Children’s Participatory Budget of Sant Cugat


Children's Participatory Budget of Sant Cugat

Participatory budget is a tool that allows citizens to influence a percentage of the money that the administration allocates each year to investments. Typically, only adults participate, forgetting that a significant percentage of the population, young people and children, are left out.

In this project, a working proposal is created for girls, boys, and youngsters up to 16 years old to decide on how to invest a total of 200,000 euros made available by the city council. Through sessions in the Children’s Council and the Youth Council, actions in schools, and prioritization votes, improvement proposals are co-designed and technically validated by the Estel team and the city council staff involved in the project.

Some of the ideas that have been developed and executed include installing water fountains in the streets and play areas, making areas accessible for outdoor sports, building a vegetated maze for playing, equipping a space for parkour, or adding “facing” benches that encourage social interactions in public spaces. It is worth noting that beyond the functions of these elements, the interventions also have a pedagogical component for children, young people, and the rest of the population, who can see to what extent the smallest members of society are capable of making decisions that affect the entire population.

Place

Sant Cugat del Vallès 

[95.725 inhabitants]

Scale

Municipal

Type of project

Citizen cooperation

Duration

5 months [2022]

Promoter

Municipality of Sant Cugat del

Vallés

 

Team

*estel (Marc Deu Ferrer, Oriol

Serra Ureta, Roser García

Piqué, Konstantina

Chrysostomou, Alba

Domínguez Ferrer, Arnau Boix

i Pla)

 

Collaborators

Consell d’Infants de Sant

Cugat del Vallès and Consell

Jove de Sant Cugat del Vallès

Press

Read more about the project

at the plataform

decidim.santcugat

Participatory Processes for Teenage and Youth Citizens of Barcelona


Participatory Processes for Teenage and Youth Citizens of Barcelona

The Participatory Process of the Adolescent Citizenship of Barcelona, during two consecutive academic years, offers teenagers and educational centers a project where they can approach the participatory culture of their municipality. They can express what worries or bothers them about the city and district where they live, and propose actions that, from their point of view, would improve coexistence.

 

The City Council supports this project in order to expand communication channels towards this group, through which they can listen, explain the actions that are already taking place in the city and that respond to some of their concerns, and receive first-hand the needs and proposals that this group considers, which are often forgotten in the planning of cities and neighborhoods.

Thus, a space is offered where adolescent citizens can exchange points of view and concerns about their city and the district where they live, finding common ground and stimulating teamwork to build a set of proposals that improve their experience as adolescents in Barcelona or the respective district.

 

This process has been carried out through high schools, combining face-to-face sessions in the schools themselves or municipal spaces, and online sessions that offered greater flexibility in attendance and participation.

 

As an added value, throughout the process, the technical and political team works to listen to the work done by the adolescents, providing them with feedback: informing them of existing initiatives or explaining why they would not be viable, as well as committing to making some of the proposals presented a reality.

 

Some of the results that have been achieved with this process, in its two editions, include improving communication between the City Council (both at the city and district level) and adolescent citizens, seeking the best channel through which to convey the improvements that they already promote, as well as informing participants of existing formal spaces (assemblies, etc.) in which they could already participate.

 

In this line, the way has also been opened for political and technical representatives of the district to be closer to the reality of secondary schools, thus improving the resolution of specific needs or collaborations.

 

Some improvements have also been proposed and executed in the city, such as the installation of sports practice elements in open courtyards that respond to the current needs of the participants, or the creation of a map of existing public sports facilities in the district, with the location and type of resources available.

 

In conclusion, the adolescent citizenship involved in the process, in both editions, valued the experience very positively, as it allowed them to make political figures a little more real and to understand first-hand how they could participate in the political and social life of their city and district.

