Ricky Burdett is professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics (LSE), and director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age project. He is a member of the Mayor of London's Cultural Leadership Board, was chief adviser on Architecture and Urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics, and architectural adviser to the Mayor of London from 2001 to 2006. Burdett was director of the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2006.
With Deyan Sudjic he is co-editor of The Endless City (2007) and Living in the Endless City (2011), the two preceding volumes to Shaping Cities in an Urban Age, all published by Phaidon. Philipp Rode is executive director of LSE Cities and associate professorial research fellow at the London School of Economics, where he also runs the Urban Age project with Ricky Burdett. As researcher and consultant he has been directing interdisciplinary projects comprising urban governance, transport, city planning and urban design since 2003.
The focus of his current work is on the institutional capacities of cities, and has included co-leading the Habitat III Policy Unit on `Urban Governance, Capacity and Institutional Development. He is author of Governing Compact Cities : How to Connect Planning, Design and Transport (2018).