Besides de competition itself, the initial objective of Europan is to give shape to the concept of a Europe in which young people can make an innovative contribution to architecture, urban design and housing, by organizing a federation of European countries around competitions of architectural ideas and exchanges between professionals in the field. In that perspective, each session is the occasion of three European events that enable discussion, exchange between architects, city representatives and experts to enrich their common or complementary and cultures on the European city.

Forum of Sites, Berlin, December 2006

260 people attended last 1 and 2 December in Berlin the European Forum of Sites, Before launching of competition, this Forum attended by the city representatives of the session proposed sites, the national Europan structures and experts, is held to create exchanges and debates over sites.
Its aim is to finalize the programs of the competition sites and to create a sites’ thematic classification. It is a matter to involve cities and urban developers, contracting authorities, in the European Europan process and to ensure that the different partners in the session share a common culture.
The general theme « European urbanity » is connected to the questions raised by the sites which have been classified  into four categories: possibilities for extension in the sustainable city, networks of  et mobilities and interconnexions, local mutations and densification, opportunities for public spaces in urban territories.
Lively and comparative discussions were engaged during a first day of workshops on the sites, grouped into thematic categories.
On the day after, a plenary meeting enabled discussion on the insertion of public spaces in urban. Those three debates, summarized on the pages “topics” of the Website, deal with the questions asked by the Europan 9 sites in a transversal way.

The first debate, “Urbanity of housing, between city and nature”, deal with one of the main subjects of Europan. How to create urbanity in housing districts while responding to the demand of individual housing and proximity of nature?
The second debate on “Open spaces as new public spaces” question the new types of public space in suburban cities. The latter have their own morphology coming from functionalist townplanning. How to think new publics spaces linked to the existing but which would not be imitations of the old city centres?
At last, the third debate on the theme “From the network to the street” deals with the question of mutation of the networks in order to give them urbanity. In a sustainable approach, it is important to consider the mobilities in their diversity and with less focus on the car. The aim is thus to respond to the demand of various mobilities according to the different places of the city the walk through. This has an impact on the networks but also on all the organisation of the city.

The rich discussions of this forum enabled the sites representatives and the national structures of Europan to work again on their programmes and to finalize their files.

Cities and Juries Forum, November 2007

The Cities and Juries Forum brings together representatives of the juries and of the sites in a European event from which the general public is absent . It offers the occasion for reflection, at European scale, on the projects pre-selected by the national juries.
Members of the European scientific committee meet to acquaint themselves with the anonymous projects that have been short-listed by the different national juries. With the assistance of a group of experts , they establish a thematic classification of the projects by taking into account the problems raised by the session and the ideas proposed. For this, they use a comparative method . Their role is to make clear the “thematic families” into which the pre selected projects fall and to constitute material for European discussion for the site representatives and the members of the juries. This is done in order to give the latter some points of reference among the interesting ideas that emerge from the whole session.

Around 20 % of the projects with a strong conceptual quality, will be discussed and compared anonymously, after having been debated by each jury. This forum enables to elicit a common culture of assessment to establish a final choice that will be finalized in a second session to be held by national juries. This event thus allows for informal exchanges between juries and site representatives who are not present at the judgement.

Forum of Results, June 2008

To close the Europan session, an international exhibition of the results is held in combination with a combined forum and debate on the prize-winning entries and their practical feasibility.
The international exhibition displays all the prize-winning entries and a presentation of the sites. A touring version of this exhibition is offered to participating countries.
Approached as a professional meeting ground, the Results Forum opens discussion on the results. It is accompanied by workshops organized with the national Europan secretariats, the winning teams, site representatives and construction industry professionals. Experts conduct comparative studies of the prize-winning projects.