand-new concept of urbanism, is a design aimed at eliminating the self-destructive features of modern cities.

This design is based on the fact that more than half of the human population in the world lives in cities, the solution can still be found in cities. It tests the classical urban planning approach that pushes nature out of cities cuts itself off from it, with a brand new social, economic spatial design based on circular culture.

İZPA designs the cities of the future, which are a part of the ecosystem in the world breathe by connecting with the cycles of nature, is realizing an example of this in İzmir.

At the World Union of Municipalities Culture Summit held in Izmir in September 2021, the concept of "Circular Culture" was introduced as one of the new terms of urbanism was widely accepted around the world.

The circular culture, which forms the basis of İZPA's vision, rises on four main pillars.

Harmony with our nature. Harmony with each other. Harmony with the past. And finally, harmony with change.

Humanity has lived for a very long time thinking that its own mind is superior to the intelligence of the universe. The revolution, which humans called enlightenment, made them a successful species on the one hand, caused him to withdraw into himself on the other. Humanity has created art, philosophy economy, thus culture, inspired by nature, came a moment when they broke all ties with nature.  By doing so, they eliminated the cultures compatible with nature that humanity had previously introduced failed to produce a new cultural basis to replace them. From here, the climate crisis was born. Because a planet formed every living thing became extinct in almost ten minutes. For this reason, circular culture is primarily based on harmony with our nature which is our first pillar.

One of the starting points for aspiring change is related to the second pillar of circular culture: Harmony with each other. In the circular cities of the future, we have to learn to be in harmony with each other promote democracy as it is essential to life. 

The third pillar of circular culture is harmony with our past. It is very difficult to make a cultural design for the future without understanding the cultures that existed in this geography before us. This second title is of great importance in our country, such as Izmir Turkey, the history of humanity goes back thousands of years.

Heraclitus, a thinker from Izmir, has a valuable saying: The only constant is change. This saying describes that change is also in the leaven of culture. Thus, it excludes the possibility of cultures transforming into dogmas, domination ideologies over time. While describing the circular culture, we explain adaptation with change as a fourth pillar.

İzmir describes a new city culture that includes all of these four pillars. This program, which we call CittaSlow Metropol led by İzmir, sees cities as ecosystems with a circular economy, which is the successive link of circular culture.

In other words, CittaSlow Metropol describes the cities of the future, namely circular cities, which are the spatial projections of circular culture economy. İZPA is trying to spread an innovative city model that combines local universal values, starting from İzmir.