WORK METHODOLOGY ACCORDING TO THE PRINCIPLES OF JAN GEHL
The unique methodology of Jan Gehl Architects is based on the principle that people are the most important priority of public space in the process of planning cities. Public space should be a place for everyone that includes unique qualities and benefits of a particular urban environment, open to a variety of activities and opportunities.
We take their principles and formulate a design solution and a strategic plan for the project of the Grand creative park in Kragujevac based on quantitative and qualitative research of social context of space usage and public life in this place at all.
This way, guidelines and strategies for maximizing individual potential and development of the park are based on a comprehensive understanding of the cultural and geographical specificity of Kragujevac and the immediate environment of the park.
SPACE
The area is being designed and developed based on the vision of public life, in order to facilitate and encourage the desired activity. Space can be planned according to the parameters of the desired route, destination, user groups and activities as part of a vision. The space should be designed to create new values and to make best use of the existing ones. Our solution starts with the formulation of the vision and the comprehensive program of activities based on the type of life activities and attractions that are inherent in this area. The next step is to develop a network of public spaces that can support the vision of public life through the conditions, form and climate.
REVERSE THE PROCESS
The main idea is that the use of public space is a key factor in the quality of life in urban areas. The usual methodology of planning, which focuses on traffic and buildings, must be turned back so that people and users become more visible in the planning process. In most cases, the beginning of the creation is a vision of beautiful objects, which creates the “overshadowing factor”, around which is free space. There remains hope that the rest of the space will come to life.
This approach leaves to chance the most important aspects that make the city dynamic, safe and attractive. By applying the Gehl methodology, we will work to establish a different path of thinking: humans first, then the environment tailored to their needs.
PEOPLE
The basis of planning has to be a vision of public life in the given area. Who are its potential users? What activities would take place in it? What kind of life can develop there?
The strategic guidelines of Gehl Architects were selected and applied in the context of studies, workshops, public consultations, lectures and conferences.
‘’The road to creating successful spaces begins with putting people first”.
To ensure that the reconstructed park has a dynamic public life and in order to avoid the most common mistakes of modern urban planning, we will apply methods of work entitled Life / Property / Building by the consulting firm Gehl Architects.
COUNTING
Counting is a widely used tool in public life studies. In principle, everything can be counted, which provides numbers for making comparisons before and after, between different geographic areas or over time.
MAPPING
Activities, people, places for staying and much more can be plotted in, that is, drawn as symbols on a plan of an area being studied to mark the number and type of activities and where they take place. This is also called behavioral mapping.
TRACING
People’s movements inside or crossing a limited space can be drawn as lines of movements on a plan of the area being studied.
TRACKING
In order to observe people’s movements over a large area or for a longer time, observers can discreetly follow people without their knowing it or follow someone who knows and agrees to be followed and observed. This is also called shadowing.
LOOKING FOR TRACES
Human activity often leaves traces such as litter in the streets, dirt patches on grass etc, which provides the observer with information about the city life. These traces can be registered through counting, photographing or mapping.
PHOTOGRAPHING
Photographing is an essential part of public life studies to document situations where urban life and form either interact or fail to interact after initiatives have been taken.
KEEPING A DIARY
Keeping a diary can register details and nuances about the interaction between public life and space, noting observations that can later be categorized and/or quantified.
TEST WALKS
Taking a walk while observing the surrounding life can be more or less systematic, but the aim is that the observer has a chance to notice problems and potentials for city life on a given route.
School as a Service (SaaS) project by Aalto University team in collaboration with the City of Espoo has been awarded with the Quality Innovation Award 2016.
The Quality Innovation Award is an annual international competition aiming at detecting, boosting and increasing the visibility for innovative projects in several categories. SaaS has been the winner for its innovation in the education sector, on the grounds of “creating new kinds of learning conditions, not school as a building, where the flexible learning spaces are located on the university campus and learning takes place interactively by sharing resources”.
SaaS is the project proposed by Aalto University-Helsinki team as part of Human Cities project. It refers to a new type of school concept and educational practice in the Helsinki area, freed from regulation concerning the physical premises of education, and entailing the increase in the use ratio of unused or poorly used premises by inventing creative temporary uses as a form of urban activism.
This text aims at explaining the concept ideation of the project developed by Group X* at Aalto University Department of Architecture in collaboration with other public and private institutions. The concept has been implemented in August 2016 on the Aalto University campus of Otaniemi as a collaboration between Aalto University and the City of Espoo.
Aalto University project School as a Service is examined as implementing a new kind of participatory architecture. School as a Service is an experimentation laboratory for temporary architecture with school teachers, schoolchildren and other stakeholders in a participatory process for a new type of school. We have concentrated on certain aspects of this co-school: the methods and implementation of participation, facilitation, communication, branding, prototyping, post-production and reporting.