Place

Barcelona 

[1,620,343 inhabitants]

Escala

Municipal

Type of project

Citizen cooperation

Duration

1st edition (2020-2021)

2nd edition (curs 2021-2022)

Impulsores

Municipality of Barcelona,

Institut Municipal d’Educació

de Barcelona and Direcció de

Serveis de Democràcia Activa

 

Team

*estel (Arnau Boix i Pla, Oriol

Serra Ureta, Roser García

Piqué, Konstantina

Chrysostomou, Alba

Dominguez Ferrer, Marc Deu i

Ferrer)

 

Descoberta

Espai Coneix

Nadal Villena

 

Collaborators

Adolescent and teenage

citizens and educators linked

to the Escola Sant Felip Neri,

Escola Pia Nostra Senyora,

Escolàpies Llúria, Institut

XXVena Olimpíada, Escola

Joan Pelegrí, Escola Paideia,

Institut Les Corts, Institut

Santa Teresa de Lisieux,

Institut Menéndez i Pelayo,

Escola Pia Balmes, Institut

Gravi, Institut Vila de Gràcia,

Escola Vida Montserrat,

Escola Regina Carmeli,

Escola Especial Mare de Déu

de Montserrat, Escola Virolai,

Institut Escola Trinitat Nova,

Institut Escola El Til·ler,

Institut Príncep de Viana,

Escola Gavina, Escola FEDAC

Sant Andreu, Institut Infanta

Isabel d’Aragó i Institut Barri

Besòs.

Presentation

Watch the presentation at

YouTube

 

Press

Read more about the project

at instagram and the

plataform decidim.barcelona

Territori Jujol in schools


Territori Jujol in schools

The Territori Jujol in schools initiative aims to recognize and bring the figure and work of Jujol closer to the children from the territory itself, following the proposal of the Territori Jujol initial project, putting children at the centre of reflection, with the aim that they will be an active part of the project and help to broaden its impact on the educational community and on the public.

The proposal is based on the work carried out, and the documentation collected within the framework of the Territori Jujol project, an initiative developed by the Reus Higher Technical School of Architecture and COFO architects.

The activities, carried out inside and outside the classroom, have as a goal to explore the children’s ideas, to extend it using the didactic material to other educational centres and the citizens. One of the objectives, is to generate, through work in schools, a network of complicity between the municipalities that form the Jujol Territory.

The general objectives of the project are:

  • Learn the work and biography of Jujol.
  • Include children in the process of learning and reading the work and the character of Jujol from the projects located in the municipality. 
  • Dealing with topics such as design, materiality, landscape, Jujol’s biography through a creative process.
  • Disseminate the works of Territori Jujol in the school, beyond the students who directly participate in the activity.
  • Promote the networking of the schools of the different municipalities that work on the projects of the Jujol Territory.

In order to achieve the objectives of the series of workshops, it is proposed to work both experientially and conceptually, and thus understand the complexity of the figure of Jujol from the point of view of his creative thinking and his ability to transform reality.

This cycle of workshops addresses a process of joint creation that begins with a visit to a Jujol work adopted by the school, and which then and during the following work sessions will give shape to the ideas of the students . This work is conveyed around 5 key concepts, which will allow us to link Jujol’s work with the children’s work, applying them in the transformation of an everyday object into something different.

The 5 workshops are:

  • Workshop 1 – We discover Jujol [raise awareness, motivate, experiment]: activity carried out in the adopted work, which consists of a guided tour and which aims to bring the creation of Jujol closer to the students in a direct and experiential way.
  • Workshop 2 – We rediscover Jujol [experience, analyze]: activity carried out in the classroom, with the aim of deciphering the concepts to Jujol’s methodology for his works, and experiencing it individually.
  • Workshop 3 – We think how to Jujol [imagine, collaborate]: activity carried out in the classroom, with the aim of defining the main lines of a collective creation of a larger format.
  • Workshop 4 – We create like Jujol [transform, collaborate]: activity carried out in the classroom, with the aim of working together to develop the ideas defined in the third workshop.
  • Workshop 5a – We explain Jujol [explain] : autonomous activity in the classroom led by the teachers. It consists of making a recording where each group explains their work.
  • Workshop 5b – We celebrate Jujol [do, share]: closing activity, to share the results and disseminate the work done. This part takes place outside the school and is open to all citizens.

