Sci­ence, Pol­icy, Edu­ca­tion and Best Practice

The Third Inter­na­tional C.E.U. Con­gress, Oslo, Nor­way, 14 — 16 Sep­tem­ber 2008

ABSTRACTS DUE Feb­ru­ary 1, 2008
ANNOUNCEMENTS of Accepted Papers March 1, 2008
COMPLETED DRAFTS DUE June 1, 2008

The Topic

Fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful Con­gresses in Berlin 2005 and Leeds 2006, the Coun­cil for Euro­pean Urban­ism will hold its third inter­na­tional con­gress in Oslo, Nor­way from the 14th to 16th Sep­tem­ber 2008.
The con­gress will dis­cuss the rapidly-evolving topic of “Cli­mate Change and Urban Design”. Papers are invited on the lat­est impli­ca­tions in sci­ence, pol­icy, edu­ca­tion and best prac­tice. What is the lat­est sci­ence telling us? What are the con­se­quences for urban devel­op­ment inter­na­tion­ally? What are the prac­ti­cal solu­tions avail­able to reduce cli­mate gas emis­sions from urban set­tle­ments and trans­porta­tion? What strate­gies are avail­able to adapt to chang­ing con­di­tions?
The con­gress will wel­come gov­ern­ment offi­cials, plan­ners, archi­tects, social sci­en­tists, ecol­o­gists, devel­op­ers, local com­mu­nity activists, and all other devel­op­ment stake­hold­ers who feel a respon­si­bil­ity to con­tribute to more sus­tain­able urban devel­op­ment.
We invite authors engaged in urban devel­op­ment and cli­mate change top­ics from all parts of the world to sub­mit paper pro­pos­als with abstracts by Feb­ru­ary 1, 2008.
Announce­ments of accepted pro­pos­als will be on March 1, 2008. Com­pleted drafts of papers will be due by June 1, 2008.
Back­ground
The cli­mate change agenda has clearly reached a world-wide tip­ping point. Yet while there is grow­ing con­sen­sus that the phe­nom­e­non poses a major threat to future human well-being, legit­i­mate debate remains about what is to be done to reduce atmos­pheric car­bon lev­els, as well as to adapt to changes that already appear likely. In par­tic­u­lar there is ongo­ing debate about how the cost of var­i­ous options cor­re­lates to poten­tial ben­e­fits. Debate also con­tin­ues about how the issue of cli­mate change relates to the larger agenda of sus­tain­able devel­op­ment.
The built envi­ron­ment is well known to be one of the largest cur­rent con­trib­u­tors to green­house gases. There­fore those who work in the plan­ning, design and build­ing pro­fes­sions have a key role in work­ing to reduce atmos­pheric car­bon diox­ide. While much work has been done to decrease con­tri­bu­tions from indi­vid­ual build­ings, the role of urban design in address­ing cli­mate change remains more obscure, and more con­tentious.
To be sure, build­ings are not pas­sive emit­ters of green­house gases. They shape the pat­terns of activ­ity and con­sump­tion of their occu­pants, which in turn pro­foundly affect emis­sions. Must occu­pants drive between scat­tered loca­tions, per­haps for long dis­tances? Do they spend large per­cent­ages of time in build­ings iso­lated from a func­tional pub­lic realm, with high pat­terns of con­sump­tion and emis­sions? Are those build­ings sited in remote new devel­op­ments where sig­nif­i­cant areas of exist­ing veg­e­ta­tion have been replaced with paved or reflec­tive sur­faces? How does the urban street and block pat­tern con­tribute? What about the mix of uses, and the dis­tri­b­u­tion of daily activ­i­ties and needs?
There has been much dis­cus­sion of the dra­matic car­bon reduc­tions pos­si­ble per per­son in a higher-density urban mor­phol­ogy, par­tic­u­larly in com­par­i­son to automobile-dominated “sprawl” devel­op­ment. But what are the fac­tors to be teased out? If we are to pur­sue such a goal, what are the issues to be addressed in eco­nom­ics, mar­ket dynam­ics, project per­mit­ting, legal reg­u­la­tion? How are these issues being addressed suc­cess­fully, and what fur­ther chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties remain?
What about the pref­er­ence of some con­sumers for lower den­sity neigh­bor­hoods, or the argu­ment that it is more sus­tain­able to accom­mo­date a set­tle­ment dis­tri­b­u­tion or “tran­sect” from the high­est human use to the most pris­tine nat­ural envi­ron­ment, includ­ing lower-density agri­cul­tural set­tle­ments? Does the new agenda imply, as some argue, that only very high den­si­ties will be viable? Or can a mix­ture that includes some lower-density mor­pholo­gies be sus­tained in com­bi­na­tion with other forms of mit­i­ga­tion? Is such a range of den­si­ties more eco­nom­i­cally sus­tain­able, as some argue?
Even at high den­si­ties, a wide range of mor­pholo­gies is pos­si­ble. What are the ben­e­fits and trade­offs of the alter­na­tives? For exam­ple, are dense high rise cities the inevitable best option? What about the neg­a­tive energy impacts of tall build­ings that may fea­ture exten­sive cur­tain wall glaz­ing, or require other high-energy con­di­tion­ing, main­te­nance or repair? How do tall build­ings per­form across socio-economic classes, or in pro­mot­ing social diver­sity and eco­nomic sus­tain­abil­ity? How do they per­form in repairabil­ity, adap­tive re-use, or typ­i­cal life-cycle?
