Climate Proof MILU (Multifunctional and Intensive Land Use)

Why this topic

The growing urgency to accommodate the effects of climate change demands new thinking about spatial concepts that take these effects into account.

Space is needed to buffer storm water, both in rural and in urban area’s; space needs to be configured differently to prevent heat island effects and extreme weather conditions.

Aim / purpose of the working party

The aims of the working party are to increase awareness of the consequences both positive and negative, of an intensive and multifunctional (mixed) use of space and to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas about policies and projects promoting intensive multifunctional land-use.

In many densely populated areas the urgency to promote multifunctional land-use is evident, partly to improve the physical and social-economic structure of urban areas, partly to preserve open rural areas, nature reserves and valuable landscapes. But also in rural areas there is a growing need of combining functions, in space as well as in time.

This programme brings policymakers and experts together to exchange and learn from experiences and studies in other countries and experiment with new solutions. The exchange of knowledge of colleagues working on similar problems may help to find useful solutions: "sharing knowledge is increasing knowledge".

As examples of the kind of projects the working party might address, one may think of:

• building over infrastructure (urban ring-roads, railway yards, etc..)
• underground transportation systems for urban centres (shopping malls, office concentrations)
• parking facilities under green areas
• water retention combined with nature protection or recreational zones. 

Activities

1. Survey of strategies and policies (on national, regional and local level) to promote climate robust, multifunctional intensive land-use (comparison of goals, legal instruments, tax regimes, financing, actors consultation; also pitfalls and obstacles that stand in the way);
2. Survey of related projects and research; models for public-private partnership(land-use studies and concepts, pilot projects, local development plans regional or structure plans);
3. Group discussions about the results of these surveys and excursions to projects or problem-related areas;
4. Experiment with standing practices and new ideas on selected demonstration projects (workshops on the spot).

Target group

• policy makers (national, regional, local authorities);
• advisors (consultants, civil servants, engineers);
• city and region planners, developers, non-profit organisation;
• experts on regional and city development (management, financing, building, transport).

 

Brief overview of past activities / publications

 

24-26 May 2000

Founding meeting of the Working Party in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with site visits in Amsterdam.
A programme had to be made in order to activate the participants to further research and exchange of knowledge. A series of visits to European cities was agreed upon to both keep in touch and implement the desired exchange programme. The programme is designed for a period of 5 years after which period the 50th IFHP World Congress could be dedicated to the subject matter of Multifunctional and Intensive Land Use.

11 September 2000

Workshop at the occasion of the 45th IFHP World Congress in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

19 May 2001

Meeting in Oslo, Norway. Topic: Integration of Industrial Areas in Existing City Structure. Report available at the IFHP secretariat.

10 September 2001

Meeting at the occasion of the IFHP International Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

5-7 June 2002

Meeting in Vienna, Austria. Topics: Integration, Intensification and connectedness. Report available at the IFHP secretariat.

11 September 2002

Meeting at the occasion of the 46th World Congress in Tianjin, China, during which there was a.o. the presentation of the report on the Vienna Expert meeting held in June.

4-6 June 2003

Meeting in Gdynia, Poland. Topic: Multifunctional and Intensive Land Use. Report available at the IFHP secretariat.

7 October 2003

Meeting at the occasion of the 47th IFHP World Congress in Vienna, Austria.

9-12 May 2004

Meeting in Portland(Or.), USA. Topic: Multifunctional (mixed) use of land space and developments of Portland.

7 September 2004

Meeting at the occasion of the 48th IFHP World Congress in Oslo, Norway. Reporting on the Starting up of the EU Interreg IIIc Operation MILUnet and the findings of the Implementation Lab held in Portland (OR) USA.

September 2005

Meetings ate the occasions of the 49 the IFHP World Congress In Rome.

September 2006

Meeting at the occasion of the 50th IFHP World Conference in Geneva

Preparing the Spring Conference to be held in Lisbon 2007.

May 2007 

IFHP Lisbon Spring Conference, in conjunction with the Final Conference of the  Intereg III-C Operation  MILU-net.  DVD and publications are available at the IFHP Secretariat.

22-26 September 2007

IFHP 51 World Congress in Copenhagen MILU workshop futuring the IFHP Working Party MILU  

Planned and future activities

The Working Party MILU will take up new activities for the coming five year period, convinced of the still highly relevant nature of the strategy of multifunctional and Intensive land use. In view of the problems that climate change urges us to address.  Based on the results of the Copenhagen MILU workshop September 2007, we propose to continue the study visits and conduct implementation lab’s in the cities or regions in the coming five years period. We will need the year 2008 to get organized and hope to restart the IFHP Working Part Climate Proof MILU for the period 2009-2014.  For this five year period we have selected three broader theme’s:  

1. MILU for Climate Change; 
2. MILU for Time and Space;
3. MILU for Intensification.

For the specific topics elaborating these themes we would like to inquire for the most relevant city or region . And if this can be endorsed by the participants of the Copenhagen workshop and the people involved in the MILU and MILUnet episode, we - the initiators of this initiative - will approach involved authorities to inquire whether there is interest in hosting a study visit / implementation lab workshop, and if so in what year and period of their preference.

