Do you know Clim'city?

This educative exhibition is produced by CAP SCIENCES, a French Centre for Scientific, Technical and Industrial Culture. Moving around a virtual city landscape, like in an interactive video game, web users can access more than 300 documents: case studies, video, interviews, on energy efficiency and climate change in urban context ... .

But how far images and visualisations can address the complexity of such topics?

Maybe some answers could be found in the results of "Changing the change: design, visions, proposals and tools", an international conference that took place in Torino last July, on the role and potential of design research in the transition towards sustainability...

The conference purpose was "to make a significant contribution to a necessary transformation that involves changing the direction of current changes toward a sustainable future. It specifically intends to outline the state-of-the-art of design research in terms of visions, proposals and tools with which design can actively and positively take part in the wider social learning process that will have to take place.''

One of the aims was "to outline the state-of-the-art of contributions that design research is today able to bring to social conversation about the future. The conference seeks to bring visibility to significant results. This with particular attention to visions of the future, to feasible solutions and to tools to help bring them into being. It will also enable us to make of the conference and its published output a tool for communication with the outside world; a tool able to demonstrate what design research can offer today to help re-orientate the transformation underway.''

All the refelxions and productions of "Changing the change" were initiated around 3 themes: Visions, Proposals and Tools:

Visions
... research results that lead us to imagine possible worlds, or parts of possible worlds. It includes the results of activities in the field of scenario design and more general visions produced by research into specific products, communications and services. It also includes a comparative analysis of visions emerging from design history and from a comparison of different cultures.

Proposals
... results of design research that give rise to concrete solutions containing elements of systemic innovation. They are also legible as concrete steps towards a new generation of sustainable products, services and systems. So, products, services and product and service systems are proposed along with the communicative artefacts that link several actors and artefacts together. It also proposes places for a new everyday life, the activities that take place within them and the new production and consumption networks that emerge from them.

Tools
... results of research that aims to redefine and develop conceptual and operational tools which enable designers to operate within change and influence its direction. Such tools enable them to participate constructively in new design networks, and deal with emerging problems. Tools may be proposed for conceptualisation and representation, for calculation and appraisal of results or for stimulation and prototype making.

Want to see how it looks like?
Here you will find 14 examples of visualisations demonstrating how design can concretely contribute to build innovative visions of possible worlds and proposals for sustainable solutions.

To learn more about this cutting-edge initiative, look at the table of contents of the proceedings, downloadable here (pdf file) and visit www.changingthechange.org

Manifesto for a new urbanity

The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe adopted on 29 May 2008 during its plenary session the European Urban Charter II - Manifesto for a new urbanity.
The Charter proposes a new approach to urban living, urging European countries to build sustainable towns and cities. It aims to establish a body of common principles and concepts enabling towns and cities and their inhabitants to meet the current challenges facing urban societies, and invites local authorities to implement the principles of ethical governance, sustainable development and greater solidarity in their public policies.
This Manifesto complements and updates the original European Urban Charter adopted in 1992, which marked a key stage in the necessary recognition of the urban phenomenon in the development of our societies.
For more information, visit www.coe.int/urban-charter

The Green streets competition

Green Streets is a competition in which the 'greenest street' - the street which reduces its collective household CO2 emissions the most - will be able to choose a community organisation for a green energy makeover worth £50,000. Sixty four households in eight different cities across the UK were recruited to take part in British Gas' 'Green Streets' challenge.
For more information, visit http://www.britishgas.co.uk/greenstreets

Towards sustainability in urban transformation, governance cultures and housing policies - Nordic Urban and Housing Research Seminar (NSBB)

September 21-23, 2008, Hanasaari, Espoo, Finland
The NSBB network (Nordisk samarbeidsgruppe for by og boligforskning) was established in 1997. Its main activity is to hold annual Nordic seminars in urban and housing research, each Nordic country having a turn as a host. With the theme “Urban Transformation, Governance Cultures and Housing Policies”, the seminar will tackle contemporary challenges to urban and housing research especially in the Nordic countries. The effort is to bring together research on socio-economic and physico-structural aspects of urban and regional transformation with research on changing urban governance cultures – drawing further implications to housing policy and planning.
The seminar is arranged by YTK – Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, Helsinki University of Technology
For more information, visit http://www.tkk.fi/Units/Separate/YTK/research/NSBB/index.html
Source: Planum, European journal of planning online

Quelle politique de compétitivité des territoires européens dans le domaine du développement durable ?

C'est le sujet d'une étude confiée par la DIACT, à un groupement d’experts constitué de la Fondation Sophia-Antipolis et du cabinet de conseil Eurogroup. Cette étude, qui a été remise début septembre, examine la manière dont les clusters et les pouvoirs publics de six pays européens (Allemagne, Italie, Suède, Royaume-Uni, Pologne, Hongrie) s’approprient le thème du développement durable pour le mettre au service de la compétitivité des territoires. Elle dévoile des situations très différentes :

• Certains pays ont privilégié une approche « par le bas », en organisant des structures autour de synergies de recherche et d’industries qui existaient déjà. C’est le cas de l’Allemagne et de la Pologne.
• D’autre pays ont préféré un modèle plus centralisé, dans lequel l’Etat ou les régions décident des pôles à créer et des domaines d’activités à couvrir, comme l’Italie, avec ses districts industriels.
• Ailleurs, comme en Suède, les deux approches ont été combinées. Enfin, il y a ceux qui ont privilégié de concentrer les efforts au niveau d’agences régionales de développement fortement dotées, le cas du Royaume-Uni.
• Quelques pays ont plus approfondi les politiques d’innovation, comme la Pologne ou la Hongrie, parce qu’ils connaissent une croissance économique soutenue.
• D’autres sont déjà très avancés dans le domaine du développement durable, comme l’Allemagne et la Suède, particulièrement les énergies renouvelables.

Plus d’information sur le site de la DIACT.
Source : Centre de documentation de l’urbanisme