The Urban Genome Project is a research endeavor initiated by editor and curator Joseph Grima and artist and architect Pedro Reyes. Its primary intent is to map the code on which cities are written, thereby assembling an index of tools for improving the urban environment, with a specific focus on political processes. To collect testimonies on this subject, a mobile unit resembling an expandable toolbox is mobilized as the venue of a series of live exchanges of knowledge between strategic agents, citizens, politicians and decision makers. This pool of knowledge is organized as a cross-referenced index that will constitute the UGP archive. A publication collects key interviews with the most influential and well-know mayors.

Joseph Grima is a Milan-based architect, writer and critic. He is the director of Domus magazine, one of the first publications to focus on architecture and design, and currently an internationally recognized institution in the debate and reportage of the wide array of disciplines which constitute the contemporary creative world. His previous presence at Domus as a senior editor was followed by a three year run as director at the Storefront for Art and Architecture, a seminal gallery space in New York City devoted to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and related disciplines, beyond cultural and geographical boundaries. Grima is the author of Instant Asia (Skira, 2007), a critical overview of the recent work of young and emerging architecture practices across the Asian continent, co-editor of Shift (Lars Mueller, 2008), and has contributed to numerous books and publications, including 10x10/3 (Phaidon, 2009) and a wide range of international periodicals including AD, Abitare, Domus, Tank, Volume and Urban China.