The project started with two cross-disciplinary workshops between Aalto University and the students and teachers of service design from the Royal College of Arts in London. Initially we found hotels as an interesting applicable reference and business model for a co-school. Hospitality business tends to have separated operator business from ownership. We asked, who could be the receptionist of a co-school? The challenge that we tackled in the project was the development and design of temporary premises for schools whose original buildings are under repair, and the future of user-based learning environments based on service design in architectural context (service architecture).
We were eventually able to produce school spaces, whose use concept and physical appearance would support pedagogical targets (social learning, theme-based learning, project-based learning, embedding learning to local environment). We were eventually able to prototype a social innovation, which included human-based temporary use of buildings, where spaces are seen as a service, not as physical objects. The project started by mapping functional and physical resources in the local environment. On this we built a distributed model for activities, which means simultaneously physically and socially optimised use of spaces.
Eventually this concluded in the creation of an actual project with the City of Espoo and the move of Haukilahti High School to Aalto University campus, where the school’s premises were placed according to the concept. The project was actually built and started its operation in August 2016. Even if the project creates a solution for temporary urbanism, it occupies permanent spaces: 1) a home base building and 2) many hourly-based uses in other buildings. The experiment also produced business activities with around 20 startups and SME companies forming a “Development Community” for School as a Service. All together there have been numerous events with multidisciplinary stakeholders co-creating the concept and the project, including schoolchildren, teachers, school managers, universities, real estate owners, school authority directors, other city authorities, academics, designers and businesses.
The flexibility of regulations and putting emphasis on the user’s ability to control their everyday life is at the bottom of School as a Service. The project was based on the idea of school as a service for learning, not just a physical framework. School as a Service belongs thematically to access economy. It is sustainable, and advances diversity and the optimization of the use of space and the utilization of temporary solutions. The model is based on renting temporary access, not space. Critical thinking is part of the project as well: during the project development stage of the project, the students were asked their preferences for the conditions of learning and the project was based on these outcomes.
When we are redefining the ecosystem around a space it is useful to start by mapping overlapping public uses of spaces. School as a Service uses several locations in Aalto university campus for its activities. This symbiosis between a high school and a university also requires a behavioral change. Co-working works not only in the level of design, but also implementation, when schoolchildren collaborate with university staff and faculty. They participate creative processes in the campus, asking questions the students may not yet ask. At the moment there are also university courses, which have been opened to the high school pupils. In this experiment, we have collaborated with project participants and have actually realised the new school in Otaniemi.
These aims require an own identity for this co-school. Very often the spaces of participatory design and co-creation have the cheap aesthetics of graphic colours, ad hoc constructions and they tend to turn out quite similar everywhere, a sort or new international modernism. Instead of this, we wanted to support local identities and contextual differences in developing the co-school.
The designers, high school students and their teachers, real estate owners and school authorities had strong influence in the outcome of the project together, in an extent that can be called local. Instead of a confrontation or competition between these project participants, there was a typically Finnish collaboration process along the typically Nordic lines of democratic and collaborative decision making and social concern. A symbolically important bicycle shed was constructed in front of the core building, and a crucial design strategy was to define degrees of flexibility in spaces. The concept of a traditional teacher’s room was discarded in favour of a “teachers’ corner” and the name of the school, “Laine”, has been printed to the glass façade. School as a Service project shows that a local adaptation of participatory practices is existing.
*This text is a modified excerpt of the paper “Happy together vs. melancholy of loneliness. Disruptive practices on community and privacy”, by Antti Ahlava, Mia Hertsberg, Fernando Nieto, Jarmo Suominen and Pekka Tynkkynen (Group X, Aalto University Department of Architecture, Helsinki, Finland). Front image is by student Iulia-Elena Radion in the Labs for Learners studio course.
Transforming our cities together, this is one of the missions of the project Human Cities_Challenging the City Scale.
Beyond the European area, this topic is concerning cities around the world. That’s why, since the creation of the project, the Cité du design Saint-Etienne, its leader, has decided to use its rich international network of partners to share knowledge and experience.
During the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne 2017, the Cité du design decided to invite Detroit, USA, as its Guest of Honour. Both UNESCO Cities of Design, Detroit and Saint-Etienne have a lot of common as former industrial cities, using creativity to reinvent themselves. Detroit shared its experience of a resilient city, placing art and design at the heart of its economic growth.
Detroiters, but also representatives of other UNESCO creative cities such as Dundee, Montreal, or Nagoya participated in the Human Cities activities programmed for the Biennale, together with the European partners and Saint-Etienne local stakeholders.
