Season’s Greetings
Architecture as Vector of Social Cohesion
What part can the quality of public areas and buildings play in a social project fostering collectivity? By shaping our daily environment, architecture implicitly affects interpersonal relationships. Promoting social cohesion, paying particular attention to the design and execution of areas accessible to the public, is one of the essential tasks of public authorities. And it is precisely in the achievement of this social aspect that the contribution of architecture lies – in its ability to produce a synthesis between the complexity of a context, a programme and research into collective well-being.
The European Forum for Architectural Policies (FEPA-EFAP) organised an event in association with Belgium’s Presidency of the European Union that took take place 18-20 November 2010 at Centre for Fine Arts Brussels. The Event was focused on architecture as a vector of social cohesion, in connection with the 2010 European Year against Poverty and Social Exclusion. The announcement and full programme of the event is still available at the official webpage of the Belgium’s Presidency
The European Forum for Architectural Policies used to be an informal network of experts from the field of European architectural policy, initiated in 1997 in Rotterdam under the Presidency of the Netherlands. It was formalised in 2000. Its membership is drawn from four areas: representatives of ministers in charge of architecture, cultural institutions promoting and disseminating architecture, professional organisations of architects in the broadest sense of the term, and, since 2009, architectural colleges.
Sara Van Rompaey was with the Belgian Order of Architects involved in the organisation of the event and has prepared a short presentation to give us an idea of the activities that made it so successfull. Thank you very much for that!
Last week on the 24th and 25th of November I spend two days in a hotel nearby Amsterdam participating to the exploratory COST workshop THE FUTURES OF THE CITY – Towards a sustainable urban environment and mobility on behalf of the Architects’ Council of Europe.
COST is the acronym for European Cooperation in Science and Technology, an intergovernmental European framework for international cooperation between nationally funded research activities. COST creates scientific networks and enable scientists to collaborate in a wide spectrum of activities.
Some of these activities deal with architecture, the built environment and urban development at large covering reconstruction and rehabilitation of structures and buildings, dealing with cultural heritage areas, green structures as well as issues of quality of life. This field is managed by the Domain Committee Transport and Urban Development (COST TUD) currently chaired by prof. Cristina Pronello from Politecnico di Torino.
The research projects promoted by COST are called Actions and following are some of the actions that are interesting for architects and planners
_ Pedestrians’ Quality Needs (PQN)
_ Sustainability of Constructions: Integrated Approach to Life-time Structural Engineering
_ Sustainable Development Policies for Minor Deprived Urban Communities
_ Soundscape of European Cities and Landscapes
_ Land Management for Urban Dynamics
_ Improving the Quality of Suburban Building Stocks
_ Semantic Enrichment of 3D City Models for Sustainable Urban Development
_ Integrating and Harmonizing Sound Insulation Aspects in Sustainable Urban Housing Constructions
_ Integrated Assessment Technologies to Support the Sustainable Development of Urban Areas
More information can be found at the COST website and in the section dedicated to Transport and Urban Development.
The exploratory workshop “THE FUTURES OF THE CITY – Towards a sustainable urban environment and mobility” has been attended by high-profile experts in the respective fields of research with the aim of drafting the future research agenda the COST TUD Domain committee. The full report of the event will incorporate the outcomes of the research projects that have been presented and the different concepts and visions that have been proposed, but it will be available only at the end of winter.
In the meanwhile I can share with you my presentation that was structured in 3 parts. In the first part I introduced the structures and aims of the ACE, then I presented the Common Language Project a joint initiative with the European Concrete Platform and the third part was dedicated to the issue of Urban quality indicators with regard to the ongoing work within the Reference Framework for the European Sustainable City.
The presentation took 20 minutes and was followed by a 20 minutes debate, so there was not the possibility to go into details, but the interest raised was high and I am confident that, although I haven’t even seen Amsterdam, the workshop was absolutely worth the trouble to make the trip.
Pictures of a Grand Ensemble
According to the definition of the french Wikipedia Grand ensebles are
des ensembles de logement collectif, souvent en nombre important (plusieurs centaines à plusieurs milliers de logements), construits entre le milieu des années 1950 et le milieu des années 1970, marqués par un urbanisme de barres et de tours inspiré des préceptes de l’architecture moderne.
Photographer Marco Blasich took a few pictures in the Quartiere Missaglia, a large housing estate built by the Istituto autonomo case popolari di Milano IACPM (Social Housing Public Agency) in 1971. This rather anonymous project, based on a 1966 masterplan by Nizzoli Architettura, gives the opportunity of some reflections regarding an old-fashioned approach to housing demand that in some cases still provide an excellent quality of life at affordable prices, in a very sustainable way.
Pedestrian mobility, high level of services, flexible floorplans, well designed and carefully mantained green areas, quick connection to different public transport means (to the other parts of the city) and to the highway. A building made with precast concrete slab (Plattenbau) that supports since 40 years a sustainable community and where my family and I are very happy to live.
Sunday Walk in Sofia
In occasion of the 45 Years Jubilee of the Union of Bulgarian Architects UAB (www.bularch.org) on the 25th of October Sofia has hosted a one day meeting of Thematic Area Architecture and Quality of Life Workgroups of the Architetcts Council of Europe.
The warm hospitality of the Bulgarian colleagues and the brilliant weather has given some of us the opportunity of walk around this city from the monumental center to the rapidly changing outskirts.
In the following slideshow you will find the pictures I shot on Sunday morning walk with Elena Dimitrova and in the afternoon during the guided tour by Georgi Todorov.
More pictures and a detailed description of the event have been posted by Ljubinka Stoilova at http://20c-arch-bg.blogspot.com/2010/10/architecture-and-quality-of-life.html
Well Designed and Built 