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Future Cities: Shaping Europe from the bottom up

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The 2016 edition of EUobserver's Regions & Cities magazine looks at the cities of the future in Europe. While the EU is grappling with challenging problems - Brexit, migration, the economy, terrorism, to name a few - many European cities are reinventing themselves and tackling these problems in their own way.

So far seven countries

So far seven countries have been singled out as having a potential market for the riggers: France, Germany, the Sweden. “The new container plants are often located outside the city, leaving the old sites empty," he says. Ingels, 41, was recently described as a kind of rockstar of "With the right partners we can build between 200 and 300 platforms yearly, securing 2,000 to 3,000 students an affordable place to live," Kim Loudrup tells EUobserver. He is currently overseeing building projects around the world, including the new Google and Lego headquarters, The price for students would be between €500 and €800 each month, depending on the wharf rent and whether internet, furniture, bikes and other equipment is included. "We have had 3,000 requests in just a few days," says Loudrup. CO-OPERATION WITH UNIVERSITIES private investors, who are interested in student housing with an estimated 7-8 percent return on their investment. The other model is to let the universities be in charge of the rent. "The trend is certainly that many university cities are port cities,” says Bjarke Ingels. As ports modernise and consolidate, smaller ports sites closer to the centres of cities are closing down. In 2005, he formed BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) from his tiny He wanted to be a cartoonist, but there was no cartoon School of Architecture instead and got smitten by architecture, he once revealed in an interview. SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE Why is Ingels spending his time on low-cost student and prestigious projects? "We have an idea of something we call social infrastructure for the time, it's about past infrastructures that can be used for something else when going out of which was converted from an old shipyard, and London's Photo: Lisbeth Kirk view. Photo: Lisbeth Kirk 04 — FUTURE CITIES OCTOBER 2016

studio residences are created which frame a centralised common green as a roof terrace. Photo: Lisbeth Kirk students at the heart of the city. Photo: Lisbeth Kirk But he also highlights another of his projects, the Amager Bakke power station, which incorporates this dual function from the start. It is a new power plant with a roof that doubles as a ski slope. WATERFRONT OWNERSHIPS But why build it for students only, when presumably many others would be interested in living in an Urban Rigger? "Our estimates show that there is a shortfall of 4 million student residences in Western Europe - it's certainly plenty to focus on. Right now that's our focus. What we offer is a community good as an alternative to privatising the waterfront to expensive apartments," says Ingels. And it does not necessarily have to be university students. "We work a little with Noma [Michelin-star restaurant] and its chef Rene Redzepi, who once said he'd like to know if we knew anything about housing opportunities. He has a number of trainee chefs from near and far who want to work with him - we even have a lot of trainees ourselves who come and stay for a year or two. It would be brilliant for us - it would be brilliant for Noma, having an Urban Rigger," he says. "It's a housing form that could be great to live in - at least Illust strat ion on: ©Ur banrig ger .co com FUTURE CITIES OCTOBER 2016 —

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