Planning Horizons - the Hungarian Edition

PLANNING HORIZONS – THE HUNGARIAN EDITION Final project brief for the RTPI and the MUT

Prepared by: Roland Láposi 11-05-2015

PROJECT BRIEF: PLANNING HORIZONS – THE HUNGARIAN EDITION 1. Overview With the Planning Horizons the RTPI took an unique approach to look into future of planning profession by taking a ‘...step back from immediate policy concerns and offer a long term as well as well as global view of planning and the contribution it can make to some of the major challenges we face in the 21st Century.’.

The proposed voluntary project aims to contribute to the international planning knowledge pool available to Hungarian planners and connect them to mainstream research made on planning’s future by translating and publishing online the RTPI’s Planning Horizons series in Hungarian.

The expected outcome is that the online Hungarian edition will see numerous downloads and planners will be more familiar with future issues and global challenges beyond experience gathered in physical planning.

1.1 Project Brief The RTPI, the MUT and the volunteers’ team cooperate to produce a Working (draft) Paper, a ‘Jargon Buster / Zsargonszótár’ and a translated and interpreted Hungarian edition to RTPI’s Planning Horizons – Thinking Spatially booklet through a pilot project. The Hungarian edition will keep the same design, layout and graphic elements as the English original apart from the reviewed Foreword/Introductions page.

The new Hungarian version will be made in ‘pdf’ format and will be published on MUT’s website with allowance for other key institutions to mirror it to promote through their own website and social media channels for reaching wider audience.

The main aim of the project is to produce a high quality Hungarian Edition of Thinking Spatially and in case of welcoming reception by professional audience to pave the way to translate the rest of the series.

1.2 The Pilot As a pilot Thinking Spatially the first part of the Planning Horizons series introducing all topics and themes of unfolded in subsequent parts was chosen by volunteers’ team to see how parties can work together and cooperate in the project, while exploring opportunities of translating the other 4 parts of the series based on reception of Hungarian audience and the effectiveness of group work.

1.3 Project Participants 

RTPI – Royal Institute of Town Planners 1

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Represented by Mr Richard Blyth, Head of Policy and Practice for the RTPI MUT – Hungarian Society for Urban Planning Represented by Mr Ongjerth Richard, Chief Executive for ‘Magyar Urbanisztikai Tudásközpont NKft.’ – the Knowlegde Center of Hungarian Society of Urban Planning, Ms Paksi Adrienn, Communications and ER Officer Ms Szabó Alexandra, Office Manager Volunteers’ team Mr Láposi Roland, urban planner, MSc Real Estate and Planning postgraduate Mr Soóki-Tóth Gábor, urban planner, real estate professional, lecturer, chairman of the Planning & Development Professional Group of the RICS Hungary Mr Zsigmond László, urban planner

1.4 Project Budget Volunteers do work on pro bono basis and raised funds (£100) towards financing any possible charges of graphic design and desktop publishing.

RTPI and MUT have no cost to bear out with their own usual activities in promoting and publishing spatial planning researches.

2. Project details 2.1 Roles and commitments RTPI: copyright owner and author of Planning Horizons -

Appointing a contact person to communicate with MUT about the advancement of the work done; Providing the booklet in editable desktop publishing format to make possible keeping the original design and layout while replacing the texts; Writing a new foreword to Hungarian edition which would be placed next to a newly inserted MUT foreword on the same page;

MUT: project management, quality control and proof reading, promotion and online publishing -

Appointed Ms Szabó Alexandra, Office Manager to oversee the process Appointed Ms Paksi Adrienn, Communications and ER Officer promoting the new edition through its own and its partners’ channels; Appoint a dedicated MUT member proof reader to perform quality checks at the Working Paper and in the final stage before publishing online;

