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Placemaking 4 Inclusion

The purpose of the project Place Making 4 Inclusion – Reviving Active Citizenship For Reshaping The Societies (PM4I) is to empower youth work providers and youth organizations to ensure social inclusion of young people of diverse backgrounds in jointly shaping the local communities, by using the placemaking methodology and practices. PM4I is more than just a project; it’s a dynamic force aimed at empowering youth work providers and organizations. Our mission is to utilize the placemaking methodology to foster the social inclusion of young people who face barriers in shaping their local communities. By engaging in creative and collaborative initiatives, we aim to improve the well-being of communities while supporting youth work and nonformal education.

Placemaking has become influential for practitioners in numerous fields-place-based initiatives often seek to improve the well-being of local communities through creative and collaborative responses to local issues. Such engagement related to place can support the goals of youth work and non-formal education, especially when working with young people with fewer opportunities.

In this programme we have collaborated with 7 organizations from 6 different countries: Belgium, Germany, Norway, Italy, Greece and Spain. For this program we have worked on European and local level. The programmes’ outcomes in European level are:

A Comparative National Report of placemaking in the 6 countries.
A collective map of stakeholders, good practices and resources in Europe
A cookbook with recipes for placemaking
An e-learning space with free courses about placemaking
An augmented reality map that it can be used to re-imagine the public space
A network of young placemaking ambassadors in Europe.

At the local level, the program yielded the establishment of a cohort of young placemaking ambassadors. Over the course of a year, we collaborated with them to reimagine public spaces and enhance youth involvement in decision-making processes. Together, we organized a placemaking activity in Sabadell, empowering local communities to activate their neighbourhoods.

Place

Sabadell, Palermo, Brussels,

Erfurt, Oslo, Athens

Scale

Supra-municipal

Public space

Type of project

Urban Strategies

Citizen cooperation

Public space design

Urban pedagogy

Duration

24 months [2022-2024]

Promoter

European Union

Team

*estel (Konstantina

Chrysostomou, Arnau Boix i Pla,

Oriol Serra i Ureta, Marc Deu

Ferrer, Alba Domínguez Ferrer)

YEU (Belgica)

Urban Foxes (Belgica)

CGE (Alemanya)

Sguardi Urbani (Italia)

AKNOW (Grècia)

Annabel Membel (Noruega)

Collaborators

Marc Modolell Rodríguez

Paula Andreu Gordillo

Anaïs Avellaneda

Júlia Marbà Prats

Lucia Adell Sánchez

Aris-Ioannis Papadopoulos

Nedjine Dorcely

Maria-Katerina Mamatzaki

Comparative National

Report (extract)

Rescuing the Rambles of Barcelona

40_1711_Rambles_Seminaricanaletes-38 còpia

40_1711_Rambles_RamblesSeminaricanaletes

Les Rambles’ cooperative process was a proposal of the kmZero team that won the International Competition convened by the Barcelona City Council in 2017 to revitalize and remodel the Rambla de Barcelona. The aim is to return to the citizenry one of its historical and most symbolic axes in a cooperative way, so this transformation becomes, on the one hand, a global improvement of the city’s main urban space and on the other, a better experience for the people who live, visit and enjoy it.

This process was developed as a cooperative work between technicians, citizens, and administration for the implementation of an urbanization and redesign proposal. With this innovative methodology as such, the aim was to make Rambla a diverse, flexible, sustainable, inclusive, accessible, consistent, secure, smart, contextualized, and comfortable place to be. The project is an inheritance and relief from the work done previously by entities, neighbors, and administration. With this process, the various agents worked jointly in order to rethink Rambles and extend this debate throughout the city.

Placemaking 4 Inclusion: Comparative National Report

Welcome to Placemaking 4 Inclusion (PM4I), a dynamic initiative funded by the European Union. This extract, which captures the theory by transforming it into practice, is from the Comparative National Report, weaving insights from Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Norway. PM4I empowers youth and organizations, using placemaking to foster social inclusion and shape inclusive urban environments through collaborative co-creation. Explore key chapters on Methodology, Placemaking, Youth Social Inclusion, Community Empowerment, and Competences. Dive into this treasure trove of insights, sparking positive change. Join us on this journey, embrace placemaking principles, and be part of reshaping societies for the better.

