Studying Sprawl

PARALLEL SPRAWL is an exploration of the condition of suburban landscapes in Kosovo and in Switzerland. Its goal is to provide an exchange platform for practitioners and researchers in both country to build a common basis allowing them to think together the future of these areas.
For decades, Sprawl, or low density urban developments, is the major form taken by urban growth in both countries. Very similar, these developments appeared in very different soci-economical, political and legal contexts.
In Switzerland urban sprawl appeared in the 50s already and is since then expanding while in Kosovo, the major growth happened very rapidly just after the war in 1999. Although coming from different causes, consequences of urban sprawl like environmental changes, network growth, increased need of mobility or high energy consumption are very similar.
Currently, awareness is raised in both countries about the consequences of urban sprawl, but we still don’t know how they will evolve and how we should consider them in our work. Therefore, we are working together on both conditions in order to collect material and ideas and share it.

A parallel approach, Switzerland and Kosovo

The project is supported by EPFL ALUMNI , SDC and ALBINFO