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Online publishing of the Hungarian edition and the Jargon Buster on www.mut.hu under the ‘Knowledgebase/Tudástár’ – ‘Studies/Tanulmányok’ submenu on a dedicated web space with elements required by RTPI; Providing a direct link to the same sub-menu to the original RTPI Planning Horizons series website; Writing a foreword to the Hungarian edition; Providing feedback and project evaluation on pilot to RTPI

Volunteers: translation, interpreting and proof reading, desktop publishing and graphic design -

All team members: Developing a Jargon Buster to explain British spatial planning terms used in the original series used in translation; Mr Láposi Roland : Translating and interpreting of the Thinking Spatially to Hungarian chapter by chapter; Providing feedback on pilot to RTPI; Mr Soóki-Tóth Gábor: Proof reading each translated chapter and the draft Working Paper; Mr Zsigmond László : Desktop publishing and graphic design to replace English text with Hungarian and to edit the individual pages

2.2 Project Phases and Timing Phases The project has four main phases with overlapping activities. Phase 1 is to develop the Jargon Buster and get prepared for Phase 2. Phase 2 is the main translation and proof reading section on a chapter-by-chapter basis; its end product is the draft Working Paper. In Phase 3 the final proof reading of the draft, the desktop publishing and the final proof reading of the Hungarian edition is to be done. Phase 4 will see the media announcements, promotion and online publishing of the Hungarian edition.

Schedule of activities broken down by participants RTPI April Agreement with MUT

May Providing digital publishing format of Thinking Spatially

June Assistance if necessary

July Assistance if necessary; Foreword to Hungarian edition

August Receiving feedbacks on pilot

September Evaluating pilot project; Decision to stop or go forward

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MUT April Agreement with RTPI

May Providing project management framework

June proof reading of chapters

July proof reading of chapters; Foreword to Hungarian edition

August Final proof reading; Sending feedbacks on pilot;

September Final proofreading of Hungarian edition; Promotion and publishing

May Development of the Jargon Buster

June Translation and in-house proof reading of chapters

July Translation and in-house proof reading of chapters

August Producing Working Paper; Sending feedbacks on pilot;

September Producing Hungarian edition; Promotion and publishing

Volunteers April Project proposal and detailed brief to RTPI; preconsultation with MUT

2.3 Quality control To ensure quality translation and the production of a high quality Hungarian edition an inhouse proof reading will be following each of the 4 chapters’ translation (approximately 814 pages / chapter). The fully translated Working Paper will be proof read again by an appointed MUT representative. Only proof read texts will be inserted into the original layout. An experienced volunteer is enlisted to deal with desktop publishing and graphic design editing tasks. Before publishing on MUT website a final quality check will be done on the Hungarian edition.

2.4 Promotion and Publishing Only a web-based online version will be published in ‘pdf’ format which is secure, easy to download, and to read on screen or to be printed by individual user.

MUT will provide a dedicated web spaces for online publishing and promote the Hungarian edition through its channels. A conceptual idea of the dedicated MUT webpage on mut.hu with Planning Horizons sub-menu can be seen in Appendix 1. MUT will also promote the new Hungarian edition through its media partners if possible, and keep contact with other institutions hauled up by volunteers.

A short evaluation on the outreach capabilities of different possible media partners were done prior to the final project brief. The basis of the evaluation was the number of followers of social media sites and where it was published the media audit (usually done with Google Analytics). The counting was made on 5th May 2015.

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While there isn’t any exclusive list for announcements to be placed, volunteers ask for some to be included: -

Epiteszforum (www.epiteszforum.hu) : the leading Hungarian online architectural and urban design dedicated to professional readers with 9279 followers on Facebook;

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HG ( www.hg.hu): a design magazine with dedicated urban design and planning topics has 13434 followers on Facebook;

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Oktogon (www.octagon.hu) : the leading paper printed Hungarian architecture and design magazine with 3110 followers on Facebook;

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MUT’s and MUTK’s own dedicated news section on www.mut.hu and www.mutk.hu ; with 1338 and 559followers respectively and

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MUT’s Mutato blog (www.mut-mutato.blog.hu)

During the project proposal writing period the alumni of the volunteers’ and other key players in urban planning and architecture has been approached. Volunteers received welcoming answers regarding the promotion of the publication of the Planning Horizons from the Science University of Pecs – Department of Urbanism and the Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre.