Josyane Franc, the general coordinator of Human Cities_Challenging the City Scale project, explains how these local, European and global scales were crossing, creating intense exchange of ideas, perspectives and mutual understanding.
Hypermatière is a multidisciplinary group set up for Saint-Etienne Human Cities experimentations launched by Cité du design in 2016.
Responding to Cité du design call for intitiative (CHOSE), several figures joined their forces: a designer studio and an independent designer: Captain Ludd and Magalie Rastello ; 1 ceramist: Jay Accosta- Valois ; 2 community associations: Amicale Laïque du Crêt de Roch and Rues du Développement Durable ; a gardener: Mathieu Benoit-Gonin.
Hypermatière decided to offer mobile, evolutive, reversible and recyclable interventions in the neighbourhood “Cret de Roch”, which is living various renovations in the longer term. The spaces are changing, people uses too: how to enable inhabitants to be creative actors of the transformations of their district, whether than worried spectators ? Through collaborative artistic projects and solidarity services, the Hypermatière project allows to highlight a “space in movement” on the scale of a neighbourhood, showing the process and the relevance of contributing practices .
In 2016-2017, the Hypermatière group organized several workshops to highlight the -sometimes- hidden resources of the district to its inhabitants , collect people needs and feelings about it, make them know that something collective was possible to do.
Marion Chaize, coordinator of Hypermatière group, explains the project
For the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne 2017, Hypermatière decided to set-up a temporary public – or rather collective – space on a demolition site. As they discovered a hen and rooster living there, the place became “the rooster square”, a place to play and meet during a bit more than one month.
Paul Buros, designer and member of the Captain Ludd studio explains how this public space took shape
The “rooster square” allowed to test the uses of a possible public space in this part of the neighbourhood. During the Biennial, it attracted more than 500 people for the various activities (from barbecues to conferences, including workshops, concerts, etc.). A Brazilian designer, Fernando Mascaro, gave a Masterclass about the “design of feelings”. A musician form Detroit, Ian Tran, was so fond of the place that he decided to make an initiation to violin playing with the children frequenting the place. Taking care and responsibility of this place open to all, some parents proposed to organize an event where they could sell home-made production, other asked if they could organize a birthday afternoon with the children of the surroundings. The workshop with the European partners of the Human Cities project on 13th March allow to test some activities proposed by Hypermatière (construction games ; Minecraft game of the neighbourhood ; botanical and social economy resources itineraries) and to exchange ideas on how to facilitate such urban experimentations in cities.
The rooster square demonstrated its capacity to mix populations, cultures, and generations. It proved its function of experimental place at the service of inhabitants. It can be a prototype, giving precious specifications for a potential future public space in the future development of the area. Welcoming international experts, it changed the image of this part of the district, generally barely known even by Saint-Etienne citizens. Now people are convinced that things can happen even there.
The Hypermatière proved its capacity to be a generator of initiatives for the neighbourhood, participating to a larger movement of alternative economy and development, that can be related to the concept of “contributive economy”.
Raymond Vasselon, member of Hypermatière collective, a former architect , explains this collective dynamics in the Cret de Roch neighbourhood :
After the Biennial, the rooster square remained some extra weeks to welcome the kids during the holidays, and then was dismantled. Thanks to the meetings with Detroit designers, Juliana Gotilla, one of the designer of Captain Ludd , participated to an international research-action project led by the Detroit University of Michigan about comparative urban experimentation in Detroit, Saint-Etienne, and Rio de Janeiro. The municipality showed its interest in using the ceramic tiles printed with the spontaneous plants of the neighbourhood in some micro public spaces under renovation. And the local policy makers in charge of the urban and social development of the neighbourhood are thinking about re-elaborating some practices using the experience and expertise of Hypermatière
Still a lot of (hyper)material to work in the coming months and years.
Festivals offer a unique opportunity to test,develop and co-create answers to present-day complex societal challenges. The vibrant energy created by the vast amount of events, audiences and diverse range of international participants, all present during a short period of time, fosters a fertile cross-sectorial ecosystem to generate innovative ideas and concepts.
Belgrade Design Week (BDW) aims to take advantage of these unique momenta to develop the HUMAN CITIES / proposition. We will use its unique appeal of cutting edge international knowledge exchange, networking and career opportunities for professionals on one hand, and on the other hand we will invite partner grassroots projects and individuals to materialize this unique opportunity provided to us by the HUMAN CITIES / project to effectively develop and test new solutions for actual societal challenges, involving local communities and stakeholders in co-creation processes.
Here is a short movie about (second) creative BDW playground for the children of Serbia. Enjoy!
Human Cities / Second creative BDW playground for children of Serbia 2015 from Belgrade Design Week on Vimeo.
