2010 IMPERATIVE

If you are visiting this weblog you might be a city planner, an architect, a geographer, a designer, or just and interested person on The City.
Even if you are not into any of these fields, surely you have heard about the global warming and the climate change. The question is: Are city planners being trained for the world we will inherit?.
Architecture 2030 (hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences) has arranged a live web-cast for 20 February.
The idea is to reach students, teachers, schools and diferent organizations to change the way of teaching desing and planning. The goal is to prepear ourselves better for the challenges we will face sooner that we thought.
Some schools have already changed the common classes for that day and will participate online in the web-cast. Will you?

http://2010imperative.org/

Visual planning and urbanism in the mid-twentieth century

Town and Townscape, School of Architecture, planning and landscape; Newcastle University Library

13-15 September 2007

The early to mid-twentieth century was a time of intense debate over the future of cities and the form and appearance that they might take. In the UK the Garden City Movement, with a tendency towards lower densities and decentralisation, was an important influence. Internationally the radical reformation of the city was being promoted by Le Corbusier and others. Other radical models were promoted including ideas of linear cities or Frank Lloyd Wright’s radical decentralisation of Broadacre City. In amongst these grand concepts we can discern a strand of more practical urbanism, modernist in flavour but historically informed, seeking to recover positive conceptions of the city and town after the perceived deprivations of the nineteenth century. One manifestation of this was the UK townscape movement, with its emphasis on pictorial composition.

This conference will consider some of the key ideas of visual planning and the urban of the period, with a particular focus on the advocates of visual and three-dimensional planning as a means of achieving a reformulated twentieth century urbanism.

The keynote speaker at the conference will be Professor Stephen Ward, Oxford Brookes University.
The conference forms part of a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, “Town and Townscape: The Work and Life of Thomas Sharp”. Thomas Sharp was a key figure in the town planning profession in the mid-twentieth century and a major influence on thought about planning and design and as such his work will be one of the themes of the conference.

Continue reading at:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/library/sharp/conference.php

COMPETITION: Design For The New Centre Of Riga

The subject of the Competition is an urban construction and architectural idea which graphically and textually describes integrated development of the Competition Site. The urban construction and architectural idea and the explanatory note should include an urban design for the New Centre of Riga in Tornakalns and an architectural solution for the Riga City Council and the public administrative complex in line with the Assignment of the Competition.

The registration and submission deadline is 3rd September 2007.

Visit the website for further information: http://www.rdpad.lv/en/rcnc/

Rotterdam Architecture Biennale STARTS

We already warn it, but it's always interesting to remind important events.
TODAY starts the Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, whose main theme for this edition is THE CITY and its future.
Activities will run till 2nd September.
Rotterdam is also the "City of Architecture" in 2007. It seems a scape to The Netherlands is worth. Did you already plan your holidays?

Info:
http://www.biennalerotterdam.nl
http://www.rotterdam2007.nl

Continuity and Change in Cities

May 23, 2007 - May 25, 2007 / Alkmaar, Netherlands
2nd Meeting IFHP Working Party Continuity and Change in Cities
Theme: Continuity and Change in Cities: A Game with Many Players
www.alkmaar.nl/workingparty

43rd ISOCARP Congress. Call for papers

The International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP) is prepearing its 43rd Congress. It will take place in Antwerp (Belgium) from 19th to 23rd of September 2007.
At the website you will find more information on the event. At the moment is the "call for papers" stage, but in the website there are always interesting news about the planning field.
Besides the Congress there will be two workshops, one in Brussels and the other one in Antwerp.

http://www.isocarp.org/files/CallPapers_Registration_Brochure2007.pdf

Slow cities and the slow movement

Fired by the success and support for Slow Food the Italians set about initiating the Slow Cities movement. Slow cities are characterised by a way of life that supports people to live slow. Traditions and traditional ways of doing things are valued. These cities stand up against the fast-lane, homogenised world so often seen in other cities throughout the world. Slow cities have less traffic, less noise, fewer crowds.

Slow and colourful

Towns in Italy have banded together to form an organization and call themselves the Slow Cities movement. In their zeal to help the world they have formed what amounts to a global organization that sets out to control which cities in the world can call themselves Slow Cities and which cannot. This is not a movement. Social movements are movements from the bottom from the community. The seachange movement, the organic movement, the vegetarian movement, the homeschooling movement, are examples of movements. No-one controls them. No-one assesses you to see if you are allowed to call yourself a seachanger or if you can say you are a vegetarian.

Yet, the Slow Cities movement – Citta Slow – holds the power to assess a city that wants to be called a slow city. Citta Slow have developed a:

• Manifesto – setting out the underlying principles
• Charter of Association – cities wanting to be granted the status of Slow Cities must sign this charter
• A list of member cities
• Plans for an annual gathering.

No town or city with more than 50,000 residents may apply to be called a Slow City. The Slow City manifesto contains 55 pledges or criteria, grouped into six categories upon which cities are assessed; environmental policy, infrastructure, quality of urban fabric, encouragement of local produce and products, hospitality and community and Citta Slow awareness. To qualify to be called a Slow City and to use the snail logo, a city must be vetted and regularly checked by inspectors to make sure it is living up to the Slow City standard of conduct.

The principles of the Slow City movement are one we would like all cities no matter how big or small to live by. Hopefully the movement will continue and another grassroots slow city movement will operate in parallel whereby cities that cannot meet the strict criteria for one reason or another can still call themselves slow cities and continue to work towards sustainable living and the ethos of the slow movement.

