Romanian Urbact National Dissemination Point by Asociatia Komunitas

Romanian URBACT National Dissemination Point 2nd Bi-Annual Report 2011

1. Strategic approaches for the conversion of former military sites: Repair Final Conference 2. From knowledge sharing to practice: Construct Week Regional Forum Conference 3. Jan Gehl in Bucharest 4. “Take back your city”: Initiatives for urban education in Romania. A project of the Komunitas Association 5. Back to the roots – A project developed by CeRe – A Resource Center for Public Participation

1. STRATEGIC APPROACHES FOR THE CONVERSION OF FORMER MILITARY SITES: REPAIR FINAL CONFERENCE From June 14th to 17th, Sibiu and Avrig hosted a series of activities that marked the closure of the URBACT REPAIR project – Realising the potential of abandoned military sites as an integrated part of a sustainable urban community. With this occasion, there were organized several workshops, debates, workhouses, site visits, conferences etc., in which there were presented general information and purpose of the project, its principles (the four main pillars of interest), examples of local action strategies and pilot projects for rehabilitation, various recommendations of European policy, examples and good practice advice from partners in the project etc. The REPAIR Project aimed for a clearer evaluation and the revaluation of the potential of abandoned military sites as an integrated part of a sustainable development of the urban communities. REPAIR was an exchange of experience project, that was based on the rehabilitation of abandoned military sites, exploring diverse perspectives for their effective reuse, so that they maximize their contribution to the sustainable development of the objectives. The partners involved in this project have managed a variety of abandoned military sites,

separating them from the bases of the Eastern Europe (some of them strongly affected), to the buildings of cultural heritage in the historic urban centers. The biggest challenge for the involved partners in this project was transforming these sites in sources of economic activities, meant to produce jobs and social cohesion, working in an integrated and sustainable way, through energy efficiency, using resources of renewable energy and sustainable transportation, without polluting. The partners of REPAIR proposed a wide range of reuses of the former military sites. Also, there were identified various perspectives to reuse the results, including using a combination of local, regional and national means, and political and financial instruments of the European Union. The city Avrig was admitted as partner in this project in the autumn of the year 2008, joining ten other European cities. The issue of rehabilitating former military units represents a subject of maximum interest for Romania, given the existence of such former settlement, being decommissioned, located in the administrative territory of several localities. The city Avrig was admitted as partner in this project in the autumn of the year 2008, joining ten other European cities. At Marsa, locality belonging to the city Avrig, worked until a few years ago, several military units, with various specializations. Through the REPAIR Project, the city Avrig benefited of an

European funding with a total value of approximately 55.000 Euros, the money were being used for promoting the former 935 Barrack, studies, expertises, elaborating strategies, local action plans, projects, etc., which could be the start for the chance of “ a new life” for the former military zone.

2. FROM KNOWLEDGE SHARING TO PRACTICE: CONSTRUCT WEEK REGIONAL FORUM CONFERENCES This autumn, under the Regional Forum in Constructions – Construct Week, three Regional Conferences of Urban Planning will take place, addressing issues as Urban Management for a Competitive City (Cluj, Timisoara 16 September and 6 October) and Urban Management for a Tourist Town (Constanta, 28 October). Regional Forum in Construction - Construct Week meets the need of communication between authorities, as policy makers, and officers and, on the other hand, the construction companies in a particular region of the country. The first two such conferences took place in Iasi and Brasov in the first half of this year. In 2011 The Construct Forum Week is focused on three important areas, in the context of regional sustainable development: constructions, architecture and urbanism. The Mission of the Forum Regional Construct Week is to create professional debates that would bring forward subjects of maximum importance and responsibility suh as : antreprenorial management in constructions, romanian architecture : the current state and perspectives, conserving heritage, thermal rehabilitation and “a face lift” of Romania, the quality in constructions and the quality in architecture, policies for architecture, the role of the architect in the urban development, urban planning, urban management for competitive cities, partnerships and urban policies, the city between the center and the periphery, urban regeneration.

