Jan 1997 - Jun 2000 Europan 5 New housing landscape

EUROPAN 5 - 12 participating countries

Europan Belgique/België/Belgien
Europan Deutschland
Europan Ellás
Europan España
Europan France
Europan Hrvatska
Europan Italia
Europan Nederland
Europan Portugal
Europan Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera/Svira
Europan Suomi - Finland
Europan United Kingdom

EUROPAN 5 - 7 associated countries proposing a site

Balgarija
Eesti
Kypros
Magyarország
Österreich
Romania
Slovenska Republika

Cities of EUROPAN 5 - 68 urban situations

Balgarija: Sofia
Belgique/België/Belgien: La Louvière, Namur
Deutschland: Essen, Geesthacht, Gotha, Guben-Gubin, München, Schwabach, Weissenfels
Eesti: Tallinn
Ellás: Athinai / Amaroussion, Athinai / Agia Anargiri, Thessaloniki / Polichni, Thessaloniki / Chalastra
España: Almeria, Amurrio, Barakaldo, Cartagena, Ceuta, Paterna, Puertollano, Tolosa, Tudela
France: Brest, Chessy, Jeumont, Mulhouse, Reims, Villetaneuse
Hrvatska: Rovinj, Vukovar
Italia: Ancona, Catania, Collegno, Palermo, Roma, Savona, Torino
Kypros: Pafos-Anavargos
Magyarország: Budapest
Nederland: Almere, Amersfoort, Amsterdam, Haarlemmermeer, Rotterdam
Österreich: Graz
Portugal: Lisboa / Chelas, Loures / Sacavem, Vila Nova de Gaia
România: Timisoara
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera/Svizra: Aarau, Bern / Ausserhollingen, Biel/Bienne, Genève, Lenzburg, Massagno, Zug, Zurich / Affoltern
Slovensko: Kosice
Suomi/Finland: Rovaniemi, Turku, Vantaa
United Kingdom: Dartford, Nottingham, Sheffield

NEW HOUSING LANDSCAPE
Travel and Proximity

Europan 5 has chosen as its field of investigation the forsaken urban spaces in European towns and their crossing with the networks of transport. The extensive development of European towns over the past fifty years has brought with it the consumption of vast tracts of land on their outskirts in order to establish new zones and accompanying infrastructures. These outskirts grew up on the basis of lines of movement and constructed fragments. In between, were formed, either unappropriated or barely appropriated spaces. Simultaneously, the town left fallow, urban land whose original function had become obsolete. This gave rise to a town in negative whose urbanisation was composed of forsaken and derelict gaps.

At a time when unifying visions of the town have reached a crisis point, the question arises as to how to re-appropriate these interstitial spaces in order to turn them into residential areas. How can one invent new forms of urban landscape? And, if the search is no longer for mastery of the global village, how, then, can these residual, disparate contemporary localities be transformed into as many chances for urban enhancement? How can urban, residential, landscaped and architectural entities be created as new parts in the puzzle of the town's existing structures, in the modern metropolis' torn and discontinuous fabric?

On the basis of these issues, Europan 5 is proposing young European architects several themes, formulated as questions levelled at architectural design and urban policies. These themes can intersect and call upon responses in the form of ideas projects. Based on actual situations, selected in a large number of European towns, these projects must be set in very different urban cultures that are nevertheless traversed by the same sets of questions.

Nature and housing
Nature and buildings are mixed and suburban housing estates are developped. Can the tentacular model of the suburb be avoided? Can urban densification, collective spaces, nature and the desire for residents to have a strongly individualised home be conciled.

Travel and urban accessibility
In a town of disparate functions, and multiple journeys, the question of accessibility of residential areas becomes central. According to what logic and what spatial treatment can these networks favour urban links instead of being factors in spatial incision? 

New urban logic led by networks
This encounter between infrastructures and neglected zones in the urban schema offers an exploratory terrain in terms of urban and architectural design that EUROPAN 5 wants to investigate. How can one link the abstract space of mobility and the physical and sensitive space of residential areas? How can one induce new modes of formalisation to the town? 

New forms of housing
How design the physical space of neighbourhood, of encounter, of meetings that are proper to urban areas? What does living in the town mean today? Is it to own a detached house in a suburban housing estate? Is it to have more individual living space? Is it to live in blocks of flats but close to urban services? Is it to live in contact with nature? Or is it to find at one's front door, animated collective spaces?

Intensification of uses
What types of programme can generate urban life, in or around housing districts? Must a network of functional cores be developed? Must micro-centralities made up of a mosaic of multiple programmes be planned? Or must contextual opportunities be managed in all their socio-economic diversity? 

The project, a tool to manage complexity
Must the ability of the design to integrate the urban complexity can be experimented? The multiplicity of those involved, the mix of private and public protagonists, programming instability and the mutation of uses, all affect the urbano-architectural spaces that must be conceived as a constantly mobile process with constant toing and froing between the overall idea, a multitude of formalisations and phased implementations. How can one invent a project that is sufficiently strong that its logic can unfold over a long time, while incorporating the constant negotiation between urban form, programming, and architectural definition?