School as Service from Eini on Vimeo.
A school of today and the future is more flexible and connected to the society. Old patterns of teaching and learning are replaced with social interaction and learning together.
Reporter and editor: Eini Nyman
Camera: Silja Ylitalo, Eini Nyman
Music: Setuniman @ freesound.org
A playground for children, a water playground and a specially equipped exercising space for teenagers and seniors are adjusted in the zone for these facilities.
They are located in the center of the northern section of the Grand Park. These three micro units are arranged around the perimeter of large, open and sunny walkways, urban picnic areas, and the zone for potential gathering of a larger number of people.
PLAYGROUND FOR TEENAGERS AND SENIORS are located close to the street near the Faculty of Engineering Sciences, as a minor motif and a separate entity. Hidden beneath the canopy of existing plantations of tall vegetation. The playground is equipped with devices that enable the entire complex of activities for seniors and teenagers – such as parkour exercises.
Analyzing the needs of parks users, we found out that many youngsters are improvising their own park our facilities from broken and abandoned equipment around the park. Equally strong we witnessed the park as extended living room used by the tenants of the nearby municipal retirement home. Consciously mixing younger and older citizens, we strive to try and encourage new relationship building with the desire to accomplish better understanding between these two age groups.
WATER SQUARE / PLAYGROUND, as a separate entity, is located in the sunniest section of the park. At the same time it is a sensation in the form of water vapor during most of the year but also a place for refreshment and children’s play in the warm summer days. In the overall landscape of the park, these two sections are designed as a neutral park platform, without the intention to be anything more than what they are.
CHILDREN’S PLAYGROUND is the largest island of the small park archipelago. The size of the playground is determined by the programme emerged through the monitoring of the numbers of children who visit the park and the way they use it. The spatial concept of the first part of the analysis of the Grand Park in Kragujevac was the basis for locating the children’s playground.
The analysis is primarily an experiment about contemporary public space of the city and has served to review the potentials but also to assume the contours of a possible environment in which the playground is located: the modes of walking through the park are on a micro level included in the space of the playground in the form of concentric circles of different themes of movement.
The playground is divided into two parts for different age groups. Materials are selected according to the purpose of this small eco-continent and adjusted to both children and undisturbed life of existing greenery. The choice is characterized by minimal construction intervention and a choice of soft, safe and natural materials. The existing plants in the form of two groups of tall pines are integrated as supporting elements of design playgrounds and large natural shading.
The amorphous form of the playground is adapted to the size and elements of the children and space perception of the parents. The design is focused on a balanced tangle of curves at all levels, built around the edges of the playground with the landscape motif of a small hill with a mild and manageable decline. This motif of fencing and the slight elevation on flat ground is a sculptural intervention similar to land-art, and its main purpose is to highlight the importance of design and territories imagined, as a small geyser of children’s energy is in the green areas of the Grand Park in Kragujevac.
The printed version was launched on 4th May 2018 in Graz, during the event organized by FH JOANNEUM included in the programme of the Festival Design Month.
You can now download it in digital , open access version following this link :
01_human_cities_challenging_the_city_scale_2014-2018_investigation
The book “Investigation” is a collaborative research work, made from more than 80 case studies collected by the partners in Europe. They tell about actions led by creative citizens to transform their urban environment. Researchers from Cité du design Saint-Étienne, the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano and Urban Planning Institute of The Republic of Slovenia Ljubljana provide a state of the art of these initiatives. Analysing these multiple examples, they investigate how urban dwellers participate, get organized and collaborate with creative professionals to prototype more liveable cities.
This scientific work published by Cité du design Saint-Étienne is addressed to researchers, practitioners, but also developers or creative citizens.
It is both an object of Design research and an incentive to develop experimental and collaborative projects of urban transformation.
A second book – addressed to a more general audience – will be released in September 2018 and presented in Tallinn during the Desainiöö festival.
As we were looking for interview partners in the inner city district of Jakomini (start of the experimentation labs in Graz) we met two residents who have been living there since the 1940s. Karl (84) and Adi (77) have known each other since their childhood and have already experienced a lot in their neighbourhood.
Karl has been living in Klosterwiesgasse since 1940. First, he lived there with his mother and three siblings. Eventually, some of them got married and moved out and some have already died. Today, he lives alone in this former family appartment. ʺWell, that’s the course of life, you can’t change thatʺ, says Karl. ʺTwelve people live in the same house. We know each other, we greet each other, but I don’t really know most of the neighbours really well. They get younger and younger and that’s a good thing, but I don’t talk with them as much as I do with old friends and companions.ʺ
ʺThe neighbourhood is really beautiful nowadays, but you always need to lock up the house.ʺ Generally, Karl is an attentive and observing inhabitant of Jakomini. He once witnessed how someone stole a bike from the courtyard. Another time he saw two women and a young man kicking the side mirrors of a car. Karl didn’t hesitate and without further ado he called the police and gave them a detailed description of the three hooligans. ʺThe police found them in a park nearby the same nightʺ, he proudly mentions.
