WHY SHOULD A YOUNG URBAN AND ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN PROFESSIONAL TAKE PART IN THE EUROPAN COMPETITION?

Europan offers a unique platform for young urban and architectural design professionals to develop their ideas and vision on series of vital questions about future of our built environment. What urban spaces can arise from a sustainable new approach to the city? What might be the spatial impact of this paradigm shift on Europe's urban neighbourhoods? How can we design spaces that are open to new mobilities, where metropolitan and local spaces can connect around public transport and green travel? How can we save energy not only within buildings by technical means, but also through a more ecological approach to urban spaces? How can we incorporate the specific dynamics of nature into residential areas, in response to the genuine desire of urbanites to live in the city but in contact with nature? How can we facilitate the coexistence of different people both in public spaces and in functionally non-specialised urban neighbourhoods, to generate a true urban mix?

These are all questions that the Europan sites ask, and the needs of the participant towns and cities are matched by a corresponding desire amongst young professionals to provide new answers. And though team membership may vary in age and experience from newly graduated youngsters to practising architects, their motivation is always the same: first, to develop ideas on the transformation of the sites, then to design a creative and innovative project along with an urban strategy, and finally to produce the architectural formalization. The teams that take part in Europan encounter questions of a complexity that requires them to develop and formalize proposals that they might not have the opportunity to experience in their practice.

WHAT MAKES THE SITES ATTRACTIVE FOR YOUNG URBAN DESIGNERS?

The sites proposed in each session reflect the types of contextual transformations that Europe's cities are confronted with today. Most of these sites are part of a wider area, and involve a vision of the future of the area associated with new ecological parameters, new social trends, new cultural visions. A Europan site is more complex than its physical boundaries, because it has a richness that arises not only from its size, but from the way in which it links local transformation with a wider global territory.

IS EUROPAN MORE A PROCESS OF QUALIFICATION FOR GOOD YOUNG PROFESSIONAL TEAMS OR IS IT ALSO A WAY FOR THEM TO MOVE FROM IDEAS TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF URBAN PROJECTS?

In 10 sessions with more than 1200 winning teams selected as winners or runners-up on the 600 sites proposed in Europe, Europan has become a tool for promoting young professional urban design teams who have innovative ideas but also clever interpretations of the contexts for which they have submitted responses. With its qualified and demanding juries, Europan represents a genuine cachet for competition winning teams, turning a spotlight on their vision of the city. With this acknowledgement and recognition through catalogues, exhibitions, reviews and the web, winning teams often receive indirect benefits, for example direct invitations to submit projects for other competitions. For many of them it is also an opportunity to begin a professional career by opening their own practice.

However, the goal of Europan is also to convert more of the ideas into reality. Providing municipalities with real potential solutions for their urban problems and a strategic vision of a possible future, means being able to implement those solutions and that vision, either wholly or partially. Europan's goal in the different participating countries is to support that transition from ideas to implementation.

On average, on two-thirds of the sites, nearly 50% of winnings teams become involved in operational processes. These can take different forms: from a workshop with local urban actors to help them develop their ideas and drive forward the political decision-making process, to more complete urban studies. The first step is to communicate the winning ideas effectively and then to adjust them to the realistic constraints of the context. Ultimately, 25% get the chance to carry through their ideas into actual urban scale construction projects. This may seem like a modest proportion, but urban processes are fraught with obstacles. For example, they can be interrupted temporarily or permanently by a shift of power in municipal political structures, by problems of finance, by legal difficulties in the transition from a design commission to a construction contract, etc... Despite this complexity, Europan is keen to provide support in this post-competition transition from idea to implementation.

And for those who do succeed in taking their projects through to completion, Europan represents a unique opportunity to develop strong, urban-scale ideas that will subsequently impact on their professional practice.