Each one of the workshops is accompanied by an audiovisual capsule where the facilitators of Territori Jujol begin to introduce some of the topics that will be worked on in the face-to-face workshop. They aim to motivate and present key concepts.

In this pilot test there are two schools participating in the project, with a total of 3 class groups:

  • The Bràfim School: in this case, the activity is carried out with the upper primary cycle (class group made up of boys and girls from 5th and 6th grade).
  • The School Arquitecte Jujol dels Pallaresos: In this case, the activity will be carried out with the 5th year of primary school, made up of two class groups.

The idea is that once the process is finished, this process can be extended to other schools.

Place

Tarragona

[135,966 inhabitants]

Scale

Supra-municipal

Type of project

Citizen cooperation

Duration

5 months [2022]

Promoter

Territori Jujol 

Universitat Rovira i Virgili

Fundació “la Caixa”

 

Team

*estel (Uri Serra, Konstantina

Chrysostomou, Marc Deu

Ferrer, Arnau Boix i Pla, Alba

Domínguez Ferrer)

Roger Miralles Jori

 

Collaborators

María González Cañadell

Guillem Fonts Ferrando 

Bràfim School educational

team

Pallaresos School

educational team

Presentation

Watch the videos on YouTube

En Orbita, “Projecte Singular” of Social Economy


En Orbita, “Projecte Singular” of Social Economy

Our cooperative has been able to start the “En Orbita” project since we have been awarded one of the grants for “Projects Singulars,” promoted by the Social Economy program, the “Generalitat de Catalunya” and the “Ministerio de Trabajo y Economía Social,” for 2022.

It is an initiative that aims to promote and strengthen community relations between the people of a territory through the dissemination and practice of participatory culture applied to the improvement of its urban habitat. It’s about recognizing capabilities, tidying them up, and activating them: putting them into orbit.

In this context, talks and debates are scheduled where we invite both our regular collaborators and the neighborhood’s people, and awareness-raising actions are promoted in the public space or educational and informative capsules about Cooperative Urbanism. As a result of this work, and to consolidate learning and disseminate these values, a series of materials will be generated that will be available once the project is finished.

Place

Catalunya 

[7.710.136 inhabitants]

Scale

Supra-municipal

Type of project

Citizen cooperation

Duration

12 months [2022]

Promoter

Economia Social,

Generalitat de Catalunya,

Ministerio de Trabajo y

Economía Social

 

Equip redactor

*estel (Konstantina

Chrysostomou, Arnau Boix i

Pla, Alba Domínguez Ferrer,

Marc Deu Ferrer, Oriol Serra

Ureta,  Roser Garcia i Piqué)

 

Collaborators

Estel* communiy

Presentation

Watch on YouTube the videos

of the series of talks

“Urbanisme de les persones” 

 

Watch on YouTube the

mini-interviews

“Urbanisme cooperatiu”

Executive Participated Project for the Plaça del Sol


Executive Participated Project for the Plaça del Sol

The drafting of a Participatory Executive Project to redevelop the Plaza del Sol in Puerto de Sagunto was based on a collaborative work methodology between the municipal technicians and technicians, the drafting team, and the neighborhood and the municipality’s social and economic agents.

The resulting document incorporates, on the one hand, the political-technical and citizen perspective and the recognition of their contributions; on the other, management strategies, dynamization, or change planning. These strategies are proposals for interventions (short, medium, or long term) that do not necessarily involve works and that accompany the transformation process of the square but, above all, in the “meanwhile,” that transformation does not take effect.

This collaborative work, beyond the formal result of the new Plaza del Sol, has settled the decisions taken on, among others, the following agreements:

Design criteria: respect and reinforce the itineraries of passage and connection between neighborhoods and recognize the square as a crossing point. Promote living and permanency spaces, have urban elements that facilitate this and identify the square as a meeting place. Incorporate and apply the concept of climate shelter in the square and reuse or rehabilitate existing urban and material elements as much as possible.

