Utopies & Projects: Luxembourg 2007-2027

[b][i]A National Urban Charrette[/i][/b] [i]This Project has been included in the Official Selection of LUXEMBOURG 2007 - Cultural Capital of Europe[/i] The proposed project consists in a vast and complex process of urban design charrettes and workshops to be hold in Luxembourg through 2006 and 2007 and to be concluded by a number of public events and exhibitions as well as printed and digital design documents, process archives and interactive educational material. Luxembourg will be explored as a sophisticated open and urban laboratory where innovative strategies in planning and urbanism can be explored and formalized. Luxembourg will be considered as a privileged paradigm of a complex urban region with a strong European identity and sensitive trans-regional and trans-national ramifications and interactions. The different urban precedents and traditions in cities like Nancy (80km), Metz (50 km), Trier (40 km), Aachen (120km), Dinant (100km), etc. will be visited and studied through lectures and sketching in focused walking tours. The very interesting examples of industrial cities in the South of Luxembourg (Esch, Dudelange, Differdange, Rumelange, Bettembourg, etc.) as well as the important urban centres in the East and North of Luxembourg: Larochette, Echternach, Ettelbruck, Diekirch, Wiltz, Clervaux, Vianden, etc. and finally the city of Luxembourg and its surroundings offer very inspiring and stimulating study examples, as much as the suburbanization around these urban centers can be studied as "not to do" precedents.. Luxembourg has developed in the last decades to a strong regional urban pole attracting not only work commuters from the neighbouring regions but also supporting vital cultural and metropolitan endeavours at a regional level. The commuting and migration reality are very much a part of Luxembourg's urbanism challenges and also in a way a catalyst of its metropolization. The fascinating success story of Luxembourg encompasses many suggestive aspects of urban emulation but also of dissolution which students will have good opportunities to investigate and to address in the urban workshops. The planned activities comprise visits and lectures in different urban locations, site studies and meetings with public authorities, administrations and professionals, and above all discussions and interaction of local population and interested inhabitants, neighbourhood's associations, etc. A substantial part of activities will be centred around studio endeavours and the processing of site information, class discussions and briefings, design preparation and design production. Conveniently equipped studio space, meeting rooms, auditoriums and computer laboratories will be available all along the workshop sessions in Luxembourg. The different University groups can work in various independant periods of the year. Different scenarios can easily be integrated into the larger project context: Ideally the Universities bring over to Luxembourg a first group of students in Spring 2006 and gather first site experience and information in about 7 to 14 days sessions. The first session will a) set up first working contacts and get first hand briefings b) gather instrumental and operational site knowledge c) define first drafts of design strategies. The design process would then be continued in the respective University and presented in a second workshop session in Luxembourg at the end of the semester, or eventually handed over to a new group of students who would continue the design in the second semester. There could be either the same students or new classes in 2007 who would each time continue on the information and results already processed by previous groups, very much in the manner of Edmund Bacon's "Principle of the Second Hand" which has defined the construction of the great urban projects in the history of city-building. The regular semester classes could be complemented by a summer program in Luxembourg for an intensive Urban Charrette. There are also options for individual and independant smaller semester projects and possibly there could be a reverse migration by participants from Luxembourg to attend semester juries of the Luxembourg projects in their University locations? The University partners will be challenged to suggest their specific proposals during the preparatory weekend meeting in Fall 2005 (probably October or beginning of November 2005). (The specific schedule information of this meeting will be communicated in September) [i][u]The Process & the Project[/u][/i] The project "Utopias & Projects" will be coordinated by Lucien Steil and logistically supported by "Katarxis Urban Workshops". A substantial number of institutions and associations will be locally involved at different phases of the project. The workshops will be permanently in relationship with all concerned actors of the project and will be continuously briefed and updated by the respective municipal and national authorities in order to achieve a most informed and synthetic work in Luxembourg, and a productive follow-up by the respective Universities in their academic studios and laboratories. The works over 2006 and 2007 will be processed and published over internet, printed brochures, CD-rom and DVD film material, partially as a part of the interactive Charrette strategy and ultimately as a didactic record and pedagogical material. The publication material will serve as a conclusion of the 2007 Charrette workshops and as a foundation for continuing collaborative efforts, hopefully in association with the University de Luxembourg and the Luxembourg Government. It will be exhibited, explained and diffused as a part of the final "Utopias & Projects" exhibition in 2007. The "Utopias & Projects" will produce a complex network of design charrettes and workshops integrating public sessions and academic study and review sessions. This process will foster a number of various approaches by students of different study levels from undergraduate to graduate and doctoral reasearch students and occasionally young International professionals joining the summer-classes. The research & analysis & design process over 2006 and the finalization process over 2007 will in itself be an important focus of dynamic and dialectical and interactive planning & design pedagogy involving politicians, professionals and population. The Process will therefore be comprehensively organized and documented and will serve as a main innovative catalyst of the "Utopias & Projects& endeavour. However there will be a rigorous elaboration of sophisticated project communications, graphic material and models prepared specifically for a public presentation in 2007. This finalized production of Process documentation, Analysis, Sketches, Diagrams, and Design Proposals will presented with the highest criterias of intellectual excellence and visual quality. Besides concise and synthetic briefs and arguments, scientific essays and project statements there will be an abundance of inspiring and enlightening watercolour presentations, sketches and paintings, massing models, and computerized simulations and renderings. For more information please contact: Lucien Steil 26, Rue Laurent Menager L-2143 Luxembourg Cell: +352 021 280299 [url=mailto:katarxis@internet.lu]mailto:katarxis@internet.lu[/url]