Pierre Laconte

President

Foundation for the Urban Environment

Pierre Laconte is the president of the Foundation for the Urban Environment (www.ffue.org). The Foundation is a charitable institution of public interest, authorised by Royal Decree in 1999. It has among others edited five books between 2000 and 2009 (see www.ffue.org).

He was President of the International Society of City and Regional Planners from 2006 to 2009 (www.isocarp.org). Theme of 2008 Congress (Dalian, China): “Urban Sprawl”. Theme of 2009 Congress (Porto): “Low Carbon Cities”.

He is member (since 2004) and Vice-Chairman (since 2008) of the Scientific Committee of the European Environmental Agency, in charge of urban and spatial matters of the Agency (www.eea.europa.eu). These included the reports “Urban Sprawl in Europe” (2007) and “Quality of Life in Cities (2009).

He is Honorary SG of the International Association of Public Transport – UITP (SG 1985-1999). It serves ca 2000 members, both public and private, and has a staff of ca 50. Among its publications, the Millennium Database compares 100 conurbations as to mobility, land-use and environment.

He was one of the three partners of the Groupe Urbanisme-Architecture (with R. Lemaire, co-founder of ICOMOS, and J.P. Blondel), created in 1968 by the Catholic University of Louvain to produce the Master plan of a new private university town, near Brussels, and co-ordinate its implementation. This new university town, called Louvain-la-Neuve, was built along the model of traditional European university towns. It received the Abercrombie Award 1982 of the International Union of Architects (UIA). It has a day/night population of some 40.000. In 2009 he edited a book about the environmental features of this 40 years old experience - published at Editions du Certu (French national centre for transport and planning studies).

Other activities and membership:

• Belgian Government delegate at the UN Habitat Conferences I and II (1976/1996) and at the Kyoto Conference on Climate (1997)
• Member of the Lee Kwan Yew World City Prize Council and of the European Green Capital Prize evaluation team.
• Member of the German Akademie der Künste, Berlin (Sektion Baukunst).
• Council member of Europa Nostra, the Paneuropean federation of heritage associations, and chair of its Industrial and Engineering Heritage Working Group.
• Member of ICOMOS Committee on cities (CIVVIH) and board member of the Club of Rome-EU.
• Member, Advisory Board, “Progress in Planning” (Elsevier), CERTU, Lyons and Revue “Urbanisme” (Paris).
  

Among his latest publications, “Brussels: Perspectives on a European Capital”, co-edited with Carola Hein, shared the Society for Human Ecology 2008 Award for best publication of the year.

Other publications include “Water Resources and Land-Use Planning; A Systems Approach” and “Human and Energy Factors in Urban Planning: A Systems Approach” (both in 1982) – www.ffue.org.

His main areas of interest: interface between environment, land-use and transport, among others global warming and its effects on urban and rural areas and natural resources, and best practices in sustainable urban development and mobility, including both public and private initiatives.