Europan 10 results

Inventing urbanity

Regeneration, Revitalization, Colonization

For the tenth session of the competition, Europan is publishing the catalogue of award-winning projects in the 62 European towns situated in the19 countries taking part.

The generic theme of Europan 10 was inventing urbanity, the ultimate aim being to create society, in other words to bring together people of all conditions and origins. We cannot however ignore the prevailing trend towards individualisation and the search for autonomy. It is to this very contradiction that Europan is directed: the desire for the city, i.e. the search for animation, community life, the public sphere, and at the same time the preservation of privacy, the home, the close-knit circle.

But the session also stressed the objectives of quality in sustainable development. How to reconcile residential density and quality, to be both in town and among nature? How can we invent sustainable projects capable of creating urban intensity while taking care of the environment?

123 award-winning projects in the Europan 10 session (56 winners, 67 runners-up) are presented in thematic site categories:

Regeneration: sites where the existing elements have to be radically transformed
Revitalization: sites where the local identity must be preserved while re-energizing the programme
Colonization: sites in the process of development.

Each project is developed on a dual scale: the scale of the urban concept and that of the architectural project, with a presentation detailing the main ideas.

The 85 projects awarded special mentions are presented more briefly, by country.

The catalogue is interspersed with some ten articles by European experts, pointing the way through the themes developed in the winning projects around the new issues of sustainable urban development (shared spaces, the town/country relationship, reusing the existent, densification, mixed uses, reversibility in time etc.)

These articles are divided into three themes:

New urban landscapes

- Walking the city, The city on foot by Pascal Amphoux, architect, teacher, Nantes (FR)/Lausanne (CH)
- Connecting grounds, Coexistence with whom, on what soils? by Stéphane Bonzani, architect, teacher, Paris (FR)
- Farming, New productive landscapes by Carlos Arroyo, architect, teacher, Madrid (ES)

Urban strategies

- Making complicities, Expanding the project’s territory by Bernd Vlay, architect, Wien (AT) and Socrates Stratis, architect, teacher, Nicosia (CY)
- Densifying, Critical mass and new urban patterns by Roger Riewe, architect, teacher, Graz (AT)
- Fragmenting, Explosion of new urban enclaves into multiple scales by David Franco, architect, teacher, Madrid (ES)
- Living, Revisiting contemporary lifestyles by Jens Metz, architect, urban planner, teacher, Berlin (DE)

The new starting from the old

- Sharpening, Innovative urban retrofitting by Ellen Hellsten, architect, Oslo (NO)
- Remaking, The new starting from the old by Inès Nizic, architect and teacher, Wien (AT)
- Working-Living, Rethinking spaces and networks for working and living by Hugo Hinsley, architect, teacher, London (EN)

The presentation of the winning and special mention projects is completed with the following:

- group photo with the team references
- a presentation of the 15 national juries
- references of the national and European Europan organizations
- a CD-ROM with the three panels of all the 437 award-winning and short-listed projects classified by theme, geographical site or team name