IBA Principles

August 2002, Guidelines of the Cabinet regarding the setup of the IBA Stadtumbau 2010

2. Structural change represents an opportunity for urban planning:

To discover unknown potentials and develop them creatively within the process of redevelopment.

• Urban redevelopment encompasses more than an alteration of the property market by means of demolition and urban revaluation: urban redevelopment is the multifarious task of creating viable urban structures for the future.
• Concepts of urban redevelopment must freshly evaluate the usability of the overall urban structure, individual areas, groups of buildings and single buildings before the background of plausibly argued potentials for development and consolidation.
• Urban redevelopment intervenes in urban structures and in changing social constellations and is a longer process than is assumed by current planning horizons and periods of subsidy or demanded by the lifecycles of a city’s residents.
• Urban redevelopment links urban environmental ideas and the property companies’ economic concepts for restoration as well as defining subsequent uses for redundant technical and social infrastructure.
• Provision of reasonably-priced, simple-standard areas and buildings offers productive options for informal markets and growing service operations, which are the foundation of urban culture.