You can read the full report here: http://placemaking.4learning.eu/outputs/

Resource related to

Urban strategies

Citizen cooperation

Urban pedagogy

Editorial team

*estel (Konstantina

Chrysostomou , Arnau Boix i

Pla, Nedjine Dorcely)

Luisa Tuttolomondo (Sguardi

Urbani), Anna Stamouli

(AKNOW), Ammalia

Podlaszewska (CGE), Bram

Dewolfs (Urban Foxes),

Annabel Mempel

(Nabolagshager), Rita

Marques (YEU)

They have collaborated

Youngsters, youth workers,

youth organizations and local

authorities from Germany,

Belgium, Italy, Norway, Spain

and Greece

More Information

Publication date

04/12/2023

resources

Methodology for the Valencian Urban Agenda

The Generalitat Valenciana needed to propose a cooperative work process to draft the Valencian Urban Agenda. The urban agenda is a fundamental territorial strategic document to align the urban policies of the Valencian Country with the 2030 Agenda and the internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goals.

The Cooperativa *estel, together with MonoDestudio, carried out in close collaboration with the Department of Territorial Policy, Public Works and Mobility of the Generalitat, a methodological document called “Participated drafting of the Valencian Urban Agenda: Methodology and criteria for defining the participatory process and the drafting of the Valencian Urban Agenda.”

The team created the document with the direct involvement of the General Directorates of different ministries of the Generalitat and the collaboration of an extensive cast of specialist professionals from the Valencian territory and the Spanish state. The document was made to guarantee shared writing, meaning the methodology cannot be separated from the process. The process is the way of preparing the contents of the Valencian Urban Agenda from the active involvement of the different sectoral, territorial, and administrative agents of the Valencian Country and all of its inhabitants.

The project has been a progressive and cumulative work, intending to continue in the following stages: the public competition and the Agenda preparation. For this reason, whoever is responsible for continuing this work will find a detailed reference in the document to develop it: documentary framework, map of agents, content structure, critical issues, and methodology for its shared writing.

The contents of the Urban Agenda were structured according to the thematic blocks Urban Economy, Territory, and City, Urban Governance, Urban Quality, and Health, Right to the City, and Connected City. But it was essential to incorporate integral elements in the participatory drafting process. Not as thematic or specific factors, but focusing on it from an integrated perspective, and therefore all the objectives, actions, and other contents of the Valencian Urban Agenda should implicitly or explicitly include Gender, Governance, Environmental Sustainability, and Social Justice.

Place

País Valencià

[4.975.000 inhabitants]

Scale

Supra-municipal

Type of project

Urban Strategies

Duration

6 months [2020]

Promotor

Generalitat Valenciana

Team

*estel (Arnau Boix i Pla,

Konstantina Chrysostomou,

Marc Deu i Ferrer, Alba

Dominguez Ferrer),

MonoDestudio

Collaborators

Technical staff of the

Generalitat Valenciana,

Independent professionals

from the Valencian Country

and the Spanish State

Presentation

Check the presentation at

Prezi

Study

Read the full report at the

web of the Generalitat

Valenciana

Press

Participatory process at Barcelona-Sants (railway station)

The transformations of essential infrastructures in a city like Barcelona are like performing an open-heart surgery. The urban operation is performed on a specific point, but it is precisely where you find the main arteries, the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system of the organism. In addition, the various community tissues that converge there must be opened, operated and sewn on again.

The remodelling that ADIF will carry out in Barcelona-Sants train station and all its surroundings (the current bus station, Països Catalans square and Joan Peiró square) is a very important change in its socio-urban dynamics of the site, but also a huge opportunity to redefine human connections and significantly improve the quality of the urban ecosystem.

Superblocks for Barcelona’s Eixample

Superblocks for Barcelona's Eixample

The great urban transformation that will take place in Barcelona’s Eixample had to be built from and for the residents of the district. The ambitious municipal program “Superilla Barcelona” (Barcelona Superblock) will mean a 180-degree turn in the city’s urban policies, reorganizing the flow of road traffic by literally putting pedestrians in the center of the street, and forcefully promotes the renaturalization of the public space.

Together with MonoDestudio, a diverse participatory process was proposed in terms of methodological techniques, and with a high degree of adaptability to the progression in the drafting of urban transformation documents and to the different events linked to the city’s political agenda.

The greatest challenges of the participatory work had to do with the socio-territorial scope of the “Superilla Barcelona” program, which had to combine the previous theoretical bases generated by the Driving Group, the necessary pedagogical dissemination of the principles of the superblocks, and the incorporation of the perspectives citizens, especially from a qualitative point of view.

