The 5th European Urban and Regional Planning Achievement Awards 2004

The European Urban & Regional Planning Awards were inaugurated in 1990-1991 by the European Council of Town Planners (ECTP) strongly supported by DG XVI of the European Commission (now DG REGIO). The present Series is the fifth round, now entirely run and organised by ECTP and its member organisations.

The Awards are organised in two stages. The first stage is organised at national level by the associations of spatial planners in European countries; some already award a national prize for planning and use this to select candidates. This "national selection" then makes up the short list for the second stage of the Awards, at which winners of the European Awards are selected. Click here for the 26 short-listed projects.

The International Jury for this second stage was chaired by Professor Max van den Berg of the Netherlands. The other members of the Jury were:

Miroslav Baše, Czech Republic
Marta Doehler-Behzadi, Germany
Rachel Kenny, Republic of Ireland
Andrej Pogačnik, Slovenia

ECTP would like to record here its warmest gratitude to the jury members for their hard work and commitment to the Awards. The results of their deliberations are recorded in this brochure. We are also most grateful to our Czech colleagues in Asociace pro urbanismus a územní planování České Republiky (AUÚP ČR), who kindly made all the arrangements for the jury, organised their two meetings and were exemplary hosts. Particular thanks go to Vít Řezáč of AUÚP ČR who worked so hard as Secretary to the International Jury. Click here for the text of the Jury Report.

Click here to download a PDF version of the Awards results and the report of the jury.

The Award Winners

The winners were:

In the category Local Plans, Re-development, two equally impressive projects - very different - each received a prize:

Abandoibarra regeneration project and new southern railway line (OAVS), Bilbao, Spain

and

Urban Restructuring: Workshop for the City´s Future, Leinefelde, Germany

In the category Local Plans, New Development:

Master Plan Steigereiland, Amsterdam, Netherlands

In the category Urban & Neighbourhood Management:

Child-Friendly Urban Renewal in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin, Germany

Special Mentions

There were 5 Special Mentions:

In the category Regional Plans:

• Town-Planning Concept in Connection with Public Transport along the corridor of the light-rail line Ljubljana - Kamnik
• and Millennium Link Project, Scotland

In the category Local Plans Re-development:

• Transforming the Ashby Woulds

In the category Waterfront projects:

• Wexford Quay Front Restoration Project

In the category Research:

• Atlas of Cultural Ecology, Rotterdam

The results of the Fifth Awards once again demonstrate the importance of the Awards both as a means of exchanging experience and as a way to communicate the importance of the planning profession to a wider public. We hope that the results summarised in this brochure and the exhibition of projects entered for the Awards will further stimulate interest in our profession throughout Europe, and of course particularly in Prague, host of the jury meetings and the final Awards ceremony.

I congratulate the prize-winners and those who received an honourable mention, and commend their work to all who see it.

Jan Vogelij President of the European Council of Town Planners

The Aim of the Awards

The European Union has been significantly enlarged since its inception. In May 2004 ten new countries joined the EU. And in the last two years the number of national associations and institutes belonging to the European Council of Town Planners has also increased, and further growth is expected.

This decisive moment in recent EU history also sets a challenge for planners: planning practice, too, is becoming more diverse. At the same time, we are all faced with the need for action in our environment. More people - more politicians and more planners - will be involved in the protection of our heritage and development of the space we occupy.

Spatial planning is vital for the delivery of sustainable development. In particular, spatial planning is prudent management of space, a critical natural resource which is limited in supply but with growing demands upon it. It requires multi-disciplinary teamwork involving different skills at various scales in long-lasting processes. The particular characteristic of the planning profession is its ability to take a range of issues into account and translate them into their spatial consequences on different scales to achieve sustainable development.

The European Council of Town Planners is aware of both the variety and the universality of the planning profession in Europe as it takes into account the rich diversity of its cities and regions. To publicise and disseminate recent examples of good planning and urban design practice and promote the importance of spatial planning, ECTP encourages planners to take part in the biennial European Urban and Regional Planning Awards. The Awards show the state of spatial planning practice in Europe and they demonstrate regional diversity in Europe as a positive item - a part of our much-loved cultural diversity.

The aims of the Awards Scheme are to:

• demonstrate to the general public, and to the planning profession in particular, successful and innovative planning projects and developments through which the quality of life of European citizens is enhanced and improved, socially, economically and environmentally
• promote the views, ideas and vision of the ECTP on the future of European cities and regions, as expressed in the New Charter of Athens, whereby conditions favourable to the promotion of sustainable development are created and enhanced
• illustrate the diversity and wide scope of planning activity today: in regeneration of urban and other areas, economics and leisure, transport and traffic management, as well as promoting social cohesion and enhancing cultural identity, to mention but a few
• demonstrate clearly the advantages of the participatory planning process, facilitated and enabled by professional planners, showing that co-operation between stakeholders, local authorities, development agencies and interested citizens can have a synergistic effect of benefit to all participants.