This year’s European Urban Summer School (EUSS) will be held in co-operation with AESOP and ISOCARP at the University of Bremen, Institute Labour and Economy from 21st until 26th of September. The Summer School for young planning professionals will address one of the most challenging tasks for urban planning: The design and arrangement of the urban interface between land and water puts many questions, which are always closely connected to societal development, political discussions, local cultures, global process of styles of building and architecture etc. The particular challenge of waterfront development results from the special function of water expanses in cities and towns. Even if we are fascinated by highly artificial environments, for example the skyline built up of iconic skyscrapers, the aesthetic and emotional impression occurs to us in many cases from the contrast to the corresponding flat water expanses. So, water (as well as mountains, too) is a crucial element for our understanding of beauty and attractiveness of cities.
As the City of Bremen extends over 50 kilometers along the River Weser and is also crossed by several other water courses, it provides the whole range of problems and challenges urban planning has in respect to waterfront development – from resilience, environmental and climate protection, to questions of public access and exclusiveness of waterfront spaces, citizens’ participation, brownfield regeneration or conflicting options for land use.
Hence, this year’s summer school participants will be able to perceive and learn about methods to solve or at least minimize those problems in various constellations. Potential practical works could for example refer to “planning for forgotten/hidden places on the river”, “inner city flood protection”, “planning a water bus system”, “regenerating an old industrial port area”, “reshaping an inner city island to an attractive public park site” and others. Experts from the planning department of the city administration will be ready to acquaint participants with details of those selected projects. Besides this, experts from the University of Bremen and the University of Applied Sciences of Bremen as well as distinguished international speakers will provide general lectures on urban planning and development. More Information on EUSS 2015 website.
(http://www.iaw.uni-bremen.de)
Application deadline: 31 July 2015.