Ecoparc Forum 2015
As chairman of the organizing committee, Prof. Emmanuel Rey of the Laboratory of Architecture and Sustainable Technologies (LAST) opened the 8th edition of the Ecoparc Forum, which brought together more than 140 participants on September 9 in the Auditorium of Microcity, the EPFL antenna in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Its lecture sets the scene of the event by presenting the issues related to the confrontation between the metropolization of Switzerland and the goals of sustainability. Among speakers, Prof. Paola Viganò, EPFL Laboratory of Urbanism (LAB-U), Joëlle Salomon Cavin, UNIL, Philippe Gauderon, SBB, Gaëtan Cherix, CREM, Prof. Nicolas Pham, HEPIA, Prof. Angelus Eisinger, Director of the regional planning of Zurich and surroundings (RZU) and Beatrice Mariolle, researcher at the Paris-Belleville ENSA, were present. Frédéric Frank, Post Doc at the LAST, played the role of moderator during this day.
According to the latest figures published by the Federal Statistical Office, 84% of the Swiss population lives in towns with urban character. New spatial structures with imprecise and polynuclear limits are now the dominant form of housing and activities areas. This metropolization process significantly modifies the scale of operation and analysis of cities.
The observation of the Swiss Plateau is particularly emblematic of this change, urbanization today constituting a clearly perceptible continuum from Geneva to St. Gallen. From the perspective of sustainability, a fatalistic reading of this phenomenon could lead to an exclusively negative view of this development.
At the dawn of the 21st century, new strategic approaches tend to emerge in a context marked by new managerial framework conditions of non-renewable resources, especially soil and energy. Beyond the myth of rural Switzerland, they aim to consider the Swiss plateau not as a series of separate entities but more as a large urban system to be structured and optimized.
All through the day, researchers, practitioners and persons in charge of the public communities in Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, shared their research to enable attendees to identify challenges inherent to this change and steps to promote for a sustainable future of metropolitan territory.
The morning was dedicated to the concept of metropolization and to the analysis of these dynamic specificities in the Swiss context. Thematic approaches highlighted the importance of structuring the built environment evolution and deepened the main territorial issues, especially the development related to mobility and energy supply. The afternoon was an opportunity for participants to share experiences in the framework of projects in Switzerland and abroad, especially with the Zurich metropolis, the Randstad in the Netherlands and the Grand Paris examples.
Rich in teachings and visions for the future, this day was an opportunity for all participants to consider the possibility of transforming the Swiss metropolis into a real laboratory of new environmental, sociocultural and economic synergies.