Theme

PRODUCTIVE CITIES /2
Resources - Mobility - Equity

Europan 15 session enlarges the topic from Europan 14 –“Productive Cities”, which is a complex and crucial one in the contemporary mutation of European cities. This session, Europan would like to particularly focus on the issue of the ecological transition related to a vision of the productive city for the future.
The ecological productive transition needs to consider synergies between ecosystems, between biotopes and artefacts, between functions and uses, between citizens (etc..) rather than only considering a dualist approach. Creating synergies between these elements is another way of thinking and making the city in order to anticipate and to make the urban authorities more aware of their responsibilities towards the environment and life.

Europan 15 therefore proposes to point out three issues for this challenge on new productive conditions of transformation: Resources, Mobility and Spatial Equity.

1- Resources – How to minimize consumption and resource contamination (water, air, soil, energy...)? How to share resources? How to imagine social and technical innovations on this subject?

2- Mobility – How to integrate mobility and accessibility into productive territories?

3- Equity – How can spatial equity contribute to social equity? How to connect social and spatial elements? How to create a productive balance between territories, between urban and rural, between the rich and the poor?

These three categories –Resources, Mobility and Spatial Equity– can be declined on 3 scales: territorial, middle and micro scales.

The territorial scale –XL– corresponds to the larger scale, even beyond the city in some cases (inter-cities or rural) from the mutation of uses and practices. For Europan, this means developing, after the competition, strategic studies on larger scales that allow the city to have a guide for urban development.
The middle scale –L– is the one of the district or a strategic urban fragment. This type of sites leads to the development of the rewarded ideas into urban projects, in which the teams can also develop a smaller part.
The micro-scale –S– is the smaller scale, on which projects can develop and resonate on a larger scale. It is also the scale of fastest production, smallest interventions, sometimes even temporary.

Therefore, the challenge for Europan 15 is to propose a diversity of sites which reconsiders the connection based on synergies between city and productive spaces within 3x2 different issues : Implanting, Creating proximities, Changing metabolism.