Sites forum Europan 10
Paris, 10 & 11 November 2008

Before the launching of a session, this Forum, attended by the representatives of the cities proposing sites for the session, the national Europan structures and experts, is held to create exchanges and debates over the sites. Its aim is to finalize the programs of the competition sites and to create a sites’ thematic classification. It is a way to involve cities, urban developers and contracting authorities in the European Europan process and to ensure that the different partners of the session share a common culture.

For this 10th session’s Sites Forum, over 200 people attended the European Sites Forum last November 10 & 11 in Paris.

The general theme « Inventing urbanity » is linked to the questions raised by the sites which have been classified  into three categories: those that must undergo a strong transformation, grouped under the general term “regeneration”, those that must both keep their identity and redynamise their programme, grouped under the general term “revitalization” and those that must undergo a development, grouped under the general term “colonization”.

Lively and comparative discussions were engaged during the first day of workshops on the sites, grouped into thematic categories.

The next day, two plenary meetings introduced discussions on two major topics related to the questions brought up by the Europan 10 sites, but in a transversal way.
Both debates,“Can the ecological city be intense?” and “Which height for the European cities?”, dealt with two major questions: “How to conciliate density and residential quality, in other words, how to both be in the city and in the nature?”, and “How can sustainable projects able to both create urban density and respect the environment be imagined?”

Both debates are summarized on the pages “Topics” of the Website.

These rich discussions allowed the sites representatives and the national structures of Europan to persue their work, improve their programmes and finalize their files.