Management criteria: promotion of co-responsibility with the maintenance of the square by involving the CEIP Nuestra Señora de Begoña so that the students promote dissemination actions on the importance of cleaning the public space or that include didactic units in the school curriculum related to the care of urban nature. Promote artistic interventions in the public space that reinforce the Plaza del Sol’s identity and facilitate the neighborhood residents’ feeling of belonging. Enable the permanent availability of public toilet services in the Municipal Market building.

Planning criteria: carry out public communicative actions related to the transformation process of the square, its calendar, and the final result after the works. Incorporate evolutionary or progressive shading elements to condition the plaza climatically while the new vegetation needs to acquire a sufficient size. A general performative activity of identity transition could also be carried out: a ceremony of removal and change of location of the statue of the worker, and putting into value the new character of the sun and the shadow.

Place

Sagunt

[67.043 inhabitants]

Scale

Neighborhood

Type of project

Urban Strategies

Citizen cooperation

Public space design

Duration

6 months [2021]

Promoter

Ajuntament de Sagunt

 

Team

*estel (Arnau Boix,

Konstantina Chrysostomou,

Marc Deu, Alba Dominguez)

SUC arquitectes

Maria Pedro

Ivana Ponsoda

AIG (arquitectura ingeniería y

gestión)

 

Collaborators

Sagunto City Council

technical team,

Neighbors and municipal

entities

Press

Read more at El Periòdic

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


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

New uses for the former Col·legi del Carme


New uses for the former Col·legi del Carme

Incorporating the old Col·legi del Carme into the municipal resources and equipment is one of these draft projects that need to contrast the starting assumptions of the Caldes City Council with the vision of the people who will use it, the final recipients of the space. And it is particularly because of the symbolic charge and the deep roots in the collective memory that this building has.

The work process we propose, in close collaboration with Equal Saree, aims to make visible this collective memory of the future tools, making it possible for citizen participation to give it use and function. But above all, it is an active part of its creation, promotion, and management, so it is guaranteed that the proposals launched for this new use make sense for the municipality and offer a space to recognize each other.

The participatory sessions are focused on the will to open spaces of cooperation between the political-technical team of the City Council, the group of drafting architects (Mangrana architects) of the preliminary draft of the new proposal for the old Col·legi del Carme, and the associated citizens and not associated with Caldes de Montbui. Through restricted technical sessions and workshops open to the public held in the equipment area, a process of cooperative work takes place in which the architectural decisions advance at the same time as the joint report on technical requirements, community needs, and citizen wills.

The participatory process “El Carmen s’obre al poble” developed progressively and cumulatively from face-to-face meetings and digital support tools, including the municipal platform “Decidim” and an electronic suggestion box. It was about, based on the recognition of historical use and the memories and experiences accumulated in the old school, contrasting the current technical and citizen needs of the municipality and trying to distribute them among the different spatial resources offered by the equipment.

Thus, the program of needs enjoyed broad agreement among all the participants, assuming, among others, the opening of the large patio of the equipment as a new public space of the municipality, underlining the importance of the flexibility of the spaces and the maintenance of the social and historical essence of the whole building.

In addition, the Follow-up Commission established during the participatory process assumed the proposal of citizen involvement throughout the planning, transformation, and commissioning process. The method of transforming the equipment will necessarily take time, and we did not want to miss the opportunity to carry out activities in the “meanwhile,” to give continuity to the reflections on co-management initiated in the process and to advance the feeling of belonging and citizen reappropriation of the future equipment.

Place

Caldes de Montbui

[17.797 inhabitants]

Scale

Municipal

Tipus de projecte

Cooperació ciutadana

Duration

3 months [2022]

Promoter

Municipality of Caldes de Montbui

 

Team

*estel (Arnau Boix i Pla,

Konstantina Chrysostomou,

Marc Deu Ferrer, Alba

Domínguez Ferrer)

Equal Saree

 

Collaborators

Political and technical team of

the City Council

Mangrana architects

Neighbors of Caldes de Montbui

Municipal entities

Presentation

Presentation video of the

participatory process

Press

News about the process on local

television

Participatory process for the land use masterplan of Masquefa


Participatory process for the land use masterplan of Masquefa

The citizen participation process of the land use masterplan (POUM) of Masquefa is developed in parallel with the drafting of the urban planning document (in charge of OUA) with the intention of turning the drafting of a Municipal Urban Planning Plan into an opportunity for the different sectors that make up the society to collaborate with each other, and jointly define what is the municipality they want for the next few years, dealing with topics ranging from housing, economic activity, public space and equipment, natural spaces or the infrastructures that make up the territory.

