What is Europan? - Europan creates opportunities for young architects - in the Netherlands and abroad, it mobilises ideas, solutions, approaches and designs and contributes to the debate on architecture and urban design at a local, national and international level.
By organising a competition once every two years for real sites throughout Europe, municipalities and clients are brought into contact with the innovatory ideas that preoccupy the young generation of designers.

Municipalities and/or clients make sites available and Europan organises the competition.
Europan is distinct from other competitions of ideas because the intention is that the winning plan is actually worked out and built.
In the Netherlands, since the result of the first Europan competition in 1990, eight plans have been actualised. Furthermore many projects are at various stages of implementation and planning. The overview of Europan 1-7 contains more information about all the winners and their plans.

Thanks to progressive clients and the support of municipalities, a large number of architectural firms have been established by young architects as a result of the Europan competition. Many of these now rank alongside well-known Dutch firms, such as MVRDV, NL Architects, S333, Dick van Gameren and Bjarne Mastenbroek.

As the name suggests, Europan is a European organisation (diagram of the international organisation as PDF-file). In some twenty participating countries national secretariats are established that organise the competition in their country. The national secretariat of Stichting Europan Nederland organises the competition and the realisation process in our country.
Europan Nederland is financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (culture policy document), the participating municipalities and the participating (teams of) architects.

Towns and Juries Forum Europan 7

What does Europan offer? - Young architects and urban designers who tackle the problems in European towns and cities often bring surprising, innovatory ideas to the fore. Through these ideas sometimes deeply-entrenched ways of thinking can be broken through and the future given a chance. For municipalities and clients an opportunity is created to break with the routine of everyday practices and to present themselves as being progressive and future-orientated.

In its almost sixteen years' existence Europan, with its activities, has built up an extensive European network of municipalities, clients, architects and urban designers. Europan is the European platform for the exchange of experiences and ideas about the European town/city.

In the Netherlands on average forty plans are submitted for each site, each one of which can induce a revision or adjustment to one's own standpoints.
By participating in Europan, a municipality or client takes part in events at a European level, where meeting colleagues from other countries occupies centre stage. Discussions about shared problems and the exchange of experiences broaden our thinking.

By publishing interesting contextual and carefully-edited publications about the competition results and the completed projects, Europan not only attracts attention to itself, but also to the participating municipalities, clients and designers. The competition process also gives the participants the opportunity of presenting themselves on the national and international podium.

Participating in Europan - Municipalities and clients can participate in Europan - also jointly - by making a competition site available.
A site comprises a study area and an intervention area. For the study area (maximum 10 ha) the participating (teams of) architects produce an urban vision. The study area can comprise one or more intervention areas (approximately 2.5 ha) that are elaborated architecturally by the competition participants.
It is important that the planning of the competition and the development of the site link up with each other; as soon as the winners are announced they should be given the go-ahead to develop their plans further.
In the Netherlands, on average, five competition sites are made available per competition round.

An agreement (available in Dutch as PDF-file) is concluded between Europan Nederland and the parties making the sites available in which the reciprocal agreements with regard to the competition and the implementation process are laid down. This includes the activities to be undertaken by Europan, the participation sum that the party (parties) making the site available are expected to pay and the participation of site representatives in national and international meetings and events.
Furthermore, the party (parties) who make a site available sign a letter of intent (available in Dutch as PDF-file), expressing their intention of embarking upon a realisation process with the winners.

For questions about Europan you can contact the national secretariat of Europan Nederland at any time.