Adi lives just around the corner in Mondscheingasse, he has been living there for 68 years. Today, the night bars close-by are a thorn to his side. ʺYoung people leave the bar in the middle of the night and start to riotʺ, he says. His own car was once wrecked, but the insurance doesn’t pay for these kinds of damages.
He is also troubled by the noise in the streets, but he remembers: ʺWhen we were young, we were rather loud and daring, too. We were infamous in this hood. Elvis Presley was like a God to us, and the Rolling Stones weren’t that bad either.ʺ
With their motorbikes, Karl, Adi and their friends drove through the neighbourhood. Their gang was called the ʺMondscheinmöncheʺ. (engl. Moonlight Monks) They created the name themselves, it should symbolize their childhood and youth in Jakomini. Mondscheingasse and Klosterwiesgasse, that’s where most of them lived at that time and that’s where Karl and Adi still live today. The gang name is derived from the two streets they lived in: ʺMondscheinʺ (moonlight) comes from ʺMondscheingasseʺ and ʺMöncheʺ (monks) from the street name „Klosterwiesgasse“ (Kloster=monastry).
Adi feels nostalgia for his youth. „I always had a good time with my colleagues of the same age at Wielandschule. You don’t experience these things today.ʺ
If Adi could change something in his neighbourhood, he would consider a lot of things, but most of all he would make for more parking spaces nearby. Nevertheless, he is really happy here, as is his old friend Karl.
Authors: Bianca Krammer and Stephanie Heißenberger
The book arrived freshly printed in Ljubljana on 20th April and it will be launched in Graz on 4th May 2018.
After a great work of case studies collection by all the Human Cities partners, a deep process of analysis by Cité du design, Politecnico di Milano and UIRS, and a nice graphic design elaboration by Audrey Templier, the scientific publication of Human Cities-Challenging the City Scale is released.
Its title: Human Cities / Challenging the City Scale 2014-2018 / Investigation
Glimpse of the book, fresh from the print shop in Ljubljana
As cities organizations are facing major urban and technological transformations, European citizens are taking possession of their cities, collaborating or acting for its renewal. Which kind of tools are set up to think and produce the public space together? How to make these bottom-up initiatives sustainable?
This Investigation is a collaborative research work, made from more than 80 case studies collected by the partners in Europe. They tell about actions led by creative citizens to transform their urban environment. Researchers from Cité du design Saint-Étienne, the Department of Design of Politecnico di Milano and Urban Planning Institute of The Republic of Slovenia Ljubljana provide a state of the art of these initiatives. Analysing these multiple examples, they investigate how urban dwellers participate, get organized and collaborate with creative professionals to prototype more liveable cities.
This scientific work published by Cité du design Saint-Étienne is addressed to researchers, practitioners, but also developers or creative citizens.
A large space is dedicated to images, to illustrate concretely this multiple initiatives, all linked by the sense of human scale and collaborative activities.
Our Investigation is both an object of Design research and an incentive to develop experimental and collaborative projects of urban transformation.
The book will be launched on 4th May in Graz for the 10 th festival Design Monat, during the event organized by FH JOANNEUM in presence of all the European partners of the programme. From this day, it will be available in digital version on the Human Cities project website – Case Studies section- and Cité du design Saint-Étienne website – publication section.
This is one of the common productions of the European project Human Cities_Challenging the City Scale . Together the partners will have produced 10 urban experiments in the various partner cities ; an exhibition-lab programmed in the main European Design festivals (next steps: Graz, Design Monat : 4thMay-24th June 2018 and Tallinn, Disainiöö: 10th– 16th September 2018) ; 11 international workshops ; masterclasses ; conferences ; and a final book narrating this experience (released in September 2018).
In September 2018, all the European partners of Human Cities_Challenging the City Scale were invited to present the project in a conference and exhibition Human City Design co-curated by the Cité du design Saint-Etienne, the Seoul Design Foundation and Nagoya UNESCO City of Design.
The aim: initaiting a cooperation network in Asia, inspired by the European project.
Since then, the City of Seoul and Seoul Design Foundation have been committed into promoting the initiatives reflecting the issues of Human Cities. That’s why the Seoul Design Foundation has launched a Human City Design Award 2019 , in partnership with Saint-Etienne and Nagoya UNESCO Cities of Design. This award is meant to be global ; addressed to all the designers in the world involved in projects for more human and sustainable cities.
