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Luxembourg 2050

13 August 2021 Comments (0) Architecture, Environment, Mobility, Other, Real Estate

Luxembourg and construction: changing mentalities by 2050 

In an essay devoted specifically to Luxembourg’s carbon objectives, Pascale Junker paints a disturbing portrait of the Grand Duchy. But she also offers solutions. 

Pascale Junker is an expert on topics related to climate and the environment. In her book Luxembourg in 2050. From planning to land use. For a carbon-free, resilient, circular territory, she takes “an informed, comprehensive and alarming look at Luxembourg.

Luxembourg, she says, is the “European champion” in the percentage of national built territory, construction on virgin land (versus recycled land), in the proportion of individual dwellings, in living area per inhabitant … Furthermore, Luxembourg is totally dependent on imports for construction materials. All these observations are made in the perspective of a Grand Duchy that is more respectful of its resources and in line with the zero-carbon objectives of 2050

No longer build new on virgin land, with virgin materials 

Pascale Junker Luxembourg 2050 ©-DR

Pascale Junker Luxembourg 2050 ©-DR

In her book, she encourages architects to turn away from the most intense carbon materials (cement, aluminium, glass, PVC, steel). She also offers new ways of inhabiting space: rather than building something new, she recommends recycling, restoring, densifying, pooling and reallocating existing buildings to make them places of well-being, creativity and exchange (old farm buildings will make splendid offices, for example). By integrating data such as co-location, proximity to services and transport, green neighbourhoods, and using disused buildings as urban mines (urban mining). 

Finally, Pascale Junker offers a programme geared towards subsistence and no longer towards abundance. With a hopeful endnote: everything remains to be invented!

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