Wise Town has been developed through the collaboration of three founding professors working across architecture, territorial development, sustainability, rural resilience, and civic innovation.
The original conceptual proposition of Wise Town was initiated by Prof. Kwanphil Cho as a post-Smart City framework. The Wise Town Manifesto, Network, Lab system, Accreditation Protocol, and Wise Town Index have since been developed through the collaborative work of Prof. Kwanphil Cho, Prof. Giovanni Quaranta, and Prof. Rosanna Salvia.
Architect, educator, and researcher at Handong Global University. Formerly at Zaha Hadid Architects. Initiated the Wise Town Framework as a post-Smart City proposition.
Scholar of territorial development, rural innovation, and sustainability. University of Basilicata and Chair of Fondazione MEDES. Contributes to the Wise Town Network, Lab system, and Wise Town Index.
Scholar of rural development, territorial resilience, and sustainability. University of Basilicata. Strengthens the scientific and territorial grounding of the Wise Town initiative.
Wise Town is an international initiative for a new civic and territorial spirit beyond the Smart City.
We bring together architects, researchers, educators, civic actors, institutions, local governments, and territorial partners working toward more resilient, distinctive, regenerative, and human places.
The Wise Town Framework was initiated and principally framed by Prof. Kwanphil Cho and has since been further developed through the collaboration of the founding professors: Prof. Kwanphil Cho, Prof. Giovanni Quaranta, and Prof. Rosanna Salvia.
During its initial incubation phase, Fondazione MEDES provides the main temporary operational base for the Wise Town Network, supporting its launch, coordination, and early development.
Defining the core language, principles, and civic direction of Wise Town.
Testing Wise Town principles in real places through regeneration, adaptive reuse, public space activation, local economy strategies, and community-based experimentation.
A practical civic mapping tool that helps municipalities observe their own trajectory — not a ranking system, but a framework for diagnosis, reflection, and contextual comparison.
Studios, workshops, lectures, publications, and public conversations that connect local experience with global knowledge.
Connecting towns, cities, universities, institutions, and communities that wish to exchange wisdom without becoming the same.
Wise Town is a framework for places that want to survive, learn, regenerate, and contribute to the world through their own systemic difference.
Every place has the right to remain different — not only in appearance, but in the way it lives, learns, produces, cares, and connects.