Built on this experience a follow-up on other key players such as the Budapest University of Technology and Economics – Department of Urban Planning and Design and other main education places would be advantageous and useful as they can provide a vital direct contact to students.

2.5 Follow-Up All parties are will be asked to produce a feedback for RTPI to highlight on their own respective experience during the pilot project to provide to help making decision to go forward or stop to do the rest of the Planning Horizons series.

3. The Hungarian Edition 3.1 Design and Layout The Hungarian edition will keep the original layout, page numbers, chapters and all significant design elements and only replace the existing English text in the main body and descriptions of figures in Hungarian. It will require some editing to keep the layout and get the word count right, but otherwise design won’t be changed. The only exemption of this will be a new Foreword page where RTPI’s and MUT ‘s forewords to Hungarian edition shall be inserted in addition to two brief descriptions of the two organisations. A conceptual idea of the new Hungarian edition’s page order compared to the original can be seen in Appendix 2.

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4. Backgrounds Why a Hungarian edition?

The idea of developing a project aimed to raise awareness of Hungarian planners towards future global challenges and their consequences was inspired by the presentation of Marion Frederiksen at Heriot-Watt University in the spring of 2015.

The idea was debated within the UrbaNEXT group - an informal alliance of young Hungarian planners - and received a warm welcome. UrbaNEXT is a Facebook based spin-off group of the MUT’s Tolna-Baranya chapter, working as a forum where members can debate and dissect everything we like or don’t like in planning practice as well as making others aware of new, enticing studies, researches ect.

The debate and my own experiences while writing my dissertation on a Hungarian case study led to the realisation that there is a huge shortage of available contemporary research on spatial planning issues in Hungarian. The available publications and periodical journals has two further disadvantages for Hungarian readers, they require a very good knowledge of planning jargon in English, and a considerable budget to pay for them, which proves to be too expensive even for universities let alone individuals. At the moment there is no well known think-tank or research centre to fulfil this gap.

Why the RTPI? RTPI’s unique approach of going beyond of the immediate concerns of the British town planning in Planning Horizons and looking into the future globally was one of the most convincing points. The fact that the copyrights are held in one hand and the openness of the RTPI’s representatives to my idea was the other factor which was considered as encouragement to develop the project proposal.

Why the MUT? The MUT was the only Hungarian NGO representing planning professionals which expressed an immediate interest to embrace this initiative and offered to be the host of a possible Hungarian edition in cooperation with RTPI and proposed an opportunity to use its background infrastructure for the project. MUT has a recent strategy for the 2013-2016 periods aiming to prepare the planning profession to renew itself by introducing social, environmental and economical considerations into the otherwise strictly physical and land use oriented Hungarian planning system. It did count that RTPI has also suggested the MUT as partner.

Why volunteering?

The example was set by the RICS Hungary which regularly translates its Red Book to languages of member country chapters involving volunteers with deep understanding of the 6

property industry. On this analogy it seemed to be possible and feasible to work on a voluntary basis, if project management could be placed to a professional organisation with links to planners’ community.

5. Volunteers profile and personal experience Láposi Roland : https://uk.linkedin.com/in/laposiroland contact email: rjl31@hw.ac.uk (till end of June 2015) roland.laposi@gmail.com (in general) Soóki-Tóth Gábor: https://hu.linkedin.com/in/sookitothgabor

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Appendix 1 – Planning Horizons web site concept for MUT

Appendix 2.

Page 2 shows a possible way to insert the introduction of the MUT next to RTPI Page 3 shows the same with Forewords to the Hungarian Edition by RTPI and MUT representatives.