EUROPAN 13

The adaptable city 2

EUROPAN 12 invited to reflect on the importance of urban rhythms and life cycles. The aim was to facilitate the adaptation of the city in the face of an uncertain future and, while preserving its specificity, to contribute to slowing down, accelerating or articulating cycles and transformations: the aim was to explore the relationship between time and space in projects on an urban-architectural scale in order to achieve an adaptable and changing city.

EUROPAN 13 proposes to continue working on the theme of "The Adaptable City", exploring more sustainable urban growth in the context of the economic crisis that many European cities are currently experiencing. Three general ideas structure this theme: Resilience as a challenge:

To be able to perpetuate or recover the identity of the elements that structure the city (whether built or landscaped) in a context of major changes.

Social adaptability as an objective: to reconcile the coherence of these structures with the evolution of uses and practices.

Economics as a method: managing urban transformations in different contexts of actors and resources, taking into account the limited means of a period of economic crisis and the 'post-oil city'.

Considering these three factors means shifting work in the city towards territories in which the relationship between actors (from the welfare state to self-management), contents (from segregation to participation) and project processes (the object versus the process) take precedence

SUB TOPIC 1: WELFARE STATE VERSUS SELF-MANAGEMENT

The essence of the European city is that it possesses a certain sense of the collective. Today, we are witnessing a gradual replacement of the "welfare state" by "self-organisation". What will be the new relationship between public and private? Who will take responsibility for the public if the administration's involvement decreases? What are the consequences for the professional practice of architects and town planners?

a- New relationship between the public and the private: Overcoming this traditional dichotomy, the challenge is to emphasise and promote co-strategies: cooperation, collaboration, co-programming, co-development... Small-scale interventions, bottom-up initiatives, cooperative buildings, private funding of projects. It is about adopting a more open and perceptive attitude to city planning.

- The sites of Europan 13 must allow these new relationships between private and public initiatives to be taken into account. Although linked to the public sector, the sites can extend their dialogue to owners, developers and users who could be involved from the start of the competition and play an active role in the development of the project once the jury's decision has been made.

b- The entrepreneurial role of young architects: These changes provide young professionals with an opportunity to reconsider their role. By involving new partners in your projects, your work could focus more on team coordination than on serving a single client. The architect can play a proactive role, teaming up with economic actors to implement a project together.

- The sites may recommend the participation of other actors that the contestants may include in their proposals: economists, urban managers, etc.

c- Hands on in the face of the crisis. Understanding the city not as a passive victim of the crisis, but as a potentially productive field of activities, can favour the emergence of alternative modes of urban growth, giving rise to what could be called "action urbanism". Based on the knowledge of "the needs of the city", architects and urban planners could propose strategic programmes or interventions in certain places in order to revitalise the city.

- In the current context of uncertainty about their future, the proposed sites can give planners sufficient flexibility to propose strategic projects based on innovative processes and stakeholder partnerships.

SUB TOPIC 2 : SEGREGATING VERSUS SHARING

Sharing is a challenge for the creation and regeneration of the adaptable city: sharing spaces, skills, values, collective imaginaries... On an urban scale, sharing means preserving the collective while proposing a more participative organisation of the economy and society. Sharing on an urban scale can stimulate the active role and coexistence of diverse interests and cultures. Can collective participation be a means to develop less burdensome and less impactful solutions for building the green and sustainable city? Can it be a means to co-regenerate inhabited spaces?

a- Solidarity to encourage an active form of participation. At the urban level, solidarity between different types of people has a cultural dimension. In other words, getting involved in social action makes it possible to create a common territory for the increasingly diverse inhabitants of cities.

- In the competition documentation for each site, participants (municipal authorities, promoters, young entrants) can be invited to propose, beyond the mere representation of objects, a system that links the final result to the creative process.

b- Promote accessibility to urban facilities. At the neighbourhood level, urban facilities and services make it possible to share, generating a certain sense of belonging. All too often, however, safety and management standards transform these infrastructures into isolated, mono-functional enclaves.

- Sites should be open to proposals for alternative uses and varied spatial relationships. Working with reversible and changing uses improves accessibility and confers new roles for schools, sports facilities, shopping centres, public transport, etc. Sites should enhance accessibility to alternative uses.

c- Sharing to increase synergies. The crisis has highlighted the need to create and manage space with fewer resources. It has contributed to bursting the self-sufficient consumerist bubble, introducing the notion of the public into the everyday life of our cities.

- EUROPAN sites can offer innovative programmes that can encourage a new way of sharing (for example, elderly people with limited economies can lead to new residential models with shared services or, in the residential area, vertical communication cores can become part of the public space...).

d- Sharing the human and material environment. Energy sufficiency and changing human behaviour force us to consider new alliances between people and natural resources, animals, technology and so on. Different modes of sharing will change the way the urban environment is designed.

- The competition documentation must make reference to the spaces shared by the different actors, their conflicts, the convergence of real interests, their priorities...

SUB TOPIC 3: OBJECT VERSUS SYSTEM (PROCESS)

Due to the rapid change in communication tools and social networks, our culture is less dependent on physical objects, a phenomenon that affects architecture and urban planning. The projects of many young architects are often limited to the pre-existing, proposing fewer and fewer objects. Thus, the project focuses more and more on the management of the existing and the social fabric, opening up the debate on "urbanism with limited or even no growth".

a- Contexts and not just places. A project can be one more "layer" of an environment, without formally placing its intervention in the territory before it; the context can be not only physical, but also social, cultural or economic.

