Gianfranco Fiora and Douglas Gordon appointed as first two Honorary Fellows, recognising their positive and sustained input into METREX.
METREX announced during its recent Conference in Stuttgart (11-13 September 2019) the introduction of a new Honorary Fellow status to recognise the considerable contribution to the organisation from individuals.
The status has been initiated by the METREX Managing Committee to maintain strong relations with key individuals who, while no longer participating as a Member, still contribute energy, insight and knowledge to METREX. Gianfranco Fiora and Douglas Gordon are the first to receive this new title.
Douglas Gordon, who has recently stepped down from the METREX Managing Committee coinciding with his retirement from the City of Helsinki, has been involved with the METREX since its inception in 1996. Arriving in Helsinki from London, where he studied and then worked for nearly 20 years, Douglas has been instrumental in a number of METREX initiatives, including the PolyMETREXplus Interreg programme, a 2015 METREX report on clusters and work-place locations from a spatial planning perspective, and the Nordic Network and Nordic-Baltic Space Expert Groups. Most recently, he played a key role in the publication of the Nordic-Baltic Space Transnational Development Perspective.
Gianfranco Fiora is an Architect and former chief of Spatial Planning of the Province of Turin. From 1997 to 2014 he was the delegate of the Province in METREX and the assistant of Prof. Mercedes Bresso, who was President of METREX, from 1999 to 2004. Gianfranco participated in the METREX project The EUCO2 80/50 Project Stage 2 – Energy Emissions Scenarios in 14 Metropolitan Areas with the University of Manchester and Metropolregion Hamburg. And from 2010 to 2013, he was responsible for the European Project ‘Partenariat pour les projets de requalification urbaine dans les territoires’ EUROPAID, program «CIUDAD», Italy, Lebanon and Jordan. He is Member of the INU Chamber for the Regions of Piemonte e Valle d’Aosta since 2016 and member of the INU National Board since 2019.
Speaking about the accolade, Douglas Gordon said: “It was a privilege and honour to receive the METREX Honorary Fellowship. To be recognised in this way by fellow members will stay with me for the rest of my life. In the words of the Nordic-Baltic Space, it is all about ‘working together’ to continue METREX’s success in promoting spatial and territorial cohesion across Europe.”
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For more information please contact METREX Head of Secretariat Stephen Gallagher on 00 44 7840 436844
About Gianfranco Fiora
Gianfranco Fiora, Architect, was chief of Spatial planning of the Province of Turin.
From 1997 to 2014 he was the delegate of the Province in METREX and the assistant of Prof. Mercedes Bresso, President of METREX, from 1999 to 2004.
He is one of the author of the PTC2 (Provincial Spatial Co-ordination Plan), that defines the regulation mainly addressed to the Municipalities; one of the main objectives of the PTC2 is the reduction of land consumption and sprawl.
He was a participant in the METREX project “The EUCO2 80/50 Project Stage 2 – Energy Emissions Scenarios in 14 Metropolitan Areas”, University of Manchester, Metropolregion Hamburg.
From 2010 to 2013 he was responsible for the European Project “Partenariat pour les projets de requalification urbaine dans les territoires” EUROPAID, program «CIUDAD», Italy, Lebanon and Jordan.
He is Member of the INU Chamber for the Regions of Piemonte e Valle d’Aosta since 2016 and member of the INU National Board since 2019.
He is the author of publication and studies on urban planning and territorial government.
From July 2018 he is Minister of Spatial Planning and Development of the Territory of the City of Orbassano (Province of Turin).
About Douglas Gordon
Douglas studied at the Bartlett, UCL and worked nearly 20 years in London at the Greater London Council and the London Borough of Camden, in which he was responsible for overseeing the regeneration of Covent Garden and designing London’s first ever pedestrianised street in Neal Street (1690) and Seven Dials. Thereafter, Douglas was Area Coordinator for Camden Town and introduced the UK’s first ever mini-parliament for the area committee composed of local groups and elected politicians. The press wrote that the re-generation programme brought in an extra £500 million to the area through the Area Committee’s new ways of working together with local people. He also supported the need for the Camden Markets when in their infancy and have become world renowned.
Moving to Helsinki with his Finnish wife and London-born sons, Douglas helped initiate an international new style of strategic planning and maps, including the first ever ’implementation programme’ for the City. Later, he supported Jussi Vuorinen’s efforts to help make Helsinki a founding member of METREX in 1996 and coordinated the 1999 METREX Conference along with Jussi, who is now a METREX Ambassador.
Douglas coordinated two major ’Spatial Visions’ as part of the PolyMETREXplus Interreg programme, and edited the Gulf of Finland Spatial Vision, including a formal proposal for the Helsinki-Tallinn tunnel and a high-speed train from St Petersburg to Warsaw/Central Europe via Helsinki, which became the foundations for Rail Baltica. Rail Baltica also featured in the Helsinki-Athens North-South Interface Spatial Vision which he edited.
Douglas has over the years worked on five City Plans, two in London and three in Helsinki. In between these projects, he promoted the idea of implementing what the cities had learned during PolyMETREXplus and contributed to Helsinki’s approved strategic plan ’City to City-region’ in 2009, laying the foundations for Helsinki to move towards being polycentric. Today, Helsinki has set up a formal process of working with thirteen other municipalities in the surrounding areas called ’MAL’, standing for land-use, housing and transport. A new city-region plan will be ready in 2019/2020, primarily coordinated by the City.
Douglas was also joint editor with Thierry Petit from Paris region (IAU) on making a major METREX report on Clusters and work-place locations from a spatial planning perspective (2015). Finally, he edited the Nordic-Baltic Space Transnational Development Perspective in coordination with all the major cities and regions working in METREX.