What about the advan­tages of “green” retro­fits of exist­ing build­ings, in com­par­i­son to new green build­ings? Since roughly half of the energy use of a build­ing is in its con­struc­tion, is there cred­i­ble evi­dence to sug­gest that adap­tive re-use of her­itage build­ings should be a greater pri­or­ity? Are there exam­ples of tra­di­tional urban fab­ric that offer bet­ter mod­els of sus­tain­able mor­phol­ogy, such as medium rise “liner” build­ings, or high-density ter­races? And do tra­di­tional build­ings offer any sig­nif­i­cant mor­pho­log­i­cal ben­e­fits for the sus­tain­abil­ity chal­lenge?
These ques­tions remind us that emis­sions are a cumu­la­tive phe­nom­e­non, and must be con­sid­ered over whole sys­tems and whole life cycles. Clearly a reduc­tion in one tar­geted para­me­ter is of lit­tle use if it results in the increase of another para­me­ter by an equal or greater amount. More­over, green­house gas emis­sions are only one para­me­ter of sus­tain­abil­ity that must be con­sid­ered in bal­ance with oth­ers.
We encour­age papers that dis­cuss the inter-disciplinary nature of this chal­lenge, and the need for a more “joined-up” approach. We par­tic­u­larly encour­age dis­cus­sion of effec­tive new diag­nos­tic and pre­scrip­tive tools to opti­mize per­for­mance across whole sys­tems and whole life cycles.
Themes Within the Topic
We wel­come your papers on one of the six themes below. Where nec­es­sary, a paper may com­bine two or more themes.
THEME ONE: Cli­mate Change and Urban Mor­phol­ogy — The Evi­dence
What is the sci­en­tific evi­dence for or against par­tic­u­lar links between urban form and con­tri­bu­tions of green­house gases? What are the inter­re­la­tion­ships? What are the pit­falls in research, and in its appli­ca­tion? Papers may sur­vey pre­vi­ous lit­er­a­ture and/or present new research.
THEME TWO: Cli­mate Change and Best Prac­tice in Urban Design
What are the impli­ca­tions of cli­mate change research for stan­dards of best prac­tice? What does the evolv­ing evi­dence sug­gest about the rel­a­tive impor­tance of such para­me­ters as den­sity, tran­sit modes, mixed use, build­ing height, social diver­sity and oth­ers? What about the rel­a­tive ben­e­fits of retro­fit ver­sus new con­struc­tion? How can best prac­tice address issues of mar­ket accep­tance and con­sumer choice?
THEME THREE: Cli­mate Change, Urban Design and Pub­lic Pol­icy
What are the steps being taken to address the con­tri­bu­tion of urban design on cli­mate change through pub­lic pol­icy, and how well are they suc­ceed­ing? What steps are being taken to mit­i­gate ini­tial dis­ec­onomies, cre­ate new incen­tives, ease reg­u­la­tory restric­tions, and shift mar­ket behav­iour?
THEME FOUR: Cli­mate Change, Edu­ca­tion and Research
How should aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions respond to the cli­mate change agenda? What are the impli­ca­tions for inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional research? How should design schools respond to the chal­lenge? What alter­na­tive cur­ric­ula are implied or required?
THEME FIVE: Case Stud­ies of Urban Projects and Their Impacts
Paper in this cat­e­gory should present one or more case stud­ies with detailed assess­ment of suc­cess in mit­i­gat­ing green­house gases, or adapt­ing to the con­se­quences of cli­mate change. They may dis­cuss chal­lenges of enti­tle­ment, mar­ket accep­tance, eco­nomic per­for­mance, and other project require­ments.
THEME SIX: Inno­v­a­tive New Strate­gies
Papers in this cat­e­gory should dis­cuss new the­o­ret­i­cal or prag­matic approaches, such as cer­ti­fi­ca­tion schemes (LEED-ND in the USA, BREEAM in the UK, et al.), trad­ing schemes, new cod­ing approaches, and other inno­va­tions.
If your paper does not fit within one of the six themes above, be advised that we will accept a lim­ited num­ber of papers under gen­eral or alter­na­tive top­ics.
The Papers
Papers should be at least 3,000 words and no more than 6,000. Bear in mind that speaker pre­sen­ta­tion time will be no more than 30 min­utes, or about 3,600 words for most speak­ers. Papers should be writ­ten in 12 point Times Roman font, in Microsoft Word or equiv­a­lent for­mat. Foot­notes and/or ref­er­ences should appear at the end of papers. Authors agree that papers may be pub­lished in the Con­gress pro­ceed­ings. Full guide­lines will be sent to selected authors.
The Abstracts
Abstracts should be 12 point Times Roman font, in Microsoft Word or equiv­a­lent for­mat. Please include your full name, full address and affil­i­a­tion details with an abstract of your pre­sen­ta­tion of between 100 and 300 words. You may include a cover let­ter or email mes­sage with addi­tional comments.

C.E.U. — Coun­cil for Euro­pean Urban­ism
www.ceunet.org
——
Nor­we­gian con­tact address:
Audun Engh.
CEU Nor­way
St. Olavs gate 9, 0165 Oslo, Nor­way.
Tel. +47.92 62 26 26
Email: moc.liamgnull@hgne.nudua

www.cityclimate.no