- The competition documentation must include "cartographies" of an environment, alluding to identity, proximity, production, social relations and even generational conflicts... The questions posed to the contestants must be able to give rise to strategic projects, to "roadmaps". Sites can be small as long as the changes they are intended to bring about have consequences in a wider context.

b- Programmatic innovation. The project must include innovation in terms of uses, with the aim of redefining the relationship between the programme and the physical support and, in some cases, to rethink what already exists.

- Both the questions and the answers can call for the participation of new agents in the production and management of the space (beyond the classic promoter-projector-user trio). A project can be based more on who will gather around a table, on social construction and not just physical construction.

c- New process of implementation. Prioritising the prospective dimension of the project over the objectual dimension can have consequences for the implementation process.

- Some sites may require projects to be developed in stages, which can be redefined and which are capable of changing direction depending on the results of the first phases. Thinking of many small interventions in time or space can lead to a new type of low-impact urbanism.

d- Innovative representation. How to describe a social framework, an identity? What is the information to be provided to encourage the search for opportunity spaces?

- The competition documentation provided shall be presented in an innovative way and entrants may be invited to use new graphic languages.

1 - How to integrate the city's voids into urban development processes?

Economic and social transformations or changes in government teams can bring to light strategic urban voids: building complexes awaiting new users, former military zones, abandoned green areas, ... which, due to their large size, have proved incapable of following a normal/organic growth process and need to be completely adapted. By what means can these gaps be filled? When can they be considered positive values? How to make sense of the void and how to incorporate it into new ways of building the city?

BARREIRO (PT) / BERGEN (NO) / BORDEAUX (FR) / FELDAFING (DE) / GENÈVE (CH) / LEEUWARDEN (NL) / METZ (FR) / NACKA (SE) / ZAGREB (HR)

2 - How to take advantage of new inputs to transform urban space?

How can new inputs be harnessed to transform an urban space and how can the effects of new and positive dynamics be spread throughout its surroundings to foster new urbanities? How to manage potential tensions between local and translocal activities? These inputs are also related to new transport networks or new developments. The scale of these urban incentives varies from agglomeration to global.

BONDY (FR) / ESPOO (FI) / LANDSBERG (DE) / LUND (SE) / MOLFETTA (IT) / MONTREUIL (FR) / SANTO TIRSO (PT) / SCHWÄBISCH GMÜND (DE) / ST PÖLTEN (AT) / STAVANGER (NO) / TRONDHEIM (NO) / VERNON (FR) / WIEN (AT)

3 - How to create positive dynamics from critical situations ?

Many sites have to deal with critical situations of economic, environmental, urban origin or as a consequence of a crisis of values. Sites facing these difficulties can still constitute favourable fields for the emergence of new dynamics based on sharing and regenerating the tools of urban and architectural discipline.

AZENHA DO MAR (PT) / BARCELONA (ES) / BRUCK/MUR (AT) / CHARLEROI (BE) / GERA (DE) / GOUSSAINVILLE (FR) / JYVÄSKYLLÄ (FI) / LA CORRÈZE (FR) / LINZ (AT) / MARL (DE) / ØRSTA (NO) / SELB (DE) / STREEFKERK (NL) / WARSZAWA (PL)

4 - How to transform physical obstacles into new connections?

It is about creating "bridges", linear connections between different contexts that can overcome more than one obstacle, such as a river, railway or other physical barriers. However, it is sometimes possible to transform the obstacle in such a way that it enhances movements in different directions and directions, transforming the barrier into a link. The obstacle may be inhabited, cut through, traversed, it may be an opportunity to increase density, change the uses on either side of it, or allow a new perspective in a familiar context.

A CORUÑA (ES) / BAMBERG (DE) / GJAKOVA (KO) / GRAZ (AT) / INGOLSTADT (DE) / IRUN (ES) / LIBRAMONT (BE) / MARNE-LA-VALLÉE (FR) / MOULINS (FR) / OS (NO) / PALMA (ES) / SAINT-BRIEUC (FR) / SEINÄJOKI (FI)

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+info:

http://www.europan-esp.es/europan-13/
CALLS: Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA)
IN COLLABORATION WITH: Ministry of Public Works Higher Council of the Spanish Architects' Associations (CSCAE) EUROPAN / Spain

RESULTS

By categories

  • Forest for rest
    Forest for rest
  • Colonisation of the Gera centre
    Colonisation of the Gera centre
  • Waldstrasse
    Waldstrasse
  • Swap on the river
    Swap on the river
  • Osurbia. Redefining the Suburbia
    Osurbia. Redefining the Suburbia
  • FORUS LABing
    FORUS LABing
  • Stavanger
    Stavanger
  • The city in between
    The city in between
  • Wild Synapse
    Wild Synapse
  • The magic park of Feldafing
    The magic park of Feldafing
  • Nodes
    Nodes
  • Molfetta, land and sea
    Molfetta, land and sea
  • Caravanserais
    Caravanserais
  • Urban prescriptions
    Urban prescriptions
  • Protodike
    Protodike
  • Together
    Together
  • 3tirsolines
    3tirsolines
  • Open space fabric
    Open space fabric

Jury

Javier Martín RamiroSabine MüllerJuana Sánchez GómezJosé Miguel RoldánJosé Juan Barba President of the Jury : Marcel SmetsFernando Porras-Isla

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