3. JAN GEHL IN BUCHAREST On the occasion of translating into Romanian his book "Life between buildings. Uses of public space ", between 7 to 9 June 2011, the well known Danish architect Jan Gehl, the man who changed the urban image of many cities around the whole world was in Romania. Well known for his fruitful activity, in

the area related to creating adequate public spaces, perhaps his greatest accomplishment might be his influence regarding the urban development of Copenhagen, which in the last 50 years, changed from a city choked by cars in a city of cyclists, with people who directly and healthily interact with their living environment. The process was a gradual one, involving numerous studies and direct observations of urban life in an attempt to establish and to adapt projects to the way people use spaces, to their needs and requirements. On the 9th of June the Ministry of Regional Development and Tourism organized a round table with the theme of The Leipzig Charter for European Sustainable Cities creating quality urban spaces – The Man: a new dimension of the city, an event for which the special guest was Jan Gehl. Starting from the four attributes of a quality city in the vision of Gehl, being: vivacity, security, durability and health, the representatives of local and central authorities, together professionals in the area of urbanism and NGOs, have tried to identify instruments through which they can obtain these attributes and foster synergies among other actors involved in this process of former development. Jan Gehl thinks that interventions in an urban space shouldn’t be aggressive, but rather gradual. In the big cities more roads mean more traffic; for example, the dissolution of the suspended roads led to an automatic traffic solution. In addition, people started to travel more with the public transportation. The architect thinks that every urban transformation must be bounded with the environment and its inhabitants. If the situation involves average open spaces, then it can only attract common activities; if the open spaces are of a good quality, they can last longer and attract a large range of optional activities. While many cities from Western Europe have an extensive experience in creating public spaces, few cities from the Eastern part have managed to find approaches in order to implement a culture for creating high-valued public spaces.

4. “TAKE BACK YOUR CITY”: INNITIATIVES FOR URBAN EDUCATION IN ROMANIA. A PROJECT OF THE KOMUNITAS ASSOCIATION The urban education project "Take back your city" takes place in seven high-schools and eight schools in Bucharest. It aims to introduce urban education as a form of activity extracourse or elective course, to lead students to engage as active citizens of the city, able to participate in important decisions on urban development, to guide them in making personal interventions in the public space. The project is part of a broad strategy of development of the association towards urban education addressed to the teenagers and towards promoting participatory urban interventions in public space, according to the idea of making the city more beautiful and actively involving youth. The project is based on interactive methods related to urban anthropology, participatory urban planning and multimedia means (photo-media), which the association has already applied for several years in its projects. The Project Blog : http://educatieurbana.wordpress.com/ Komunitas started as an applied social sciences association, focused on socialanthropological field work, visual anthropology and non-formal education, aiming to create new spaces for positive social interaction, to institute contacts between different social realities, to increase the individuals participation to civic life, to facilitate the access to culture for underprivileged categories, to transcend the social stereotypes, to educate and stimulate young people in order to become responsible citizens. Throughout the years we developed several innovative methods of non-formal education targeting young people from the schools and highschools from Bucharest. One of them is urban education, an innovative interdisciplinary method that brings together elements of urban anthropology, public participation, architecture and urbanism. Komunitas members conceived and tested this method in the last 3 years, through various educational and participative projects.

