Education Forum

The Educational Planning Forum at the 50th ISOCARP Congress in Gdynia, Poland will focus on the topic of Bridging Theory and Practice:  Implementation.  The plenary session will explore the legal, economic and financial, and socio-political aspects of “getting plans realized”.   Panel presentations by an international set of educators/practitioners will provide the catalyst for a structured discussion designed to gather examples and best practices from all participants.  The intended result is the production of a short set of suggested actions to improve implementation pedagogy in planning schools.

Outline of Session

Date and time: 17:00-19:00 hrs –  September 23, 2014

Introductory Statement

  • Sofia Morgado (Portugal, Chair of SC)
  • Judith Ryser, (UK)

Panel Presentations

  • Francesco Lo Piccolo (Italy), Professor, Department of Architecture – City, Region and Landscape Planning Unit, University of Palermo and President-Elect, AESOP (Association of European Schools of Planning)
  • Jeff Featherstone (USA), Professor, Temple University.
  • Koyi Mchunu (South Africa), Senior Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-Natal
  • Xiaohui Chen (China), Vice Director of Urbanisation and Urban-Rural Planning Research Centre of Jiangsu, Secretary General of Jiangsu Provincial Planning Society

Structured Discussion

50 minutes — on the legal, economic, and social/political tools a completely open discussion about what this education institute is supposed to be, in which way it will benefit ISOCARP and its members, and where it would fit in with similar international activities as something complementary rather than in competition with them (comment by Judith)

Wrap Up

Judith Ryser and Sofia Morgado

In dear remembrance of David C. Prosperi (Vice President Academic Development – ISOCARP Institute), founder of the Education Forum. David Prosperi passed away on 4 August 2014. He was 65 years old.

Interactive Analysis, Simulation and Visualisation Tools for Urban Agile Policy Implementation

urbanAPI is a EU-co-funded project in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It is aiming to provide urban planners with the tools needed to actively plan and manage the urban environment.

During the project, tools have been developed within three urban planning contexts:

  • Support negotiation processes for urban development projects: 3D Scenario Creator
  • Assess public motion patterns as response to urban infrastructure: Mobility Explorer
  • Understand large scale consequences of spatial planning decisions: Urban Development Simulator

Such developments collectively provide vital decision-making aids for urban planners in the management of the territory, as well as  for the associated authorities in political negotiation, and wider stakeholder engagement regarding the future development of the territory.

The particular aims are to:

support activities such as issue identification, policy analysis, consultation, decision and evaluation in urban planning and land management policy

develop a policy metamodel, a formalised vocabulary, a set of rule languages to define data integration and abstract simulation models

transpose elements of agile ICT development to the urban policy making process

The urbanAPI workshop will present the urbanAPI tools and discuss the solutions for urban planners.

Launch of 50th Anniversary Celebrations

The 50th Anniversary Celebrations of ISOCARP will be launched at a round table of former presidents who will highlight ISOCARP achievements during their presidencies and reflect on 50 years of ISOCARP. They will also join in imagining the future of the planning profession during the next fifty years with the audience, other long standing members of ISOCARP and especially the young professionals who will be in entrusted with the future of planning.

ISOCARP/HABITAT III Think Tank (Members only)

Habitat III is the bi-decennial United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development to take place in 2016, in Istanbul, Turkey.  The conference will focus on the implementation of the “New Urban Agenda”, building on the Habitat Agenda of Istanbul in 1996.

The establishment of an ISOCARP Think Tank will be ISOCARP’s collective first step in the run up to HABITAT III in 2016. This first meeting will take place in the afternoon of Thursday the 25th of September during the 50th ISOCARP Congress in Gdynia, Poland.  All ISOCARP members present in Gdynia are invited to partake in the ISOCARP/HABITAT III Think Tank and your participation is greatly welcomed.

The ISOCARP/HABITAT III Think Tank allow for ISOCARP members to provide feedback and give inputs on various HABITAT III documents and discussion papers, as well as play an overall active role in HABITAT III processes. ISOCARP members will also be encouraged to contribute to HABITAT III processes through writing, blogging and tweeting about the event in the build up to Istanbul 2016.

The agenda for the first ISOCARP/HABITAT III Think Tank will consist of the following:

  • Introduction of ISOCARP/HABITAT III Think Tank by ISOCARP Secretary General Didier Vancutsem
  • A briefing on ISOCARP/HABITAT III Think Tank by Vice President Technical Assistance – Project Shipra Narang Suri
  • A moderated discussion.

Workshop: Location matters – and what about interoperability?

– – by Bart M. De Lathouwer – Director, Interoperability Program – Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)

– – Microsoft CityNext Initiative – David Burrows, EMEA Government Director Microsoft

Growing urban areas are a challenge for societal, environmental and economic aspects of our society. Improving the lives of residents, promoting business development and improving the efficiency of energy consumption are parts of these challenges. Spatial information is one of the most effective ingredients to address these challenges.

The Open Geospatial Consortium is working with it’s members on addressing the resulting interoperability issues and the development of open standards to build an open, spatial information infrastructure.

In our Domain and Standards Working Groups (DWG, SWG) experts from our international membership working together to provide open standards to the broader community that allows easy access to, sharing and re-use of data  across different players in these scenarios.

The Urban Planning DWG focuses on system interoperability standards for data and related processing services for urban design, implementation, and maintenance. The 3D Information Management (3DIM) DWG is facilitating the definition and development of interface and encoding standards. These standards enable software to develop solutions that allows infrastructure owners, builders, emergency responders, community planners and the traveling public to better manage and navigate complex built environments.

Focussing on determining how best to integrate and support the LandXML schema within the OGC framework, Land & Infra DWG and SWG addresses how to better manage and integrate CAD-based land information with other OGC standards. For testing of real-world scenarios, the OGC proposes an Urban IoT Testbed to catalyse the marketplace through better location information sharing.

Join us for the workshop to help us better understand and address your requirements and contribute with your expertise to leverage the uptake of open standards in both, the planning as well as the geospatial community.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 470 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at www.opengeospatial.org/contact.

ISOCARP Awards

A special ISOCARP activity during the annual Congress is the bestowal of awards to highlight and celebrate planning and network achievements. These ISOCARP Awards are:

Your membership