SUPERBS
Sustainable Urban Patterns around the Baltic Sea
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SUPERBS Newsletter, No 7. May / June 2001
Editor: Dorota Wlodarczyk
Technical University of Gdansk,
Ul. Narutowicza 11/12
80-952 Gdansk, Poland
Tel/fax +48 58 621 45 37
dwlod@pg.gda.pl
Content of this Issue:
1. BALTIC MEETING POINT EXPERT SEMINARS
2. BALTIC MEETING POINT - Students' comments
3. HONORIS CAUSA DOCTORATE
4. FINAL CALL - SUPERBS PROJECT
For an archive of previous newsletters click here.
The Baltic Meeting Point Expert seminars organised by the BUP took place on May 6-7-8-9 2001.
Close to one hundred scientists, researchers, university people from all the countries around the Baltic Coasts and 30 students gathered in Uppsala. Two excursions: 1. Hagaby ecovillage - six resources for sustainable livelihood guided by assoc. Prof. Per G. Berg; 2. Green or dense - Urban planning in Uppsala prepared by adj. Prof. Carl-Johan Engström, Director of Strategic planning, Uppsala City was the interesting introduction to the event. The expert seminars took place on May the 7th at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences organized as 3 simultaneously arranged meetings:
Seminar 1 Implementing Sustainability: The role of eco-villages and sustainable Neighbourhoods
Seminar 2 Sustainability and urban planning - Green areas and the cultural heritage
Seminar 3 Environmental information, Competence development and Information technology
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On May 8th the participants visited Uppsala Energy discussed the energy, water and waste issues. The last event on May 9th - "Polish Green Day" held in Stockholm was very much concerned with Poland's environment and the EU accession, environmental investments and Polish National Fund for Environmental Protection.
All Superbs people, who attended the meeting, spent one of the evenings on discussion about continuation of the project. Interreg 3B application, and the participation of trheUBC as strategic partner were proposed. During the discussion the creation of Baltic University Urban Forum was accepted.
Students from the Sustainable Community Development and Urban Planning course were invited to Uppsala to participate in the Baltic Meeting Point. They are grateful for the opportunity to meet experts on sustainability and their friends participating in the course in other countries.
Kinga Switalska, Marta Weselak, Anna Boryczewska, Barbara Kryczkowska, Michal Górny - students from Technical University of Gdańsk, Poland sent their opinions on the meeting, fragments of which follow:
The seminar "The Role of Eco-villages And Sustainable Neighbourhoods" was based on the idea of eco-villages and sustainable neighbourhoods. A lot of outstanding scientists presented their points of view in the discussions . Among them were: Silvia Schubert, Germany; Dorota Włodarczyk, Poland; Jűrgen Franke, Germany; Stanisław Juchnowicz, Poland; Inara Marana, Latvia and Urmas Arhvet from Estonia. This event was coordinated by Per G Berg, Sweden.
Among many ideas, two of them were suggested as most important; these are democratic status and stable political system. Long-term planning, participation of different interest groups and renewable resources' usage were also mentioned. Finally, at the panel discussion, the conclusions were that Eco-villages are one of the elements of our common future. Nowadays, these sites are built in smaller scale and for limited number of people. More education and ecological consciousness is necessary right now. (...)
During the second seminar, devoted to the sustainability and planning as well as to green areas and the cultural heritage the most interesting lecture, in our opinion, was delivered by A. Stahle from Landscape Architecture entitled "Sociotopes and Biotopes as a concepts for urban greenstructure". It presented three levels of green planning in Stockholm city:
- regional plan with strategies
- city comprehensive plan
- city district with detailed maps divided into green-, biotop- and sociotop-map. (as a sociotop map they understand the place for human experience and activity)
The lecturer described the whole process of his project. The first step was the theoretical preparation, after which the identification of open spaces and the decisions which of them would be analysed were possible. The next step was a professional and a public evaluation, published later on in a local newspaper. An interesting fact was that some of the interviews were placed on the internet, where citizens could leave their own points and comments. The final synthesis was based on all the mentioned information and put into data base to create a specific map of sociotopes and biotopes. The above lecture took into consideration the priority of the social role in planning green areas.
The problem of biodiversity and its role in sustainable development was discussed in a lecture by U. Emanulsson's from the Swedish University of Agricultural Science.
The outline of the problem was based on many examples taken from the actual situation. In Stockholm biodiversity is focused on three main points:
- semi-natural grassland - the areas of grass, bushes, flowers, farms of horses etc.; not destroyed by fertilisers
- old trees - very important, mainly in the middle of the city; but the possibility of accident caused by an old tree during stormy weather suggests cutting it down.
- water - extreme importance in combination with greenery; the positive influence of shallow water in rivers on the recreation conditions in the sea
In the conclusion, after ten years of research, many discussions concentrated on environmental protection and the increase of green consciousness favourably affected on biodiversity conditions.
On May 23th, 2001 the joint meeting of the Senate and the Rectorate of Kaunas University of Technology was held on the occasion of inauguration of prof. Lars Ryden as the Honourable Doctor of the KTU. The event was extremely ceremonial and moving. The family, most importantly Lars Ryden's father, many friends celebrated the important moment with him. The lecture delivered by the jubilee disclosed his emotions.
CONGRATULATIONS FROM ALL "SUPERBS" FRIENDS
I would like to REMIND US that our project is close to the end, the date for finalising all the reports and many undertaken tasks is June 30, 2001. The work on 3 books will be continued to the end of the year.
Anna-Karin Sjöström Proos at BUP secretariat, who is editing SUPERBS Case Studies will appreciate receiving the material as soon as possible. E-mail address: anna-karin.sjostrom_proos@uadm.uu.se
Keep in touch
Dorota Wlodarczyk
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