Let’s Build The City Together

Fem Ciutat

Let's Build The City Together

Fem Ciutat

This is an activity that aims to explain to children what urban planning is and to make them aware of the importance of the city and collective life.

We want to explain to children why it is necessary to plan cities before building them and the importance that these decisions have in our daily lives. We want them to know why the cities we live in are the way they are and how they have evolved to this point. We want them to understand that we have common spaces that we share; the streets, the squares, the public facilities that we use, and which are all a product of our needs.

 

Most of the activity takes place around a collaborative game consisting of the construction of a large-format model of a city, where the pieces used are the different elements previously explained. From the game, they can develop their ideas, share them with their classmates and put into practice some of the concepts learned.

It is an activity with a history of more than 10 years, which has passed through many schools and cities in our territory. It began from the initiative of Urbanins, which over time has ended up joining the Estel cooperative.

Addressed to:

Children

Ages

8 – 12 years old

Duration

1,5 h

We walk the City

We Walk The City

Trepitjem-ciutat

This is an activity that aims to reflect with children on daily mobility in the school environment and understand the importance of measures that promote active and sustainable mobility.

During the workshop, we work on both those physical and design aspects of the public space that determine its routes (sidewalk widths, pavements, street furniture…) as well as mobility habits and the rest of the factors that influence the way we move around the city.

The activity begins with a debate in the classroom to define the particular school path of the center, the advantages and disadvantages of its situation and the profile of the users, proposing possibilities for change through their own habits to tend towards sustainable mobility.

Afterwards, a discovery itinerary of the center’s surroundings is carried out. In the class group he goes out to the street to represent scenes that may occur during his School Journey and analyze them critically.

Finally, in groups, proposals are made to improve the environment, for the benefit of their own autonomy and movement with active means, which are reflected in a traffic sign that they can display publicly in the classroom or at the center.

It is an activity with a history of more than 10 years, which has passed through many schools and cities in our territory. It started from the Urbanins initiative, which over time has ended up being added to the Estel cooperative.

Addressed to:

Children

Ages

8-12 years old

Duration

1,5 h

Children and Adolescent Councils

Children and Adolescent Councils

material-consells-infants

The basic way to involve boys and girls in city decisions are the territorial Councils for Children and Adolescents, based on the determinations of the convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the United Nations in 1989. 

This is the stable structure of participation, based on the determinations established by local entities so that all boys and girls of a certain age group have a voice in the council. 

 

Estel, following the line initiated by Urbanins team in 2017, is committed to a structure based on the maximum representativeness of the educational community that allows for the elaboration of a shared diagnosis of the municipality, and the elaboration of proposals so that they can be applied from the city council, jointly with the different departments involved.

​Estel advises several municipalities with the desire to start and consolidate them, so that they become another tool for child participation from now on, as well as to energize them in those that already have it underway.

One of the values ​​that we provide is the technical point of view on urban planning in the structures of citizen participation and the possibility of involving councilors in processes of co-design of public space or other urban transformations that are underway in the municipality.

Addressed to:

Children and young people

Ages

Primary and secondary students

Duration

A school year

Impulsores

Town councils of Castellar del Vallès, Rubí, Tiana, Esparreguera, Martorelles, Capellades, Terrassa and la Garriga.

 

Han col·laborat

Schools, Institutes and families throughout the territory

Let’s Transform The City

Let's Transform The City

transform-ciutat

This activity aims to encourage young people to reflect on the transformations that cities undergo over time, adapting their spaces to the changing needs of the community.

The workshop begins with a discussion on the urban transformation process, using three real examples and analyzing the various stakeholders involved: the administration, technical teams, and the community. It is essential for participants to understand that the community plays a key role in shaping the urban environment. The goal is to empower young people and motivate them to actively engage in similar processes within their own cities.

During the practical part of the workshop, participants are divided into groups to reimagine a square, working with specific conditions assigned to each group. Each team creates a sketch of how they would transform the square, considering the types of activities that could take place, the configuration of the surfaces (such as concrete, compacted soil, or soft materials), and the physical elements that would be included (urban furniture, greenery, play elements, etc.).

