For three August days, one campus in Almaty, Kazakhstan, turned into a living laboratory — a space where young architects, designers, and artists tested how art and ecology could reshape city life in real time.
The creative marathon, called Creathon and organized by Urban Forum Kazakhstan and Tabiğat Labs at KazGASA, merged urbanism, design, and social impact into one dense experiment.
It wasn’t an exhibition or a hackathon, but a cultural accelerator where results mattered more than likes.
“Creathon is a prototype for how creative people can turn local challenges into sustainable solutions,” says curator Assel Yeszhanova.
What Made It Different
What made Creathon truly different was its structure. The teams brought together architects, engineers, artists, ecologists, and sociologists — all between eighteen and thirty-five — speaking different professional languages yet united by a shared purpose. The participants had only seventy-two hours to move from concept to prototype, finishing with a public showcase at InEco Fest in Almaty’s Botanical Garden, where their creations met both people and the landscape itself.
Sustainability and inclusion weren’t decorative slogans but the very framework of the process: from the choice of materials and methods to the social value of each idea.
Out of more than a hundred applications, 21 best of the best participants were selected and divided into small teams, each led by a mentor.
Day 1 — ideas and sketches; Day 2 — materials and prototypes; Day 3 — assembly and presentation.
Parallel lectures and feedback sessions kept the energy high and the focus sharp.
What Came Out of It
At Creathon, sustainability wasn’t an add-on — it was the skeleton
More than twenty prototypes were created, most built from recycled or locally sourced materials, with minimal waste and reused structures.
- “Tamyr Riza”: a felt cocoon seeded with oats, where visitors could step inside and feel the quiet rhythm of growth (team led by Alina Aitzhanova).
- “H2O-001”: a project by Zhanna Ee that filters water from traditional irrigation canals, turning it into a drinking fountain for people, birds, and stray animals — hydrology as social design.
- Modular Topchan: a transformable, multi-level bench made of textiles and natural pigments, developed under Chingiz Batyrbekov, designed for movement and adaptability.
- “The Observer’s Chair”: an installation by Nargiz Magayeva, assembled from discarded furniture as a meditation on memory, use, and renewal.
Some of these works now remain in the Botanical Garden; others are being replicated in public parks. It’s a shift from “projects for show” to objects of daily life.
“We wanted to show that sustainability is not a limitation — it’s a driver of creativity,” says Yeszhanova.
The Human Effect
Creathon became a school of empathy as much as of design. Participants learned to listen, negotiate, present, and respond. On the final day, the garden filled with people — children planting seeds, families testing installations, artists explaining how ideas become useful objects.
“Creativity here is collective,” notes Batyrbekov. “It’s not about I made it, but we heard and changed together.”
The event built soft skills as effectively as physical structures, teaching collaboration, curiosity, and shared authorship.
Partnerships and Governance
Behind the creative rush stood a precise framework: Urban Forum Kazakhstan, Tabiğat Labs, KazGASA, Chevron, the Main Botanical Garden, and supporting institutions and media. Corporate partners backed production and education, aligning KPIs with public visibility and community value.
Transparent goals, measurable outcomes, and open presentation made the project a model of cultural governance.
Almaty, through Creathon, is practicing soft power through prototypes, showing that policy, business, and creativity can coexist not in theory but in form.
Why It Matters
An experimental platform: a space where ideas meet both the city and nature in real conditions.
Normalization of sustainable practice: ESG is becoming a working standard, not a presentation slide.
Network and economy: prototypes evolve into collaborations, design products, or social businesses — from modular furniture to urban installations.
A new urban image: Almaty emerges as a city where design, ecology, and civic life share the same language.
Organizers plan to make Creathon annual, expand it geographically. The vision: a Central Asian Creathon Network, a shared platform for sustainable design and cross-regional collaboration.
“Creathon is not a one-time event,” says Yeszhanova. “It’s a seed for a sustainable creative ecosystem.”
The Takeaway
Creathon 2025 is a sign of a new phase in Kazakhstan’s cultural and creative economy. It shows that with the right structure and support, ideas can turn into tangible, ethical, and socially conscious design in just days.
For European institutions and businesses focused on sustainability and cultural innovation, Creathon signals a new hub on the global creative map. Collaboration, knowledge exchange, and scaling are the logical next steps.
Just as Copenhagen uses architecture festivals to test green innovation, Almaty uses Creathon to prototype sustainable creativity.
ESG in one paragraph:
E — Recycled materials and circular design.
S — Youth inclusion, community learning, and public dialogue.
G — Transparent partnerships between public, private, and civic sectors.
The Silk Road once carried goods; now it carries ideas — and Creathon is the new route where creativity becomes currency.
Cover photo made by Oleg Zuev
