IFLA Europe General Assembly and Regional Conference will take place 16-19 October 2025 in Brussels, Belgium
NEW URBAN LANDSCAPES: Regenerating Cities – Revealing new urban landscapes
Today, over 56% of the global population lives in urban areas, a figure projected to rise to nearly 70% by 2050. This long-standing evolution, whether through rural exodus or international migration, has not always been accompanied by long-term planning. Many of our cities have expanded quickly, often carelessly, layering concrete over soil, erecting walls instead of weaving connections.
Environmental injustice manifests itself in how urban quality is unequally distributed. In Brussels, the most vulnerable neighbourhoods, situated in the so-called ‘poor crescent’, are also the most densely built-up, with few green spaces and extreme urban heat phenomena. Across Europe, from Paris over Milan to Berlin, similar inequalities emerge: where nature retreats, citizens’ lives get harder, and those with the fewest resources suffer most.
Social injustice spreads into uneven redevelopment projects that displace rather than include, into planning strategies that neglect daily human needs, and into spatial segregation that reinforces exclusion.
Faced with this, we must reorient our vision of the city, not by endlessly adding, but by transforming what already exists, by uncovering what lies hidden in plain sight.
NEW URBAN LANDSCAPES is an invitation to rethink urban space through three core strategies:
● ADAPT the existing fabric: unsealing soils, greening surfaces, allowing water to infiltrate. Place Flagey in Brussels or Place de Catalogne in Paris are exemplary projects in which stone has given way to plants.
● RECLAIM underused spaces: abandoned areas can become vital. The Marais Wiels in Brussels is now a haven of urban biodiversity. In Berlin, Tempelhof airfield is a massive public park on the site of a disused airport.
● UNFOLD spatial opportunities: dismantling concrete to de-urbanise, as in the Parc de la Sennette in Brussels; opening up rooftops to collective uses, as seen in the Rotterdam Rooftop Programme; or reimagining interiors, like the Gare Maritime at Tour & Taxis, once industrial, now a lush and vibrant public hall.
These strategies align with broader programs like the New European Bauhaus, the European Green Deal, and growing city climate agendas. They speak to a new urban imperative: to see cities as living ecosystems, inclusive, sustainable, and beautiful.
The conference will take place in two emblematic venues in Brussels. Over two days, IFLA Europe will bring together thinkers, practitioners, public bodies and citizens to discuss tools, challenges, and paths forward aiming for real solutions and shared inspiration.
More information and registration:
https://www.iflaeu2025.com/