In this participatory process, apart from combining face-to-face and virtual spaces to facilitate access to the debate, an effort has been made to recognize the territorial complexity of the municipality, where there is a consolidated urban center where the majority of services are located, with a series of low-density urbanization with fairly marked own dynamics. The objective, then, is that the project serves to collect the proposals of all these people involved, at the same time that the process itself helps to increase territorial cohesion and the links between neighborhoods.

Place

Masquefa

[9.623 inhabitants]

Scale

Municipal

Type of project

Citizen cooperation

Duration

6 months [2021 – 2022]

Promoter

Municipality of Masquefa

 

Team

*estel (Alba Domínguez

Ferrer, Marc Deu Ferrer,

Konstantina Chrysostomou,

Arnau Boix i Pla)

 

Collaborators

Neighbors of Masquefa

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,

Read more about the

workshops at the education

centers in the newspaper Ara

Cals Frares, NGOs’ House

Cals Frares, NGOs’ House

Tiana City Council promoted the participatory process for transforming the newly constructed buildings into new association equipment, co-designed with the municipal entities and the technical and political team. Over the last few months, we’ve worked on the proposal with Tiana’s associations and the municipality’s technical and political group. 

The “Cals Frares, NGOs’ House” is a municipal facility for the use of associations and non-profit organizations in Tiana, offering a model for creating a civic ecosystem. This equipment facilitates:

  • associative work, offering various spaces for its development,
  • collaboration in the growth and improvement of the associative movement
  • the possibility of an inter-associative relationship between the different entities.

The “Cals Frares, NGOs’ House” provides workspaces and opportunities for associations and groups to participate in socio-cultural activities, learn, explore and create. This site hosts various cultural, artistic, and educational programs and activities to foster creativity and community trust. It facilitates situations for people to get together and get to know each other.

The foundation and operation of the “Cals Frares, NGOs’ House” is based on a cooperative approach, from its creation to its function. This site serves as a tool for this cooperation model, as the members of the NGOs and groups are the most active part of society, bringing together people of all ages, professions, and nationalities. The association’s role in developing civil society is growing along with the municipality’s support for joint projects and activities.

With the transformation of the “Cals Frares, NGOs’ House” into a generator of social life for the municipality of Tiana, it is possible to achieve:

  • Strengthen local identity.
  • Generate an intergenerational social and cultural meeting point for the population that does not exclude anyone.
  • Democratize access to municipal resources and improve the quality of life for all.
  • Encourage community involvement and allow the community to act in their municipality through the House of Entities their resources to start new activities and services.
  • Create a third place that plays a significant role in the public life of the municipality.
  • Promote collaborations and exchange of knowledge between entities and groups.

Based on an analysis elaborated on the territorial, administrative and social context in which the new building is located and through a participatory process with the technical and political team and the entities, associations, and groups of the municipality, we were able to define the following:

  • the site identity,
  • the program of the use,
  • the distribution proposal,
  • the architectural intervention criteria,
  • the criteria for the incorporation of the gender perspective,
  • the management proposal and, 
  • the “meanwhile” activities.

Placd

Tiana

[9,009 inhabitants]

Scale

Municipal

Type of project

Urban Strategies

Citizen cooperation

Duration

5 months[2022]

Promoter

Municipality of Tiana

 

Team

*estel (Konstantina

Chrysostomou,Roser Garcia

Piqué, Arnau Boix i Pla, Alba

Domínguez Ferrer, Marc Deu i

Ferrer)

 

Collaborators

Associations of Tiana

Presentation

Check the presentation at  prezi