Regional Focus

As a consequence of the collaboration between the university and regional partners (in particular the city of Luxembourg), problems and research questions related to spatial development in Luxembourg, the Grand Duchy and the Greater Region play a certain role in the profile of the chair of urban studies. Close cooperation exists with the City-Management  and the Service de l'urbanisme  of VdL, as well as with the Ministry for Sustainable Development and Infrastructures of the Grand Duchy , particularly the Directorate for Spatial Planning (DATer). The cities of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette and the Nordstad, altogether with the Ministries of Economics, Housing, and Sustainable Development, also co-finance the National Information Unit for Urban Policy ( Cellule nationale d’Information pour la Politique Urbaine – CIPU),  established in 2008. More information on CIPU is available on the web: www.cipu.lu .

Current research projects and activities in the regional or national realm are focussing on the housing market and housing policies, the issue of identity in spatial regards, and also the ongoing development of UL’s new campus in Belval, particularly the significance of the coming Cité des Sciences  for regional development.

South-western leg of the Kirchberg area in Luxembourg, July 2009, in its urban setting – not only a dense employment cluster and a place of remarkable architecture, but also a case of robust (or, if you want, rigid) state planning; source: own.

Involvement in Luxembourgish planning processes include participation in the following recent events:

• International jury for the urban redevelopment “Op de Schmelz”, Dudelange (Fonds du Logement)
• ‘Jessica’ urban development funds for the Nordstad (European Investment Bank)
• Expert group for “Midfield”, Luxembourg/Hesperange (DATer)
• Mid-term evaluation “Cité des Sciences”, Belval (Fonds Belval)

On the territories of the municipalities of Esch-sur-Alzette and Sanem in the south of Luxembourg, right at the French border, the new campus of the UL is going to be developed. The place of the new campus in Belval is a former industrial site once used by Arbed, the Luxembourg steel group founded in 1911 (which is now part of ArcelorMittal ). By the end of the 1990s, a surface area of 120 hectares was opened up for new development purposes. Based on a masterplan sketched by Jo Coenen Architects, Maastricht, the developer Agora  and the public Fonds   Belval  are now realizing the new urban quarter, comprising office and retail buildings (of which the red, landmark Dexia -building and the Belval-Plaza shopping mall are already in use), apartment houses and also the 25 hectares large Cité des Sciences , the future research campus for UL and other non-university research institutions. It is expected that about 7,000 students and 3,000 teachers and researcher will once occupy the Cité des Sciences .

Given the tremendous importance of this project, with its amount of investment – about 1 billion Euros – easily meeting the scale of a large urban project, the Geography and Spatial Planning Research Centre of the UL proposed to establish a “ Belval Observatory  / Observatoire Belval ” – a both virtual and material platform for tracing the progress of the new research campus and, particularly, the ways it is becoming reality: in terms of campus life, integration into the urban area, estimating regional impact. Our aim is not only to track empirical evidence of the development and, in particular, the urban and regional significance of Belval. Moreover, the Belval Observatory  is also thought of as a laboratory that provides for knowledge from other cases of science cities, research parks, university towns etc., in order to develop a research framework on how knowledge is being placed on urban territory.

The development site of Belval as of June 2010, with the Dexia-building (left) and Belval Plaza (right) in the foreground, the still operating ArcelorMittal-steel plant in the centre and the city of Esch-sur-Alzette in the back. The railway-line at the right, that is, southern margin follows the Luxembourgish-French border (source: Courtesy of Le Fonds Belval/Rol Schleich)