6th World Planning Schools Congress 2026
Several projects of the SURE funding initiative participated at the 6th World Planning Schools Congress (WPSC) 2026 in Helsinki and Espoo, which brought together nearly 1,600 participants under the theme “Peripheral Visions – Rethinking Planning.”
SURE’s contributions spanned three special sessions:
Water Futures: Governing Urban Waters
Implementing water-sensitive urban planning within decentralized and fragmented governance. Presented by the PolyUrbanWaters team: Anna Wilk-Pham, Bakti Setiawan, Lukas Pappert, Anke Hagemann, and Xhesika Hoxha.
Land and Soil: Co-Creating Climate-Resilient Grounds
Nature-based solutions and territorial democracy in Huế, Vietnam. Presented by the GreenCityLabHuế team: Niklas Müller, Fabian Stolpe, Sebastian Scheuer, and Jessica Jache.
Practices and Actors: From Framework to Action
Pathways for localisation. Presented by the SURE F&SR team: Vivienne Mayer, Martin Sauter, and Frank Schwartze.
Together, these presentations explored how global sustainability and climate objectives can be translated into locally grounded planning practices through context-sensitivity and implementation-oriented research. Beyond the sessions, the SURE team drew inspiration from the conference venue at Aalto University Campus and from workshops hosted across Helsinki’s public spaces, including the Oodi Public Library.
Photos by: Emmi Kyrö, Milo Taleva, Ida Gündogdu & Yuka Shinohara (c)WPSC26
