THEMES E13 call for contributions

Europan 12 is still running and yet it is already time to prepare the theme of the coming Europan 13 competition. Defining the subject is necessary to begin looking for sites in the different European countries. It is thus important to formulate a good theme issue in order to motivate the cities to propose interesting contexts for urban and architectural transformations.

To define the subject of the next session, Europan decided to launch a call for contributions towards the young professionals, but also towards the people responsible for urban transformations in the European cities and towards the researchers.

From E12 to E13, a theme continuity enriched with a multiplicity of new looks

The Europan 12 theme –The Adaptable City- is very strategic for the future of the cities.

It is not only a question of flexibility or functionalities, but also a new way to think of scenarios for appropriate transformations of the European city — between inheritance (history of the place), invention (innovating spatial arrangements for multiple uses) and processes/reversibility (evolutions in time and/or temporary). It is less a question of technology than of a new method to establish links between natural and cultural environment and to find compensations and connections. The new projects should enable the creation of hybrid urban landscapes, considering nature and uses and adding sense and reconnections to it.

Europan has thus decided that the E12 theme of Adaptability of urbanized territories will not apply for only one session and may be studied further for E13, as this is one major issue for the future of the European cities, maybe the most important when we take into account the evolution of urban societies. During the Forum of Sites in Malmö (SE) in January 2013 the main interpretation of the word adaptable was the way to adapt urban areas to the new paradigm of sustainable development, yet in a period of crisis and uncertainty about the future, where the old tools of urbanism passed out of date. And the demand is thus great for new strategies to make the city adaptable (see the presentations of the debates of the E12 Forum of Sites in Malmö)

Still, it is necessary to better define how this theme of adaptability is currently operational within the urban transformations in Europe and which changes may be implied by its taking into account - on different levels - in the design processes. What are today the innovating design strategies that may be used as tools to develop processes of adaptation of urban areas in the European cities. This is the meaning of this call for contributions to better determine the impact of the theme in the practice in Europe.

How?

If you are interested in contributing to the subject, please send us -on the European website- an illustrated text of max. 5 pages (.pdf format)

In this text, present and analyse one (or compare different) innovating design strategy in which you were or still are involved –as a design professional, urban responsible or researcher- on the question of the European cities’ adaptability to the new issues of urban life.

Who is concerned?

Contributors thus have to be involved in the processes aiming at implementing the adaptable city, either as:

- a professional of the urban and/or architectural design involved in a project on this subject;
- an urban administrator or city representative, participating to one or different innovating processes linked to this subject;
- a researcher or a university teacher, involved in the analysis of urban and architectural mutations linked to the subject.

How to send your contributions?

First download the template (.doc) available in the column on the right. Then fill it in and save it as .pdf before uploading it on our website via the form in the column on the right.

Launch of the call for contributions: June 3rd, 2013

Deadline for submissions: September 15th, 2013

What will Europan do with your contributions?

The Europan Scientific Committee and the organizers will go through all the contributions.

The Scientific Committee will then analyse their content to write a first positioning text and select the most interesting and relevant contributions related to the subject of adapting the city.

The Committee will present its analysis to the national organizers during a meeting in Berlin (DE) on Sept. 29th, 2013, where the main lines of the E13 theme will be defined.

A final text will then be written on the subject and used as a basis to look for sites for E13.

The best contributors will be invited to give a lecture during the Forum of the Cities and the Juries in Paris (FR) on Nov. 8th, 2013.

The selected contributions will be published on the European website for the launch of Europan 13 in 2014.