The ‘Europan Method’: giving young designers space to ponder

Continuation of the interview with jury members, Jacob van Rijs, Beatriz Ramo, and Like Bijlsma

This is the third time architect Beatriz Ramo is on the Europan jury. She has noticed that competitors are taking fewer and fewer risks over the years. Ramo: ‘Young offices no longer participate in ideas competitions like Europan as a matter of course. This generation prefers to make plans they can actually realize. A pity, for pragmatic plans alone will not stimulate clients and municipalities to think innovatively, they’ll maintain a culture of risk-free development. What we need is plans that stimulate reflection on life in the city. Ideally, Europan entries provide food for thought. If that is not the aim, why set up the whole Europan circus? Architect and geographer Like Bijlsma agrees that the strength of Europan is in the exploratory character of the entries. Bijlsma: ‘Designers have to make sure that they do not become an extension of the planning and development level. They have to be able to weigh policy critically, first, and to look at ways to make innovative ideas more pragmatic, second.’ 

To achieve the best possible collaboration with the client, Europan NL focused its fifteenth edition on a single city, Rotterdam. The City of Rotterdam played a major part in the co-defining of the framework for the competition. The themes of the Omgevingswet (Environmental Act) are the starting point. Did this give designers too little freedom? Did this method push entrants in a specific solution direction? Bijlsma nods: ‘All challenges focus on densification, which was a prerequisite. While you may well wonder whether densification is the most logical choice in all of the Europan locations. The entrants could not call densification into question. This has resulted in entries that contain few original arguments and critical notes with regard to the choices included in the challenge. But designers need space to prevaricate and ponder.’

Architect Jacob van Rijs also sees the advantages of defining challenges on the basis of current policy. Van Rijs: ‘Europan is a catalyst for a different approach to making city. Using the themes from the Omgevingsvisie (Environmental Vision), you hand the city ideas that it can really implement in the future. The municipality can use the entries to take strategic steps in its thinking on the future development of the city. The themes pointed the designers in a certain direction. It was up to them to innovatively develop them.’ According to Van Rijs, the strength of Europan lies in the fact that young designers are noticed by prospective clients. He speaks from his own experience, he also participated in Europan and won. Van Rijs: ‘Europan is a helping hand. Participating helped me to take the step to continue independently and to build a network. It’s not entirely realistic to expect a young team to meet such a substantive challenge. But winning can bring other things as well. Carrying out studies for the municipality. For smaller places, an architectural challenge. In this context, involving the municipality is crucial.’ Van Rijs: ‘The municipality is involved in every project in the city. Market parties had no say in defining the challenges and quality assessment took place at a distance from the judging. That’s how you make sure that market parties cannot steer on the basis of the direct interests they have in the city, but are nevertheless closely involved in innovative work on the city.’ Bijlsma comments: ‘In addition to the municipality itself, almost all of the partners in this Europan edition are project developers. Are they really the right experts when it comes to new ways of working? Perhaps it would have made more sense to involve municipal departments that deal with work and business premises. They are already much more focused on reuse, which is important for a theme like the productive city.’

Jacob van Rijs, architect and co-founder and principal architect of MVRDV and former Europan winner, is the chairman of the jury whose other members are Beatriz Ramo, architect and founder of STAR strategies + architecture, and Like Bijlsma, architect and geographer and co-founder of SUBoffice and researcher at PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.