Project

Changing Cultures of Planning

The objective of the Changing Cultures of Planning project was to gather and exchange knowledge about the innovation of large-scale urban transformation processes in Europe. This was done by means of a study of five urban developments: in Rotterdam, Zurich, Nantes, Randstad and Bordeaux.

 

The Changing Cultures of Planning publication documents five urban projects that steered European urban planning in new directions: AIR: Kop Van Zuid in Rotterdam, Île de Nantes, Atelier Zuidvleugel in the Netherlands, Zurich-West and 50,000 Homes in Bordeaux. Each of these five projects aimed to provide site-specific solutions instead of generic solutions to urban problems and issues.

Using the detailed presentation of these projects Changing Cultures of Planning questions the current trend of implementing urban planning by applying a ready-made formula. European urban planning has evolved from a regulatory, planned practice to a more project and process-oriented transformation of the urban landscape. This evolution in the urban planning practice has led to a policy that was conceived as an alternative to an all too generic and insufficiently result-oriented planning (zoning, etc.). Today this policy could be criticised for its evolution towards a new, bureaucratic formula with procedures and rules. By standardising the planning procedure, the urban project fails to provide pertinent and specific answers to societal challenges or to really engage in a complex social and urban context.

Now that many public authorities are confronted with an economic context that no longer allows them to follow standard formulas and forces them to review current planning practice, this research project seeks to gain knowledge about alternatives to inspire urban planning practice, policy, private developers and urban governing bodies.

Changing Cultures of Planning is a research project that resulted in a book. The book is available in specialist book stores and from Architecture Workroom Brussels via info [​at​] architectureworkroom.eu


 

Type: Research, Publication

Year: 2012

Distributor: Exhibitions International. ISBN 9789081953504

Initiator: Architecture Workroom Brussels

Editorial: Nathanaëlle Baës-Cantillon, Joachim Declercq, Michiel Dehaene, Sarah Levy

Related Projects
2010: Building for Brussels – exhibition
Related Projects
2010: Building for Brussels – publication
Related Transformations
All Transformations

A Good City Has Industry

A Good City Has Industry, is the provocative title of an exhibition we organised in Brussels in 2016. That was four years ago, when such an idea was tantamount to sacrilege. What do we mean, a city needs industry? Didn't we do our utmost in recent decades to clean up the city and transform abandoned industrial sites into hip, vibrant urban districts? Wasn't our aim to restore the quality of life in cities, free of pollution or the din of trucks? And wasn't our economy irrevocably transformed into a tertiary economy? Manufacturing was something based in low-wage countries, wasn't it?    

 
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WORKROOM

Since 2010, Architecture Workroom Brussels has focused on the future of our living environment. The organisation began as a safe haven to address the link between space and societal transitions, aimed at fostering a futureproof design practice, commissioning and building culture.

It has now become evident that the transformation of our streets, neighbourhoods, and landscapes is both a prerequisite and a lever for achieving societal goals in synergy. Yet we observe that these transformations remain difficult to imagine and implement. They span so many sectors and involve so many actors that responsibility falls on everyone, and therefore, ultimately, on no one.

That is why we make it our mission to create the space that connects them. And with this refined mission comes a new name: WORKROOM, House for transformation. WORKROOM is the shared space where the future of our living environment is not only imagined but also organised.

We are currently taking the lead on three mission-driven transformations:

  • SOCIETAL INCUBATORS - By 2030, stakeholders from the youth, culture, sports, care and education sectors will join forces to create renewed societal spaces that tackle loneliness and counteract the fragmentation and pressure on public infrastructure.
  • FOSSIL-FREE NEIGHBOURHOODS - By 2030, at least ten neighbourhoods will be underway with the transition to fossil-free energy in an inclusive and affordable way, with a view to completely phase-out fossil fuels by 2040.
  • SPONGE LANDSCAPES - By 2030, we will have achieved our water, agriculture and nature goals through a single, coherent approach at catchment area level, in which strong regional coalitions collectively enhance the landscape's sponge capacity.

To make these transformations a reality, WORKROOM works shoulder to shoulder with pioneering designers, local authorities, organisations and businesses, governments, knowledge institutions and impact investors.

Through co-creative design, we imagine shared pathways to the future in exhibitions, publications, innovation programmes and public programmes. These are the workrooms where we connect the actors capable of realising these transformations. From there, we design shared ownership and the organisational, funding and policy models that lead to real change.

The name is simpler. The stakes are higher. WORKROOM is the shared space where we tackle the social and spatial transformations that no one can achieve alone. In an era of polarisation, compartmentalisation and instability, that is perhaps the most radical thing we can do.