Thus, the participatory process “Superilla Barcelona a l’Eixample” included outings on the street to explain to the neighbors the social and environmental improvements that were expected, and to answer questions or collect suggestions regarding the transformation of the ‘Eixample. Sessions were also held with specific groups to complete the holistic vision that the transformation projects needed: urban walks with residents of the territory, exploratory marches with women, workshops with children and young people from the educational community, and specific interviews with all street vendors affected by urban transformation. And workshops open to all citizens were also held where the progress in the drafting of the different urban transformation executive projects was presented, to clearly expose the criteria used and to incorporate the observations and suggestions of the people attending.

This participatory process is part of the drafting of the architectural and urban projects prior to the material transformation of Barcelona’s Eixample around the main axis that is Consell de Cent street, and which involves Rocafort, Comte Borrell, Enrique Granados and Girona. Barcelona City Council also foresees new participatory processes linked to subsequent phases, during and after the urban transformation.

Place

Barcelona

[1.636.762 inhabitants]

Scale

District

Type of project

Citizen cooperation

Duration

6 months [2021]

Promoter

Municipality of Barcelona

Team

*estel (Arnau Boix i Pla,

Konstantina Chrysostomou,

Marc Deu i Ferrer, Alba

Dominguez Ferrer),

Belén Iturralde,

Martina Capdevila,

MonoDestudio

Collaborators

Political and technical team of

the City Council,

Neighbors of Eixample,

Entities and associations of

the Eixample

Study

See the full process at

Decidim Barcelona

Press

Read about the exploratory

walks of the process in the

newspaper Ara,

Confluence in Valencia’s Central Market

Confluence in Valencia's Central Market

The proposal Confluència was the winner of the competition organized by the Generalitat Valenciana in order to remodel Bruges square and other public spaces around the Central Market of the city of Valencia. The project, led by the architects Elisabet Quintana and Blanca Peñín, opted for a transdisciplinary and participatory approach, with the firm intention of facilitating the creation of a space of coexistence around this commercial node, the Central Market, which is a historical symbol and a landmark for the inhabitants and visitors of Valencia.

The conception of public space as a natural extension of the Market itself, and vice versa, respects and reinforces the social, cultural, and commercial dynamics of the urban environment. The final proposal addresses the neighborhoods’ socio-territorial circumstances not only through urban design, but also through social strategies to visualize the different human realities that enclose an important social building such as a public market. These strategies range from proposals for neighborhood programming to public spaces that strengthen human connectivity with the Velluters neighborhood, to measures for reversing the gentrification process in Valencia in general, and the Ciutat Vella district in particular.

The Confluència’s team transdisciplinary context has allowed the incorporation of diverse perspectives throughout the process of reflection, proposal, and writing, which include considerations on governance, citizen participation, and gender.

The redevelopment is expected to begin in 2020.

Place

Valencia

[794 288 inhabitants]

Scale of the project

Municipal

Public space

Tipus de projecte

Estratègies urbanes

Disseny d’espai públic

Duration

6 months [2018]

Promoter

Generalitat Valenciana,

Municipality of Valencia

Team

UTE Quintana-Peñín (Elisabet

Quintana i Blanca Peñín)

Equip transdisciplinar: Peñín

arquitectes, Espinàs i Tarrassó,

*estel, monoDestudio, Inés

Novella, Planifica Urbanismo y

Gestión, Enrique Giménez, Joan

Seguí, María Pedro Ferrer

Collaborators

Local entities and associations

Press

Watch the video of the project

here here

¡Pónle Guinda!

¡Pónle Guinda! is a process of citizen and administrative cooperation in order to carry out a participatory diagnosis and agree on proposals for the transformation of the public space in an area of Guindalera neighborhood (Madrid), popularly known as Guindalera Vieja. The work process in Guindalera Vieja comprised three distinct phases: start-up, participation, and preliminary drafting phase.

During the first one, group meetings and interviews were held with municipal technicians and political representatives of the Madrid City Council (Salamanca District), as well as with a representation of the neighborhood’s associative network.

Strategic Plan for Urban Regeneration in the neighborhood of Cerdanyola

Estratègies-d’actuació-i-actuacions-específiques

Proximitat-a-xarxes-de-transport-alternatiu-a-l'automòbil

Urban regeneration has been a critical mechanism for the transformation and development of cities. It consists of intervention in consolidated urban areas to reverse the situation of those most sensitive territories and unequal peripheries. This will present the opportunity to respond to the needs of neighborhoods with deficiencies, as in the case of Cerdanyola. We must think that the city is where citizens live and, therefore, their needs must be guaranteed. This plan can be the instrument to implement the change to guarantee, in the future, the needs of the inhabitants of the Cerdanyola neighborhood, in this sense, the document pursues the following objectives:

Establish guidelines and priorities that allow coordination of interventions with the different City Council departments over time, with the common goal of improving the neighborhood.
Define a strategic plan so that the Mataró City Council can request external financing.
Detail lines of action to facilitate and guide transformation processes in which there is a collaboration between public and private agents in the neighborhood.
Identify specific transformation actions that can guide the administrative resources available to carry out viable actions in the short or long term.