Perhaps this new movement is already here. Check out slowlondon. As the site says: "Firstly, it is nothing new. There are people in cities all over the world who have found all sorts of ways to bring a sense of relaxation to places where it can often be stressful to live. slowlondon provides a place for these people to meet and share their ideas. On the other hand, there are many of us who are interested in finding out how to make commuting a pleasure rather than a chore....how to avoid fallling into bad habits at work just because everyone ele does it like that... how to reclaim time as the friend it really is.

"slowlondon hopes to provide inspiration and also support, because sometimes it requires a certain bravery to stand up and say no, there are other ways than this.

"The principles that underpin slowlondon apply to whichever city you live in. Some of the details may be different but on the whole, people all around the world face the same challenges."

Source: http://www.slowmovement.com/slow_cities.php

Monu num.7: Call for papers

Hi!
The very interesting magazine on urbanism, Monu, is prepearing its next number.
The 7th publication of Monu will deal with what they have called "2nd urbanism". Those cities not so known as the A-list of metropolis in the world.
Send your text, photographies or any other material related to the topic.

Further info: http://www.monu.org/call7.htm

EUROPAN 9

Here we have the new edition of one of the most important competition in Europe for young architects and city planners. All the information will be ready on next monday, 5th February, at the official web site.

The generic theme of Europan 9 is "European urbanity, sustainable city and new public spaces".

This edition counts with two Estonian cities, Tartu and Tallinn, as proposed sites.

If you cannot wait till next week, visit the website. Basic information is already launched: http://www.europan-europe.com

Good luck to all you!!!

HABITAT5. HOUSING. NEW WAYS OF INHABITING

From 2nd till 3rd of February will take place in Albacete (Spain) the conferences under the title “Habitat5. Housing. New way of inhabitating”. Organized by Foro Civitas Nova, a very interesting initiative in research, knowledge exchange and awareness of housing and urban development.
Experts in different areas will analyze the habitats where we live from several perspectives: space, technology, social behavior, environment or flexibility.
Even if you cannot attend to the conferences, i would have a look on this web site. They have interesting material on urban studies.
Conferences site:
http://www.forocivitasnova.org/jornadahabita5i.htm (english)

1st INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF YOUNG URBAN RESEARCHERS

The First International Conference of Young Urban Researchers (FICYUrb) will take place at ISCTE, in Lisbon – Portugal, June 11th and 12th, 2007. The organization of this scientific meeting was born from the will to create a space of interdisciplinary debate. Young researchers in urban studies that work and develop their researches on cities are expected to play a major role in this scientific meeting dynamic’s. The Conference is intended to be an adequate space to disseminate the most recent academic researches in urban studies from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives of the social sciences. While encouraging an international scientific debate, the Conference will provide a place of interchange between young urban studies practitioners and senior academics with a wide experience, especially those invited to the Opening and Final lectures in the meeting.

Call for papers:Those interested must send an abstract of approximately 250 words and a shortBiography-CV by March 16th , 2007. Papers in Portuguese, English, Spanish and French will be accepted. Authors will be noticed by April 2nd , 2007 . Completed Papers expected by May 14th , 2007.Guidelines for authors will be sent soon.

Further information:
https://conferencias.iscte.pt/index.php?cf=3

GREATER HELSINKI VISION 2

_international ideas competition_

Greater Helsinki municipalities and State of Finland (Ministry of Environment) organize an open ideas competition for the future land use and spatial vision of Greater Helsinki. The organisers are expecting refreshing entries to participate the competition and vision the future Greater Helsinki 2050.
The aim of the competition is to find innovative ideas for the future land use planning and develop sustainable strategies and concrete solutions for strengthening the status and competitiveness of Greater Helsinki as an attractive region to live and conduct business in. The competitors are expected to present their general vision for the Greater Helsinki in 2050 together with the detail study supporting it.
Total of EUR 500 000 will be awarded as prizes and purchases.
The sunmission of entries is 31 May 2007.

All the information here: http://www.greaterhelsinkivision.fi/

Innovative planning

Historically, urban planning has been understood as big scale blueprints for future urban extensions, or as managing the elements of urban system, to take two examples. Currently, it is near paradigmatic to view planning as communication and the fabrication of consensus between conflicting interests. The planner is now in the city, among its citizens.

While innovative approaches to collect users’ experiential knowledge and facilitate multi-actor processes are developed and tested, the older practices and institutional structures often sideline new ideas. Simultaneously, planning is increasingly seen as economic development, as project-driven or facilitating activity. Entrepreneurialism may be a contradictory development vis-à-vis public participatory planning. However, private processes do represent a different set of stakeholders.

The practices and the judicial frame of urban planning are changing across Europe. Estonia makes no exception. This blog aims at collecting actual experiences of new planning approaches both in micro and macro scale. We are interested in new coalitions, urban agenda setting and liminal bodies, but also in the practices of real-estate companies and scenarios of IT investors.

We hope to shed light to meta questions, such as legitimation after participatory democracy or the societal utility of planning, without forgetting concrete issues, such as efficient methods of brainstorming or technological solutions of web-based opinion tagging. In the end, we assume that the future planning system and the relevant professionalisms are quite different from the current ones. Who can plan? For who?

Text by Panu Lehtovuori