European Habitat will address sustainable urban development

In two weeks, the UN International Conference European Habitat will begin in Prague, with the Faculty of Architecture of Czech Technical University in Prague also participating in the program preparation. A V4 forum on the future of housing estates will be held, which will also include an exhibition of student projects for the adaptation of Czech housing estates. At the same time, a large model of sustainable urban housing solutions in Prague's Smíchov will be presented, and in collaboration with IPR Prague, a parallel event about public spaces is being prepared.

European Habitat is one of the preparatory meetings for the global UN conference on housing and urban development Habitat III, which takes place every twenty years and will be held this October in Quito (Ecuador).

From March 16 to 18, 2016, prominent experts in urbanism and housing from around the world will meet at the Prague Congress Center. Guests will include David Ortega, a Mexican architect involved in the preparation of the urban plan for Mexico City, and Danish architect, urban planner, and theorist Jan Gehl, emeritus professor of urbanism at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts' School of Architecture in Copenhagen, who is a respected expert on the livability of cities.

The theme of the European Habitat will be Housing in Viable Cities, and over three days there will be a total of 86 lectures and discussions. The Faculty of Architecture CTU is one of five Czech organizations and institutions whose contributions have been included in the international conference program.

The V4 forum on the future of housing estates, organized by FA CTU in collaboration with the Ministry for Regional Development and representatives of the V4 countries, will take place on Wednesday, March 16, 2016, at 2:00 PM in the South Hall of the Prague Congress Center. Panel housing estates represent specific areas of cities not only in the Czech Republic but also throughout the Central European region. What is the vision for the long-term future of these areas? How to conceptually engage with them and initiate the process of transforming them into attractive and sustainable components of urban structure? How to mitigate the risks of future negative developments in housing estates within the Central European context?

Contributions will be presented by David Tichý and Filip Tittl (Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague), Lubica Vítková (Faculty of Architecture STU in Bratislava), Arpad Szabo (Budapest University of Technology and Economics), Ana Kantarek (Faculty of Architecture, Technical University of Krakow), and Maren Harnack (Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences). The discussion will be moderated by Michal Kohout, head of the Institute of Building Science at FA CTU.
The V4 forum will begin with the book launch of "Housing Estates, What Next?" The publication summarizes insights from a multi-year project at FA CTU focused on finding long-term strategies for the development of these areas.

Students from the Faculty of Architecture CTU in Prague will also express their views on the theme of European Habitat through a proposal for the redevelopment of the existing railway brownfield in Prague's Smíchov into a sustainable residential district. Nearly 100 student proposals represent various characters of development and forms of housing integrated into the urban district, demonstrating characteristics of a comprehensible and simultaneously socially, ecologically, and economically sustainable residential environment. The opening of the exhibition Sustainable Housing Smíchov will take place on Thursday, March 17, at 5:30 PM in the Prague Congress Center.

Information about the complete program of the European Habitat here.