This workshop has over 10 years of experience and has been conducted in numerous educational centers and cities in our region. It was created thanks to the initiative of Urbanins, which has since become integrated into the Estel cooperative.

Addressed to:

Adolescents

Ages

13 – 16 years

Duration

1,5 hours

A Regular Day: People-Centered Urbanism and Other Realities

A Regular Day: People - Centered Urbanism & Other Realities

This book is created with successive approaches based on diverse knowledge, learnings, and experiences on topics that interest us. It depicts part of the collective imagination of those navigating with the *estel cooperative and represents a snapshot of who we are here and now: neither before, nor after, nor elsewhere.

It consists of a compendium of three types of narratives: linear (the writings), relational (the diagrams), and graphical (the images, drawings, illustrations).

The book is intentionally disorganized, following a careful narrative deconstruction (in the style of Quentin Tarantino), mirroring our way of living, experiencing, and learning. We shed the burden of scientific chapter titles and begin explaining things through everyday, urban, and human stories, from which we can unfold the technical account: our interpretation and professional perspective. From there, we add various labels that complete the body of knowledge we accumulate on a specific theme or subuniverse.

Each chapter’s fragments focus on explaining the key concepts of each topic or perspective (environmental, gender-related, intercultural, childhood, and functional diversity) and may consist of a Cooveta talk, a best practice story, or an article from a valuable friend. The chapter concludes with an interview with one of us, showcasing how the circumstances and experiences exposed in the chapter have transformed us.

We do not aim to give lessons. We wish to share our experience and illustrate our attitude and approach, with each of us taking care of one chapter in the book: we are the content curator.

Resource related to

Urban strategies

Citizen cooperation

Design of public space

Urban Pedagogy

Editorial team

*estel (Alba Domínguez Ferrer,

Arnau Boix i Pla,

Konstantina Chrysostomou,

Marc Deu i Ferrer,

Oriol Serra Ureta,

Roser García i Piqué)


They have collaborated

Apen Ruiz Martínez

Eva Grigoriadou

Helena Cardona Tamayo

Itziar Gonzàlez Virós

Laia Llonch Serrano

Mariona Ferrandiz Rovira

Pau Avellaneda

Teresa Tourvas

Xavi Rodríguez Serrano

Islote studio

More Information

Publication date

28/07/2023

Revitalising Montornès Nord neighborhood

Revitalising Montornès Nord neighborhood

Pla de Barris in 2010, carried out in Montornès Nord a diagnosis of public spaces system identifying those who needed an improvement intervention; the “Pergola” square and the street “Llibertat”. In addition to these, the neighbors reclaimed the improvement of two more spaces; the street “9 d’Abril” and the square of “Pergola”. Based on that identification of those four spaces, the municipality charged Estel* to run the improvement processes. 

Initially, the strategies for neighbors’ implication were designed so to realize a collaborative analysis and diagnosis of these spaces. Meetings with citizens (direct participation) and observation (indirect participation) were carried out to establish a direct communication channel with the residents and learn the daily dynamics of the area. 

Regarding the proposal phase, the process has been developed in a way to be adapted in the conclusions of the diagnosis. Specifically, three of these projects attached to the street “Llibertat” were grouped into one. The fourth space was tackled with an independent process which suited better the needs of the environment. 

In parallel to the process of defining improvement strategies for the selected areas, it has been worked the administrative dynamics through interviews with council personnel so to analyze the policies of the different departments regarding public spaces.

Place

Montornès del Vallès

[16,263 inhabitants]

Scale of the projec

Neighborhood

Type of project

Citizen cooperation

Public space design

Duration

9 months [2014-2015]

Promoter

Municipality of Montornès

del Vallès

 

Team

*estel  (Arnau Boix, Mireia Peris,

Ara Muñío, Esteve Boix,

Marc Deu )

Itziar González, Arquect

Collaborated

Veïnat de Montornès Nord

Entitats i Associacions

(cultura, economia, educació)

Study

Read the full report at  issuu(doc2)

Read the full report at  issuu(doc3)

Read the full report at issuu(doc4)

Read the full report at issuu(doc5)

Press

Read more about the project at 

Ajuntament – Seu electrònica