Theme: Design for Sustainable City for a harmonious relationship between human and the environment
Purpose:
Area: Projects that contribute to a more harmonious and sustainable relationship between people and people, people and society, people and the environment and people and nature
Qualification
Individuals or organizations who have five or more years of experience in design-related field and providing a recommendation letter from nations, local city governments, design-related universities or design-related associations
Award :
Grand Prize Money : 100 000
000 wons (KRW)
* worth à 85 000
US$ or 76 000 € (variable according to the rate of exchange)
Benefit Award and Grand Prize
Dates (Korean Standard Time)
Details of the call, Judging criteria, entry form and FAQ : www.humancitydesignaward.or.kr
Contact : humancity@seouldesign.or.kr
“Re-thinking the contemporary city through the prism of a multi-level network”.This what the UNESCO considered as exemplary for the sustainable development of cities in the case of the project Human Cities_Challenging the City Scale. On 18th October 2016, UNESCO officially launched in Quito its “Global Report, Culture: Urban Future“. A rich (300 p) document gathering case studies and recommendations to support governments in the implementation of cultural policies for sustainable urban development. It means a great acknowledgement for the Human Cities partners and a great encouragement to continue the dialogue between creators, citizens and insititutions to shape the futures of the cities.
Actually, one specificity of our project is that, amongst its 12 partners, 5 of them are from cities members of the UNESCO Creative Cities network : Bilbao, Graz, Helsinki, Ljubljana, and Saint-Etienne. It has been proposed by the leader Cité du design, from Saint-Etienne, when building the project. Involving UNESCO creative cities allows a major international impact of its actions, reaching policy makers and researchers using UN resources. On the other hand, it gives a concrete example of collaboration within this relatively new network of cities established by the UNESCO to to strengthen the development of local cultural industries as a factor of sustainable development.
The selection of Human Cities case studies for this Global Report comes just after its presentation in an exhibition and conference in Ostersund, Sweden, during the General Assembly of UNESCO Creative Network in September 2016. The Cité du design Saint-Etienne proposed the project as a part of a Good Practice exhibition. Josyane Franc, its coordinator, which is also the coordinator for Saint-Etienne UNESCO Creative City of Design presented it on 15th September 2016 to an impressive and multicultural assembly of at least 500 people coming from 116 cities from 54 countries.
Integral UNESCO report: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0024/002459/245999e.pdf
UNESCO Creative Cities Network General Assembly in Ostersund: http://creativegastronomy.com/uccn2016/
An Interview with Frank van Hasselt, CEO of Clear Village London.
Frank van Hasselt is Chief Executive of Clear Village, a London-based charity that helps communities build a better future through creative regeneration. He was a speaker at the Graz symposium “Experimentation Labs Graz – 5 days in Jakomini”.
He talked about the Clear Village charity and how stealing from other cities can be a good thing.
At the moment we are experiencing a boom in city planning. How do you handle human resources, when there is suddenly such a great increase of interest in the field?
People that work on projects like the ones I’m involved in are very flexible and normally do not stay for that long. Since many people volunteer in the field you can’t expect them to stay on your team forever. But that’s completely normal. That is a positive thing though, because you keep a certain flow of new ideas.
Right now you are working at Clear Village. How would you explain the organisation to someone who has never heard of it before?
We try to activate spaces in London that haven’t been used before. That way we want to reach certain social goals. Now since we are a charity organisation, we have an obligation to reach the goals we have set ourselves. On one hand it is about interconnecting spaces, and on the other hand it deals with social issues. If we worked on projects like Jakomini Graz we would prioritise the social components of the district. Things like businesses or public transport would be side issues for Clear Village. Our work definitely revolves around the social aspect.
How would you describe your experience with Human Cities as an urban planner?
Human Cities is really great. Their objectives are similar to ours in many ways. We have been involved with the Human Cities team since a long time. Longer than Graz I think. You get to know international conditions. To be honest I would not have known the context that comes with projects like Jakomini. People have different problems around the world. In England we struggle with disappearing social funds. There is just a small budget for the public domain, especially when it comes to social initiatives. We create alternatives, in case we completely run out of public funding.
Can you name examples of when you have implemented another cities’ methods in London?
We steal almost everything. When looking at topics like self-organising and group activities we think the US is a great example. Their work is very significant in this area. It is funny that we are at the Nothing stops Detroit Exhibition since the city is a big role model in city planning. It is outstanding how much is being done in that city. However, I still find that England is witnessing some very interesting developments at the moment because you can see what happens after an extreme growth in population. It is also fascinating to see what can happen after a complete implosion. London in specific shows how pricing dynamics change through gentrification. Because as soon as you do something locals can appreciate, you can also expect a certain danger of changing prices in an area. We can analyse how people are affected by those changes right now. But since there is nearly no public funding, we have to find a way to do it with little to no money.
