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In December 2019 most EU countries agreed to a climate neutral continent by 2050, with changes in energy use, farming, housing, transport, trade and diplomacy. Ursula Von der Leyen, president of the EU commission, talked about a €100bn fund from the public and private sector, a plan from the European Investment Bank for €1tn of green investment until 2030 and predicted a growing ‘green economy’ and a rising number of new related jobs for the next years.

How do we architects respond to that goal? Possibly by activating what we have been trained to do: thinking strategically? Working on scenarios? Visualising future creative environments?

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‘1%, Forus Startup Ecosystems’

1% ($8.3 Billion) is the estimated percentage of capital that the Norwegian Wealth Fund plans to invest in renewable energy, Statoil as well plans to invest a similar fund in sustainable technologies. Providing motives to various stakeholders in Forus (Companies, Municipalities, University, NGOs, individuals) to invest in Sustainable Development can convert what now seems like random intentions into a cohesive ‘1% Policy’: Investors choose one or more Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) or Start-up groups with an exciting idea for an innovative product, source of energy or technology, and support financially their research by investing 1% of their capital.

The environment where Start-ups can find shelter, grow and flourish their ideas is a ‘Start-up Ecosystem’, one that favours the establishment and development of start-up research and venture teams. The ‘Ecosystem’ develops on the Project Site with spaces for working ideas and developing prototypes (R&D Clusters), a Public space for communicating ideas between groups and possible investors (Communicatorium), a Public space for educating researchers and accessing networks (Scientiarium), and a Public space for presenting prototypes (Experimentarium). Gradually the ‘Ecosystems’ idea spreads in the wider Strategic Site, providing an alternative to the dominant economic model of the area, and along the East-West Axis converting it into a stream for testing ideas in sustainable technology, transportation, tourism and energy.

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PROJECT: ‘1%’, participation in the Europan 13 Competition

CLIENT: Municipality of Stavanger, Norway

PLACE/TIME: Stavanger, Norway, June 2015

DESIGN TEAM (associates): Christos Papastergiou, Christiana Ioannou

DESIGN TEAM (contributors): Andreas Pouros, Paisios Skitini, Stephanie Zavalli, Ioulia Mitsidi, Ioannis Kyriakides, Eleni Stavrou, Chrysanthos Yiakoumpiv

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