Urban transformation processes offer the possibility of planning new forms of social inclusion, fostering more equitable environments in which access to services and new opportunities are facilitated, promoting citizen participation, and reflecting the cultural and social diversity of the neighborhood.

Cerdanyola’s regeneration plan should revolve around the principles of diversity, an essential aspect in the balance of any ecosystem; sustainability, as a basic component of any development; and identity, as a basic characteristic of any settlement (JLP).

Three principles to improve the daily life of the people who live in the Cerdanyola neighborhood, dealing with everyday and fundamental issues such as accessibility and mobility, social and economic activities, services, productive and reproductive tasks, and interior and exterior habitability.

The plan does not start from scratch, but from all the documentation and previous studies, so one of the first steps in this process will be to analyze all the information worked on. Afterward, and based on this documentary analysis, the fieldwork is carried out, and the sessions with the citizens generate a space for continued cooperation between the previous administrative work, the technical work, and the citizen’s perception.

On the other hand, this plan also focuses on providing the technical services of the city council with support and arguments that allow the daily needs of the Cerdanyola neighborhood to be aligned with European funding, as well as with the objectives of sustainable development, the urban agenda European and Spanish.

Place

Mataró, neighborhood of

Cerdanyola

[31.241 habitants]

Scale

Neighborhood

Type of project

Urban Strategies

Citizen cooperation

Duration

4 months [2021-2022]

Promoter

Municipality of Mataró

Team

*estel (Konstantina

Chrysostomou, Alba

Dominguez Ferrer, Arnau Boix

i Pla, Marc Deu i Ferrer)

Pere Manubens,

monoDestudio,

FIKA

Collaborators

Taula de Pla Integral de

Cerdanyola,

Àrea de Qualitat Urbana de

l’ajuntament,

Àrea de Serveis a la Ciutadania

de l’ajuntament

Presentation

Check the presentation at prezi

Featured project

Participatory process linked to the Urban Master Plan for the Agulla area

“El parc de L’Agulla” and its surroundings is a large space located in the municipalities of Manresa and Sant Fruitós del Bages. It is an area of great territorial interest as environmental, landscape, ecological, agricultural, and cultural realities converge. Patrimonial assets give it a great uniqueness and are the basis of the values that become a strategic area for the entire Plan de Bages.

In the framework of drafting an Urban Master Plan, this participatory process has been developed, aiming to link the urban regulations with the reality of the territory, especially at a social level. The park’s expansion is inevitably planned and projected consistently with the needs of the people who use it daily (residents, farmers, park workers…) and sporadically.

For all this, it has been an intense and complex process, which has required a variety of spaces and channels for debate so that everyone has the opportunity to share their proposals with the rest of the agents involved. The information collected has been worked on in parallel with the whole team to find and define the criteria that will make the participants have an impact on future regulations.

Place

Manresa and Sant Fruitós

del Bages

[ 78.192 and 8.936 inhabitants]

Scale

Supra-municipal

Type of project

Urban Strategies

Citizen cooperation

Duration

6 months [2021-2022]

Promoter

Direcció General d’Ordenació

del Territori i Urbanisme,

Ajuntament de Manresa,

Ajuntament de Sant Fruitós

del Bages

Team

*estel (Alba Domínguez

Ferrer, Marc Deu Ferrer,

Konstantina Chrysostomou,

Arnau Boix i Pla)

Collaborators

Neighbors of Manresa and Sant

Fruitós del Bages

Press

Watch the video at youtube

project

Placemaking 4 Inclusion

Rescuing the Rambles of Barcelona

Placemaking 4 Inclusion: Comparative National Report

Methodology for the Valencian Urban Agenda

Participatory process at Barcelona-Sants (railway station)

Superblocks for Barcelona's Eixample

Confluence in Valencia's Central Market

¡Pónle Guinda!

Strategic Plan for Urban Regeneration in the neighborhood of Cerdanyola

Participatory process linked to the Urban Master Plan for the Agulla area

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