Author: Isadora Wallnöfer
Frank van Hasselt is Chief Executive of Clear Village, a London-based charity that helps communities build a better future through creative regeneration. At the Graz symposium “Five Days in Jakomini”-experimentation labs he talks about the Clear Village charity and how stealing from other cities can be a good thing.
At the moment we are experiencing a boom in city planning. How do you handle human resources, when there is suddenly such a great increase of interest in the field?
People that work on projects like the ones I’m involved in are very flexible and normally do not stay for that long. Since many people volunteer in the field you can’t expect them to stay on your team forever. But that’s completely normal. That is a positive thing though, because you keep a certain flow of new ideas.
Right now you are working at Clear Village. How would you explain the organisation to someone who has never heard of it before?
We try to activate spaces in London that haven’t been used before. That way we want to reach certain social goals. Now since we are a charity organisation, we have an obligation to reach the goals we have set ourselves. On one hand it is about interconnecting spaces, and on the other hand it deals with social issues. If we worked on projects like Jakomini Graz we would prioritise the social components of the district. Things like businesses or public transport would be side issues for Clear Village. Our work definitely revolves around the social aspect.
How would you describe your experience with Human Cities as an urban planner?
Human Cities is really great. Their objectives are similar to ours in many ways. We have been involved with the Human Cities team since a long time. Longer than Graz I think. You get to know international conditions. To be honest I would not have known the context that comes with projects like Jakomini. People have different problems around the world. In England we struggle with disappearing social funds. There is just a small budget for the public domain, especially when it comes to social initiatives. We create alternatives, in case we completely run out of public funding.
Can you name examples of when you have implemented another cities’ methods in London?
We steal almost everything. When looking at topics like self-organising and group activities we think the US is a great example. Their work is very significant in this area. It is funny that we are at the Nothing stops Detroit Exhibition since the city is a big role model in city planning. It is outstanding how much is being done in that city. However, I still find that England is witnessing some very interesting developments at the moment because you can see what happens after an extreme growth in population. It is also fascinating to see what can happen after a complete implosion. London in specific shows how pricing dynamics change through gentrification. Because as soon as you do something locals can appreciate, you can also expect a certain danger of changing prices in an area. We can analyse how people are affected by those changes right now. But since there is nearly no public funding, we have to find a way to do it with little to no money.
Human Cities Network, today, shares the purpose of the Toolbox which is one of the most important outcomes of the previous Human Cities festival in 2012/ Reclaiming public space. The Toolbox is a collection of tools or toolkits, developed to let people take action in their cities or neighbourhoods. The Toolbox was conceived under the direction of Politecnico di Milano and Cité du Design and coordinated by Strategic Design Scenarios. Human Cities took the opportunity to interview Francois Jégou of Strategic Design Scenarios to find out more about his strategies and developments of his more recent projects. What we found out was remarkably familiar to the purpose and strategy of the Human City Project today.
This Interview is the result of a brief contact over the phone between Louisa Vermoere and Francois Jégou on Friday 5 February.
Dear Human Citizens, as the finalization of the reconstruction of the Grand creative park of the City of Kragujevac is approaching, we figured it will be useful to introduce you to the concept of participatory urbanism, that was used in the process of construction.
The relationship to the Grand Park in Kragujevac is established through the recognition of the park in terms of other major projects that form the backbone of the city’s development. The park is located next to the future large scale urban renovation zones. The future urbanization of the environment ensures that the city park, an already ambitious gesture of development of urban life in the city of Kragujevac, remains an asset in its original form of a large city park for future generations.
The proposal of reconstruction and development of the Grand City Park is based on new tendencies in the development of city parks. They are reflected primarily in the adaptation of the content to suit the new function of parks in urban life, as well as urban areas of affirmation of culture and social life of the community in which they exist. The Grand City Park concept has emerged from further upgrades of the original ideas of the classic park as an informal ensemble of the English park type in the late nineteenth century. The rich heritage of plants, the preserved organic entity, ambient diversity and meaningful form are considered as the primary values of the proposed concept of the new park in Kragujevac. By preserving these values of the park design concept, the proposal harmonizes the existing matrix of the park with new amenities and heterogeneous, smooth and dynamic movements through the park.
