Highly limited land acreages in Switzerland necessitate their protection. Assessment of current land development and utilization indicates the significant problem of the constant pressure of development on arable lands. One can observe the territorial expansion of cities as well as the existence of excessively large and improperly situated land reserves for construction. This situation additionally generates high costs of the development of cities and transport infrastructure development. The purpose of spatial policy in Switzerland is to provide effective land utilization. Spatial planning is one of the most important tools for regulating processes aimed at sustainable development. A legal obligation to determine clear-cut borders between developable and non-developable lands and to observe them rigorously has been introduced. These borders are specified in a spatial development plan at the communal level and approved at the cantonal level. This leads to the construction of compact cities with multifunctional structure. Swiss experiences in space shaping can inspire a search for methods of solving planning problems in Poland.

The urban development of Barcelona over the span of more than two thousand years makes an excellent example of a successful idea of urbanity. For more than 150 years, it has been under the continuous process of the adaptation, restoration and revitalization of its urban space which aims at creating optimal dwelling and working conditions for its inhabitants. The crowning achievement in the urban dimension of industrial city was the extension – Eixample designed by Ildefonso Cerdà in 1859. The orthogonal street grid, which remained decades ahead of similar solutions in other European cities, assumed tenfold extension of the city area and changed its image forever. Similarly to a number of other postindustrial cities, Barcelona must revitalize vast degraded and partially abandoned areas which shifted from the outskirts to the heart of this polycentric metropolis. The 22@Barcelona project changes the urban, social and functional structure of the central areas as well as contributes to the transformation of Barcelona from the City of Industrial Civilization into the City of Knowledge Civilization.

This paper describes the natural, environmental and cultural conditions in Switzerland and the Netherlands. It shows how the principle of Green Architecture, which concerns respect for the surroundings with reference to housing, is applied in these two dissimilar countries.

The paper presents the campus of the Lausanne Technical University (EPFL) in Ecublens and analyzes its form as an example of development of a superblock. History of EPFL goes back to 1853 and the school received independence in 1968. The decision to build a new campus out of city center, in Ecublens-Dorigny was made in the 60’s. Described superblock includes both University and EPFL, carrying out different ways of building and urban composition. This paper writes about the history of the spatial development of EPFL superblock presenting it in the perspective of an internal, logic extension of function and form, the relationship at the interface boundary line of a superblock, external relations with neighboring areas and the development of relations with the city. This relationships are formed at the basis of the logic of the neighborhood and plans and in scale of spatial planning of the whole agglomeration of Lausanne (Lausanne-Morges agglomeration Plan – PALM from 2007).

Venice, a museum city seemingly dominated by tourists, does not seem to offer good living conditions to its permanent inhabitants. In fact, tourism is just a ‘cover-up’ for the city’s everyday life, whereas its layout, the scale of its public spaces and consistent functional decisions are regarded as model solutions, easily adaptable to different conditions. The questions of the universality of the features of Venetian housing environment – which make interpersonal contacts easier, support the raising of children and strengthen the feeling of identification with the neighbourhood and the city – were beautifully summed up by Lewis Mumford in his fundamental work The City in History: “the homework assigned by Venice has not been done yet”.

This article compares Venice and Amsterdam, called Venice of the North, from the perspective of their centuries-old inseparable relationships with water. It indicates the problem of the impact of historical conditions and various locations on similar spatial formations, functional solutions and esthetic effects. Attention is drawn to differences and similarities in the shape of the waterfronts as well as the development of the manners the inhabitants, tourists and merchandise move on water and on land. It shows how the creators of new residential buildings continue the local tradition of shaping a structure and preserve native features of an architectonic form but also creatively interpret these elements and create the 21st-century residentfriendly housing environment.

The present industry of builder’s materials basing himself on latest successes of the technique and the technology, lets on attaining of effects which still several years backwards one would acknowledge too futuristic. Practical at present technologies at the realization of facings of external objects of the general building or else the thermal modernization of habitable objects let on the considerable freedom of the creation of their form, colors and the structure. The utilization in barriers of external structures ventilated and facings assembled to indirect constructions lets on the obtainment of the optimum-barrier in the aspect of problems thermally – of moisture.

The paper states the need to rethink the planning approach that deals with housing developments of the future city. Considerations regarding the scale of the project, its role in a wider temporal context and the identity of the site where new extensions will be located,are necessary considerations in the field of urbanism. Between 2008 and 2009 Catalonia became a research field of exceptional interest in this series of reflections. During this short period of time a huge effort in planning and managingpolicies for housing development was done. AS AS a result of itthree major key Plans where undertaken by public administration. CSA CSA CSA rquitectes, the planning office of which the author of the article is a founding partner, was the only invited firm to actively participate in all three processes. Through the description of CSA CSA CSA rquitectes’ proposalsthe article argues the need to take in special consideration the concepts of scale, time and identity when planning new housing areas.

The development of knowledge-based economy and the industrial transformation of the information era are related to significant alterations in the structure of cities and regions. This article describes changes in the region of Mecklenburg-Pomerania related to its authorities’ policy which aims at developing the industry of advanced technologies. Activities in the regional scale are continued in the local scale. Changes in the functional and spatial structure of the city of Greifswald, resulting from economic transformation, are presented in detail.

In the spring of 2011, David Chipperfield – an architect from London – received the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award for the best architectural object implemented within the previous two years in Europe for conserving and rebuilding the Neues Museum on the Berlin’s Museum Island. First and foremost, the British architect’s manner and method of rebuilding this object were appreciated. The Neues Museum – built in the mid-19th century, ruined during World War II – includes a number of elements showing the effects of military operations: traces of bullets fired from Soviet soldiers’ rifles in the last days of the war found in the external elevations, destroyed fragments of walls with polychromies in the interiors, fragments of plaster peeling off, destroyed columns or structural ceilings, dirty, unpainted walls. Contemporary interventions, concrete pillars, columns in the Sarcophagus Hall, new entrance openings, new concrete structural ceilings, floors and rooms were clearly separated. The destroyed parts of this building were not reconstructed but rebuilt in a brand new contemporary setting. This is the main principle of conservation works in this object.

Cities live in an inseparable relationship with the natural landscape – they form each other. A particularly interesting case is the relation between a city and its edges connected with watercourses and basins. In the process of historical development, one can follow the logically continued formation of a system of urban public spaces based upon gradually incorporated waterfronts. Barcelona – whose waterfront location has always been the driving force behind urban growth – makes a curious example of a city which creatively develops its system of public spaces in relation to the edges.