MIPIM Day 2 has just started with innovation and architecture sessions at Innovation Forum of the event! Today's first talk focused on new urban planning models, discussing Barcelona and Luxembourg's new strategic regeneration plans. 

Moderated by Peter Woodward, Facilitator-Quest Associates, the session featured Daniel Mòdol, Councillor for Architecture, Urban Landscape and Heritage
Barcelona City Council, Joseph Rull I Andreu, Minister of Territory and Sustainability, Government of Catalonia and Étienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Economy.

The session briefly asked how do smart cities develop into inclusive, sustainable and cohesive environments? How can a country address the challenges of the new industrial revolution? and Catalonia and Luxembourg's major decisions to be made for future generations.

Daniel Mòdol has made an impressive presentation about Barcelona and its heritage and showed that how their strategic urban decisions are transformed from ''classical urban planning'' into ''urban architecture'' by protecting urban legacy. Mòdol discussed strategic approaches of Barcelona architecture for urban regeneration. 

''We are changing the tools and zooming in in the city's urban support,'' said Daniel Mòdol. ''Our urban planning the city has become known as the ''Barcelona Model.''

Left to right: Étienne Schneider, Peter Woodward, Daniel Mòdol and Joseph Rull I Andreu

In the second part of the talk, Étienne Schneider discussed the effective transformation models within the economy for Luxembourg. Particularly, Schneider urged upon i-city models, interconnectivity, mobility and smart buildings and insisted that how all these services are directly related to fully sustainable life, circulation of economy and interconnected city.

''Transportation problem is very important to our basic infrastructure and its improvement for the future developments. We need to bring all the basic facilities together and we should think what we should do next?,'' said Étienne Schneider.

Left to right: Joseph Rull I Andreu, Peter Woodward, Daniel Mòdol and  Étienne Schneider

''We need smart buildings that are interconnected each other, or positive houses reducing energy in local areas,'' added Schneider. ''Mobility is the key service we need to provide and we fund all mobility services for our citizens.''

''We target digitalise the city for better interconnectivity for fully sustainable life and economy. While doing that, cyber security becomes important because all data is collected somewhere and you need to how it is protected.

Barcelona-Catalonia is one of the exhibiting cities at MIPIM with the basic themed-question ''Why Barcelona?'', creating the conditions for social and economic progress. 

Barcelona-Catalonia is made up of a set of projects located in the metropolitan area to form a fairer, more efficient and more sustainable urban development model. A model that opts for redevelopment as a way of dealing with social inequalities and improving quality of life, and as a strategy to begin the energy transition to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and cut emissions of atmospheric pollutants.

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