The concept of the park is a proposal of further unification of parts of the park in a clearly defined urban zone. The backbone of this zone is the existing central promenade with its correction in order to provide a more logical linking with the city flows, from the newly established recreation areas in the Šumarice park, towards the city center. The central promenade is up- graded with a perimeter pedestrian flow to the sports center and it connects the central northern part of the park into a single entity. The concept proposes clear boundaries of the park, not so much as regulation lines, but as the boundaries of shapes and forms of the future park, and a future in which the park is recognized as a separate entity and as a unique urban zone. The boundary is an area of low and high vegetation around the perimeter of the park throughout the entire zone. This clearly demarcates the material zone of the park from the urban neighborhood. The material composition of the park is simple: the existing green fund, foot- paths of small stone aggregate and diverse smaller plants and cultures.
The zoning of the Great City Park analyzes several distinct parts: The entrance plateau at the site of the current entrance to the park has been expanded and is set as a mixture of the existing tall vegetation park and a paved square. The proximity of the urban fabric of the city suggests a dynamic urban zone of assembly and socializing amended with a possible exhibition pavilion at the site of the conical park elevation. With this expansion, the building of the Faculty of Natural Sciences with its park-side entrance, becomes the subject of scenography of a wider entrance plateau along the Radoja Domanovića street. In the background of this zone, inside the park, the reconstruction of the existing fountain and the construction of a micro-catering facility are proposed.
For the central section of the park, the proposal includes the correction of primary pedestrian movement in the form of a large arched promenade that connects, in a more natural way, long pedestrian flows through the city. Around the park walkways branches out a section with low and high vegetation, which highlights the smooth arc of the terrain and the architecture of the long stems and tall treetops of black and white pine trees. This impressive park composition provides the ability to form deep and layered perspectives and plains reaching the limits of the park. The promenade through the center of the park proposes a wide path, which allows its size to be used not only as a walkway for pedestrians and cyclists, but as a space for various daytime or night time events. The open-air museum dedicated to the history of the city, set on platforms of modern technology, could be the binding cultural con- tent for the main park path.
The main walkway branches out towards the sports center and to the northern section of the park. A large park square is proposed to be built at the intersection of these paths and the culture zone, which consists of two buildings: one is the “Radnički” boxing club building, which could be reconstructed into the main park pavilion either as a faithful adaptation, or as a new exhibition and hospitality pavilion with the long tradition of sports history; certainly with the inclusion of public toilets. The other building is a parterre park-style solution of a small city stage, equipped for day and night use. At this point, the view towards the northern part of the park opens up through the large sunny grassy meadow towards the activity zone for children, teenagers and the elderly. An initiative has already been taken for the reconstruction of the original floor and the small amphitheater of the basketball court.
The park walkways consist of a special zone of foamy shapes and contours. The matrix of this movement is simple and consists of natural pedestrian flows that connect all parts of the park with the main intersections and pedestrian crossings. The size of all walking paths has been deliberately enhanced in the proposed concept in order to demonstrate more clearly the basic logic of flows through the park as a grid of curved lines. This spongy matrix allows the harmonization of investments, movement and, most importantly, the preservation of the entire green fund of the park, with significant emphasis on special natural micro-units.
The zone with the park picnic area is located between the central and northern sections of the park. It is the largest zone and it is equipped with park furniture and units that provide, in an organized manner, opportunities for urban use of nature and is intended for major outdoor events and gatherings. Areas designated for children, teenagers and elderly people is divided into three smaller sections assembled into one whole. This contemporary concept of the beneficiality of interaction in learning between different generations gathered together is located in the shade around smaller and safe coniferous plantations. The concept proposition also discusses potential difficulties in maintaining the water sensations in the park and as a replacement for this zone suggests the use of more modest water facilities in the form of water vapor emissions.
The northern section of the park has maintained the existing modes of movement between the old routes that include elements of driver training and traffic rules facilities, but it is also complemented with two new facilities. One consists of the formation of urban gardening plantations as a trend of the new vision of the culture of urban resource usage. Other activities are related to the equipment intended for use by the local communities and students of the University of Kragujevac.
As the Grand Park is also a nighttime sensation of the city of Kragujevac, this concept proposal includes specific night light facilities for illuminating two park zones. It is a discrete and minimal form of lighting at ground level combined with occasional illumination of treetops. With joint illumination of these facilities, the park would be only minimally illuminated with necessary emphasis on the park boundaries, in order to emphasize its size, ending with façade lights around the park: from military facilities along the Kragujevačkog Oktobra street, through the Sports Center and the Faculty of Natural Sciences building.
As an ecosystem, the Park is a rare urban tissue of park greenery maintained over one hundred years. The benefits of this heritage, the potential social interactions, the microclimate and emotional aspects that it generates, all contribute to the general perception of this type of architecture as a focus point, around which we can gather our attention, assess our will for a better tomorrow and present it as our contribution to the urban community gathered around the pan-European Human Cities/ project.