Conferences
To strengthen the international collaboration in Urbanism, the International Forum on Urbanism develops international conferences to contribute to the international debate on Urbanism and to stimulate the exchange between academic and professional institutions.
The International Forum on Urbanism organizes at least once a year an international conference. The past few conferences in Beijing in 2006 on 'Modernization and Regionalism' and also the Permacity conference in 2007 were a great success.
Upcoming conference
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Past conferences
| June 2008, Taipei | |
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City and Water |
| Cities all over the world are simultaneously dealing with the issue of water. On the one hand cities make use of the potentiality of the water element to improve their accessibility, attractiveness and competitiveness (i.e. waterfront or seaport cities). On the other hand cities are limited in their development or even threatened by water problems. In this framework we can distinguish at least three different categories: - Coastal cities, in particular cities in delta regions that are threatened by the rising sea level or by the tsunami; - River bank cities that are threatened by floodings caused by excessive rainfalls or by smelting glaciers; - Cities in so-called dry-zones whose major problem is the lack of water. In collaboration with the Taipei County Government the Third IFoU Conference has been organized to analyze the problems of water regulation and water management in the framework of city planning and development in Asia and Europe. The potentiality of water in the city has been explored and new concepts for water related urban developments have been discussed. In this framework scientific results as well as design concepts and technical solutions from different regions in Asia and in Europe have been presented. The Third IfoU Conference has been combined with the annual meeting of the scientific board of IfoU. | |
| cityandwater.ifou.org >> | |
| November 2007, Delft | |
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Permacity |
| When almost 30 years ago Bill Mollison and David Holmgren introduced the idea of Permaculture, they initially pointed at the development of a stable agriculture, based on the principles of sustainable ecological systems. However, very soon the idea expanded into a more general approach for the design of human habitat and community building. In the meantime Permaculture has been elaborated into a complex design system, carefully observing the nature and natural systems, analyzing the ecological principles of sustainability in these systems and applying them in the design of human settlements and human societal systems. Permaculture became a worldwide movement, All over the world ecological settlement have been developed, eiher as new building construction or as renewal projects of existing settlements, where people live together in conformance with the principles of Permaculture. In these settlements, people not only apply sustainable environmental technologies to redue the exploitation of natural resources and to limit the pollution; they also try to develop sustainable sommunities and sutainable economies that can survive without exploitation of other societies or future generations. The idea is to create productive and sustainable ways of living that are based on the principles of global equiy; Every human being on earth has the same right for clean water, pure air and an adequate amount of energy, every human being has the right for stable ans sustainable living conditions. |
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| permacity.ifou.org >> | |
| October 2006, Beijing | |
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Modernization and Regionalism |
| Urbanization is a key issue of our time. Never before in history has human society gone through a comparable process of urbanization. Never before have urban agglomerations expanded as today. New and transformed agglomerations of unprecedented dimensions are developing, giving rise to new urban cultures and economies, forming unknown challenges for the planning disciplines and unpredictable threats to the environment.
The speed of these transformation processes is generating growing contradictions. On the one hand, there are the demands to modernize cities and societies, while on the other, there is the destruction of traditional ways of living, and generating fundamental threats for people and environment. The contradictions are appearing on different levels of scale: within the city, between rapidly developing new centralities and more traditional areas which have been home to local populations; between the core city and suburban areas; and between different regions. The results include increasing social conflicts, the disruption of living conditions of rural peoples, the exploitation and contamination of the environment, and, last but not least, the loss of cultural and social identity. | |
| mr.ifou.org >> | |
