Poland: Blue and Green Architecture for sustainability
Adapting cities to the future challenges of climate crisis, resilient and inclusive cities, wise land-use and spatial planning, effective leadership, civic consensus and efficient financing - were the leading topics of the workshops organized by the Embassy.
Workshops for Polish urban architects
The workshops were addressed to the Polish partners, among others professionally working in the fields of urban development, revitalization, designing sustainable architecture and water management.
Two Dutch speakers Mr. Rutger de Graaf from Blue 21 Design and Mr. Tjerk van Impelen from the City of Utrecht shared with the participants their practical experience and vision for the future. Polish practitioners from Warsaw, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Łódź, Poznań, Piła and Mysłowice joined the discussion – representatives of local governments, architects, urban planners, universities (Warsaw University of Technology and Gdańsk University of Technology), Port of Gdynia and association of architects (SARP). The meeting was moderated by Mrs. Sylwia Mikołajczak from RDH Urban.
Lively discussion in “blue area” led by Mr. Rutger de Graaf focused on technologically advanced solutions making cities more resilient, creating space for a new eco-systems enabling bio-based economy and green architectural design. In-depth analysis of “green aspects” by Mr. Tjerk van Impelen from the City of Utrecht showed the really advanced process of leading the biggest and most complex inner city redevelopment of the Netherlands - the Station Area in Utrecht, restoring water canal in the city center, creating the biggest transport terminal and bike parking of the world.
How to transform challenges into opportunities? How to balance the different interest: society, economy, space, safety, nature? How to build stable cooperation and commitment based on trust that secures the continuity of projects?
How to make vision of living in attractive, climate-resilient and sustainable cites part of urban programs in Polish cities and move towards practice? How to deal with "the heat stress" affecting energy consumption, having negative impact on living conditions and the climate around urban areas? How to approach blue projects in context of suffering from lack of surface water in Poland? These are just examples of the questions intensively discussed during workshops. As the climate crisis has no delimited borders, and the cooperation on this topic is crucial, there is a great need to continue such initiatives and share more practical aspects.
You can find out more on sustainable green development of cities here.