“Take back the city!” is by far the most complex project of urban education that we developed so far. This project is structured in 2 main steps: Teaching modules of urban education in 8 schools and 7 high-schools from Bucharest; developing 10 urban education clubs and training its young members in video-activism and visuals documentation of urban issues, photography, fund-raising, urban interventions; introducing urban education in school-based curriculum of 10 schools/highschools, in form of extra-class activities. Writing a professional manual of urban education, training 10 teachers in order to be able to use it; organizing a national urban education conference, in order to launch the manual. Between November 2010 and July 2011, we have implemented the first step of this project. Our modules of urban education included presentations in high-schools, on various topics: history of Bucharest as a city, architectural styles, industrial patrimony, street art, public art, urban interventions, relations and use of public space, examples of public participation. For schools, we designed active workshops for kids, structured in 3 main steps: a) I notice, I observe, I learn (stories about Bucharest, children interventions on black and white photography, team work about good and bad things in Bucharest and about ideal cities) b) I analyze and I understand (mental maps and photos realized by pupils) c) I propose and I organize (stickers, drawings and models realized by pupils; one final exhibition). Members of urban education clubs realized documentary films on various urban topics (which can be seen on the project web page – www.educatieurbana.blogspot.com) and active urban interventions, such as organising a public screening of their films, participating at the urban festival “Street Delivery”, building urban furniture from wood, together with students from Landscape Architecture Faculty. Our main conclusion after this first step of the project is that urban education was really well received by children of all ages and that it must become part of the extra-school curriculum in as many educational institutions as possible. Therefore, we are preparing for the second step of the project and also designing the lines of a future project, in which we will promote our manual of urban education at a national level as well as organize trainings for teachers all over the country. The project is consistent with other actions

and initiatives implemented by the Komunitas Association such as „From the Heart of My Neighbourhood (a project of urban intervention in one of the most disadvantaged neighbourhood from Bucharest)” and the project „Our city – Our decision (an „experiment” of participative urbanism)” Reed more about these projects : http://blogs.arte.tv/ferentariact/frontUser.do?method=getHomePage (Ferentari Act) www.orasul-nostru.blogspot.com

5. BACK TO THE ROOTS – A PROJECT DEVELOPED BY CeRe – A RESOURCE CENTER FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Community organization is a long-term process by which people are encouraged to unify under common aims and interests and to develop and implement actions so as to be translated by decision makers in reality. Through this process, the citizens organized in informal action groups, manage to influence the process of public decision making and to produce positive changes in their communities. Community organization is a process consisting of the following 4 steps: systematically surveying the inhabitants of a community with the aim of selecting and prioritizing their problems and needs; identifying solutions and key institutions and persons responsible for translating the actions into practice; involving in permanent dialog with decision makers; Establishing large informal groups able to introduce new challenges on the public agenda. In order to forge the development of community groups in Bucharest able to promote the interests of the community, the Center of Resources for Public Participation has initiated the following actions and processes in 6 neighbourhoods: First, in November 2009 more then 700 interviews had been performed with citizens from different parts of Bucharest as a part of the “systematic surveying step” of the community organization approach. The following neighbourhoods where included into the sample for the interview: Lacul Tei, Favorit (Drumul Taberei), GriviţaTitulescu, Callatis-Drumul Taberei, Maica Domnului, Dristor.

Following the community surveying phase, several meetings with the aim of prioritizing the local problems were established. More then 120 citizens participated to these meetings. As a result of those meetings, the citizens started to be aware of their problems and to take action in order to solve them. For example, in the Favorit neighbourhood citizens succeeded to initiate a process by which the local authority managed to salvage of an abandoned cinema building (Favorit Cinema) and transforming it into a community cultural center. After many petitions submitted, participations to the meetings of the local council as well as public audiences, the municipality of Sector 6 performed a costbenefit analysis aiming to substantiate the decision to rehabilitate the building. The citizens are asking now for a public debate regarding the results of the study. In the Callatis neighbourhood the citizens asked for the rehabilitation of a alley which passed between 2 schools and its transformation into a public space at the for the use of the citizens. Community organization seems to be and adequate approach to foster authentic public participation. For more details about the project please go to : http://www.ce-re.ro/ENG/back-to-thegrassroots There you will also find a 25 minutes film about community organizing in Bucharest. CeRe is a member of the Community Organizing www.communityorganizing.eu

European Network:

URBACT is a European exchange and learning programme

promoting

sustainable

urban

development. It enables cities to work together to develop

solutions

reaffirming

the

key

major role

urban

they

challenges,

play

facing

increasingly complex societal challenges. It helps them to develop pragmatic solutions that are new and sustainable, and that integrate economic, social and environmental dimensions. It enables cities to share good

practices

and

lessons

learned

with

all

professionals involved in urban policy throughout Europe. URBACT is 181 cities, 29 countries, and 5,000 active participants