21-03-2007

The Bristol Accord that the EU Ministers in charge of urban and territorial policies adopted in December 2005 identified eight characteristics of what the UK Presidency has called a ‘sustainable community’. One of these characteristics is “well designed and built” – featuring quality built and natural environment. Certainly most of the main factors that determine the quality of the physical environment have been listed in this document, as part of a series of economic, social, environmental and cultural factors. To measure the sustainability of a community according to these factors, a number of indicators have been developed.

However, despite the fact that citizens spend 90 per cent of their time in the built environment, to date there are no relevant indicators to measure the actual quality of the built environment. Thus, there is an urgent need to define such indicators, and hence also criteria. For this it would be necessary to develop a European methodology. This is all the more important with the increasing importance given to the urban dimension in EU policies and, in particular, with the emphasis put on urban regeneration – legitimately.

Design plays a fundamental role. It helps to identify the development needs and by the nature of the design process it helps to find the most sustainable solutions. But the architect is not the only designer, for instance there is also the urban/town planner. Design solutions emerge from the process of the interactions between the architect/planner, the client (who often can be a public entity acting on behalf of the community) and the final user of the city, the citizen. A well-defined design process leads to an exchange of ideas and it helps to achieve sustainable solutions through the active engagement of all the partners.

The building industry has a key role to play in any agenda for sustainable development for the 21st century. This is true, in particular, of architecture. As the community’s principal physical asset, getting good value requires that the building’s full life cycle be considered, avoiding short-sighted attempts to merely minimise initial cost. A strategy on sustainable development will seek to prolong the life of existing structures, and indeed to prolong the utilisation of the materials with which they were originally constructed. Adaptation is usually preferable to new building, and upgrading of performance can represent an efficient use of resources.

Considerable opportunities exist to improve the energy performance of European buildings. The design and construction of a building which takes optimal advantage of its environment need not impose any significant additional capital cost. Compared to more highly-engineered ‘conventional’ buildings it may be significantly cheaper to operate, thus bringing direct benefits to owners and society at large.

The present environmental and energy situation and the need for sustainable urban development demands a new approach to planning and architecture. This approach addresses both the city and individual buildings as complex interactive systems which have symbiotic relationships with their wider surroundings. It should also utilise methods such as ecological footprinting to make explicit the relationships between urban resource use and the available supporting productive land.

There is a recurrent tendency nowadays to systematically give priority to the Lisbon competitiveness agenda rather than to the Gothenburg sustainability agenda, thus creating an imbalance. This is something that the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) already underlined in a policy book “Architecture and Quality of Life” published in 2004. Recently the ACE decided to organise a High-Level Conference at the end of November 2007 in Brussels. The conference will address the issue of the perverse effects of a free-market approach on the quality of the built environment in Europe. We take the view that equal attention must be given to the three pillars: economic, social and environmental, whereby culture is a fourth important, cross-cutting element.

The ACE welcomes the Leipzig Charter as a significant, positive step forward in addressing urban issues in a holistic manner. In particular, we very much welcome the emphasis that the German Presidency has put on the importance of architectural quality as part of integrated approaches to ensure sustainability in cities, which is the main goal of the Charter. Since the adoption of the Council resolution on architectural quality back in February 2001, it is the first time that a political document at this level is creating the link between architectural policies and urban and territorial policies. Although the Council Resolution was carried by the EU ministers of culture, it talks about the inter-relationships between architecture and the environment, land use planning and research. The resolution also points out the need to take account of the architectural dimension in all EU policies. Now, only six years later, it is the ministers in charge of urban policies that recognise this dimension.

The assumption that the Leipzig Charter overlooks the environmental dimension, in particular energy efficiency, is not well founded. It has arisen from the fact that this was the case in the initial draft versions of the Lei pzig Charter. Energy efficiency of both new buildings and the existing building stock is definitely included in the most recent version of the draft text of the Leipzig Charter. The draft was discussed, and approved, during the meeting of the Directors-General on urban policies on 16 March in Berlin. This is in line with the new priority that has been given to this topic on the EU political agenda – as the recent EU Summit has demonstrated.

Concerning the existing building stock, the emphasis has been put on deprived neighbourhoods. This is consistent with the new opening that has been made with the 2007-2013 programming period of the Structural Funds and Cohesion Policy. For the first time, renovation of housing is now eligible for funding, following intense pressure by the European Parliament in 2006, supported by many stakeholders including the ACE. Whilst this possibility is limited during 2007-2013 to the New Member States, it is hoped that the measure will be extended to all Member States for the next period. The European Parliament, in particular the Committee on Regional Development and its Intergroup Urban-Housing, have already called for such an extension.

That said, it is accurate to underline that more emphasis must be put on the energy efficiency of buildings. Buildings account for a very significant part of the C02 emissions and this sector also offers the largest, immediate potential to reduce these emissions. Many studies have evidenced the CO2-reducing potential of buildings, and it was also underlined in the EU Action Plan adopted last year and, again, in the Energy Package presented at the beginning of 2007. It is urgent that the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive be reviewed and that one adopts more stringent, binding measures that should apply to the largest part of the existing building stock. The economic and financial aspects may not be overlooked but it should not be a pretext not to do anything about it.

The ACE observes that the New Member States have a special role to play in connection with the new programming period of the Structural Funds and Cohesion Policy 2007-2013. Their elegibility for funding for the renovation of housing gives these countries a special responsibility, and an opportunity, to adopt relevant policy measures. These measures need to ensure that the EU-funding will be used in the best way to produce a sustainable, quality based built environment for future generations. They have the possibility to drive a quality-focused agenda. However, in order to effectively achieve this objective, there is a need to create the conditions for adequate, structured dialogues between competent authorities in charge of distributing the funds and the relevant stakeholders, notably professionals.

Obviously Europe has a different urban structure than China, and more than 80 per cent of European citizens already live in cities. The challenge for Europe is not necessarily to build new eco-cities but rather, to carefully rehabilitate existing cities in a sustainable manner. Then when we look at the EU policy papers, cities and sustainability issues, including energy, are at the centre of concerns. But speaking of sustainability we have to keep in mind the social and economic factors balanced with the environment where a part of the environment is the cultural dimension.

The cultural dimension is included in both the maintenance of the materialised past urban pattern but also in an approach to the present architectural challenges where the new is in line with the European “Baukultur”, which is our legacy and which will form major assets for future generations. Already existing examples of urban regeneration towards sustainability can be found in the EU programmes and networks, such as URBAN and URBACT, as well as in the so-called energy regions. The value of the European approach relies on the adoption of more holistic and less technology-oriented solutions. This approach can help to avoid the undesired side effects of the technology-oriented solutions. We can expect that the new 7th EU Framework Programme for Research and Development will bring more “good” research and applied good practices. We can also anticipate that the new financial perspectives, with energy as a priority issue, will be materialised in adequate regeneration projects.