Hosting a study visit will mean the contribution to building up dossiers about specific project local and or regional, offer a venue for the workshop itself - preferably the regular meeting facilities in the offices of the authorities- and help in finding affordable accommodations to stay. Hotels or with colleagues. Participants of these WP sessions will have to take care for their own travelling expenses and the subsistence coast during their stay. 

1) MILU Climate change (Volkmar Pamer)

Topics: 

• Multi-functionality and intensively used space is seen as a crucial approach to mitigate climate change and adapt to the outcomes of this change.
• Improvement of public transport, which means that layering of functions is a necessity to bring people fast and easy to their working places, to shopping areas and to residential areas to decrease the dependency on cars. The ‘City of short Tracks’ not as an often used but never realised buzzword, but as THE goal to achieve.
• Creating a new quality of density – INTELLIGENT DENSITY, which is not only a profit orientated amassment of floor-space, but a step to a liveable vertical city
• Accompanying with the development of intelligent density the creation of green spaces, private, semi-public, public, in horizontal and vertical dimensions is decisive.
• According to the denser,  multi-functionally used space, the use and the production of energy has to be reorganised e.g. waste heat from sewage channels, metro tubes (from the public transport lines below) geothermal heat and photovoltaic surfaces, which are more efficient in such spaces.
• How to deal with existing structures? How to intensify use and improve multi-functionality by considering climate relate issues?
• Creating financing models to support actions which are related to the above mentioned issues.

As a matter of fact the promotion of actions is necessary but it can't be seen with associated education on a wider scale.
To sum up it can be said that multifunctional and intensive land use in conjunction with climate change five considerations have to be mentioned:

1) Compact City (City of short tracks)
2) Green City
3) Energy production
4) Financing models and
5) Promotion and Education.

Because of the fact, that more than half of the world’s population lives in cities a focus on the mega-cities of today is necessary. There mitigation can have it’s most sustainable affect on global climate change. 

Visits of the Working Party CP-MILU should be held, despite bigger cities in Europe e.g. London, Moscow, Madrid, also in Japan, China, Malaysia etc.

 

2) MILU, Time and space  (Huibert Haccoû)

Topics: 

• Interim use, pioneer users e.g. allowing squatters to occupy and use the abandoned place as a first step in a transformation strategy. But how to scale up and make use of the new branding of the place?
  Suggestion for study cases: Yburg Amsterdam  where a beach community was facilitated. Cases that could be studied are Zaanstad NL where 4 industrial areas have become obsolete;  Osijek in Croatia a new development area Jug II;  South Africa Marikana- Rustenburg 
• How to handle the regulation problem when one would like to have several different functions or function combinations over time, in a specific building or space eg housing and schools. Neighbourhood centre, offices . So that transformation is facilitated and not blocked.
  Suggestion for cases are requested. 
• Concepts of flexible buildings which can easily change in function.
  Suggestion for study cases: Office apartments in Hammarby Sjostad Stockholm , Flex schools in Vleuten de Meern  and Almere The Netherlands.
• Concepts of public spaces that can easily change in function eg parking space-children play ground- farmers market.
  Suggestion for cases are requested.
• Use of infrastructure during the day cycle, spread of working hours, week – week end cycle, spread of holiday periods, all keeping in mind social just arrangements to prevent that only the creative / leisure class of knowledge workers can enjoy the luxury of determining the most convenient moments in the day / or the year to make efficient use of infrastructure.
  Suggestion for cases are requested.
• Creation of laboratory spaces specifically permitting transformation to take place. Were people can experiment with unregulated transformations.
  Suggestions for study cases: Ruigoort IJmuiden (The Netherlands) , Christiania in Copenhagen (Danemark)
• Explosive growth situations, how to calibrate the scaling up of all functions in a proper balance ? Socially, spatially, economically, functionally.
  Suggestions for study cases : Curitiba Brazil;  Kaliningrad  Russia
• Life cycle proof neighbourhoods
  Suggestions for study cases  BO 92 in Danmark 
• How to prevent and or redress draining  of the city centre shopping area by a one stop shopping mall in the outskirt.
  Suggestion for study cases: Kaunas in Lithuania  where an main pedestrian shopping area has become a dead area.

 

3) MILU and intensification  (Martijn Kramer)

 (To be elaborated )

 

Language

English 

Composition of group and how to contact

Contact Persons:

• Huibert  A. Haccoû (Chair)
  Associate Professor Urban and Regional Planning
  Saxion Hogeschool Deventer 
• Volkmar Pamer  (Co-chair) 

Please contact the Secretariat for more details.

Last Updated @ Friday, 07 March 2008