The City of Kobe, Japan, was designated a UNESCO City of Design last fall, as Montréal had been in June 2006. The WAT_Kobe of the UNESCO Chair in Landscape and Environmental Design at Université de Montréal (CUPEUM) is the first international activity arising from that designation.
Under the scientific direction of the UNESCO Chair in Landscape and Environmental Design at Université de Montréal (CUPEUM), the municipality of Kobe is supporting the WAT, which will take place between November 8 and 21, 2009. The implementation of this activity promotes a genuine approach to local government, and is also receiving support from the UNESCO MOST program, the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO, the Japanese Ministry of Education, the Embassy of Canada to Japan and the General Delegation of Québec in Tokyo.
Kobe Design University and Kobe University will be the Japanese scientific partners of the WAT, and will join the CUPEUM international co-operation network, which already includes 15 academic institutions in five regions of the world: Asia, North America, Northern Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
This fall, all of these scientific experts specializing in architecture, landscape architecture and urban design, supported by local experts from the City of Kobe, will engage in a transdisciplinary consideration, via multicultural dialogue, of the redevelopment of six urban sites in the centre of the city. The 52 students from the participating international and Japanese institutions will receive supervision and guidance from a team of 12 professors, and will produce 12 landscape projects for the City of Kobe. At the end of the workshop, these planning proposals will be evaluated by a UNESCO jury and then bequeathed to the municipality. Some of the ideas will then be implemented.
The results of this international activity will be documented in exhibitions in Kobe and elsewhere in Japan.
The Design Montréal office will also be taking part in this CUPEUM Workshop_atelier/terrain. It thus marks the first activity to be held under a networking and cooperation agreement on urban design between the cities of Montréal and Kobe.
Within the framework of the preparatory activities related to the international WAT_Kobe (Japan) 2009, the UNESCO Chair in Landscape and Environmental Design is inviting you to three seminars on the contemporary Japan in the amphitheatre 1120 of the Faculty of Environmental Design of the University of Montreal, 2940 Chemin-Côte-Sainte-Catherine.
For more information
Séminaires de la Chaire UNESCO en paysage et environnement de l'Université de Montréal
Source:
Philippe Poullaouec-Gonidec
Tel.: 514 343-7500