PRESS RELEASE – 6/06
December 2006

DESIGNING FOR THE FUTURE: THE MARKET AND QUALITY OF LIFE

The Architects Council of Europe (ACE) is preparing to hold a important conference in 2007 that will address an audience of politicians and high level decision-makers in order to demonstrate the need to adopt a different approach in Europe to the current purely Economic Competitiveness Agenda.  The Summit is being organised under the Patronage of Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, and is scheduled to take place in November 2007 in Brussels.

With the deadline for the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy approaching and following its review in 2005 the architectural profession has noted that the purely economic approach, whereby the European Union is concentrating on the creation of growth and jobs, is not sufficient, on its own, to answer the needs of European Society and the development objectives that it has set.  It should be noted that the Lisbon Agenda was supplemented by the Gothenburg Declaration on Sustainable Development and the ACE firmly believes that it is only through the concurrent achievement of both strategies that a balanced, prosperous and sustainable future can be achieved for European citizens.

The Summit will examine the impact that European policies have had on the quality of the built environment and will demonstrate how quality in the built environment fundamentally affects productivity, efficiency and a sense of well being in society.  Indeed it is only through the pursuit of a quality agenda for our necessary buildings and infrastructure that a truly sustainable economy can be constructed in Europe in that area. 

The Summit will be organised to include a number of keynote speeches from politicians and from world-renowned economists, environmentalists and architects.  These will be supplemented by dynamic Round Table discussions designed to be thought provoking and to motivate Decision Makers for change.  It is planned that a strategic set of conclusions will be debated and adopted at the Summit for transmission to the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. 

An early announcement and draft programme for the Event will be circulated in early 2007 and in the meantime preliminary information is available by contacting the Secretariat of the ACE by email at: [email protected].