#v4participation

The PARTAKE exhibition opening was a great success!

The event was held on 6th of June 2019 in the Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre - KÉK in Budapest as a final event of the v4Participation project. The exhibition was opened by Professor Kádár Bálint, director of the Centre and Professor Milica Kostreš, coordinator of v4Participation, who presented the exhibition as well as the results of the project. The event was attended by the representative of the International Visegrad Fund Anna Adamczyk, representatives of the partner institutions, students of the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, as well as students from the University of Technology and Economics in Budapest (BME).

PARTAKE is a showcase of the participatory research done during the summer semester 2019 by the students of the Department of Architecture and Urbanism from the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad. Students were working on three specific assignments related to the spatial issues of Novo naselje neighborhood in Novi Sad, planned and constructed during the period of stable economic growth in the 1970’s and nowadays having a number of concerns ranging from infrastructure problems to the lack of cultural programs. The work was conducted through a participatory process by protection and promotion of the inhabitants’ specific needs, spatial interests and particularities. It was all about PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST – whether it was about possibilities of transforming deprived areas into public spaces filled with new activities or about sharing urban narratives and stories of the inhabitants. Students have used a number of different participatory techniques (unobtrusive observation, surveys, interviews, deep interviews and focus groups) to gather the information from the citizens. By listening and learning from the inhabitants students embraced the concept of a more transparent and democratic planning process that could lead to the creation of lively and dynamic neighborhoods in cities. The initial spatial concepts have been defined during an international workshop in May 2019 and discussed with the people living in the area. 

At the end of the project with this exhibition we wanted to celebrate great results in promoting citizen engagement and integrating this idea into educational practices in a way that would enable future professionals to influence the transformation of traditional methods of urban planning into a more flexible and locally adaptable system.

Here are some photos from the event..

Photos from the event can be found on the facebook page, and here are the links:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.356450361594748&type=1&l=9d10c16dc9

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.356433081596476&type=1&l=b567292c56

After several days spent in Slavonice, Czech Republic, we are happy to announce that the second V4Participation workshop has been a success.

The workshop was organized and coordinated by our partners from ARCHIP (Prague) and the Centre for the Future (Slavonice), as a two-day event, with the main purpose of implementing participatory processes in the educational practice of planning and urban design. At the same time, the topic of the workshop was chosen by local organizations to help them understand the issues related to the quality of living environment which influence people’s choices to stay, leave or come back to Slavonice. The goal was to do the research of the locally embedded factors and come to conclusions that can be further used by local community and institutions to motivate people to stay or come back to the town.

The specific built environment, a small town of Slavonice in Czech Republic, was researched by fourteen students from ARCHIP, Faculty of Life Sciences in Prague, Faculty of Architecture in Prague and Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, mainly analyzing experiences and views gathered from the town's citizens. The students were divided into teams, and focused on unobtrusive observation and interviewing locals with different backgrounds. The town as a whole, being inhabited only by about 2.460 people, was the topic of the analysis.

Slavonice is situated right next to the border between Czech Republic and Austria, and is famous for its deep and tumultuous history, which is still tangible in the town’s cultural landscape and its specific architecture. Slavonice has been at the crossroads of essential international trade routes for thousands of years, and since being rediscovered in the early 1990s it is fast becoming a hotspot for Nature, Culture and Cycling tourism. In 2017 the town won the national award for most valuable Historic Monument. However, the livelihood of the town varies drastically throughout the year, as it is especially inert during the colder parts of the year.

Apart from inhabitants, some of the more notable people interviewed during the workshop were the town mayor, town manager, owner of an electric supply store, a teacher, a person working at the info center, town doctor, a priest etc. Topics discussed were varied, as the aim of the research was to get as wide of a perspective as possible on the state of the town and on factors motivating people to stay or leave, based on the impressions given by the townies. In this regard, some of the more prominent points made were regarding the town’s cultural context, the possibility of expansion, the possibilities of access and linking the town with its surrounding area, employment opportunities, traffic and safety on roads, personal income of citizens, life of the younger inhabitants vs. life of the elderly, the prospects of advancements and prosperity in the future, attitude towards UNESCO etc. taking into account objective and subjective views on these topics.

At the same time, the members of the V4participation consortium had the opportunity to test the new means of cooperation, engage in the learning process and to explore the adaptability of multidisciplinary teams of students to different contexts and working environment related to the participatory action.

Great praise is owed to the members of ARCHIP and the Centre for the Future - Henry Hanson, Peter Kumble, Tomáš Heczko, Miluše Zdražilová and Alexander Stipsits, the hosts of our workshop. The benefit to the event was brought by involvement of lecturers and tutors from project partner institutions: Milica Kostreš, Ranka Medenica, Darko Reba and Rastko Nožinić (Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad/Novi Sad, Serbia), Ana Nešić and Marko Jozić (New Cultural Neighborhood/Novi Sad, Serbia), Tímea Szőke and Mercédesz Jeczkó (Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre KEK/Budapest, Hungary) and Karol Kurnicki (Open territory foundation/Lublin, Poland).

Looking forward to our future events in Novi Sad in the following year!

In the announcement of the upcoming workshop in Slavonice, we are sharing the v4Participation flyer in Serbian and English language, containing the basic information about the project.

After a short summer break, we are back and ready for new achievements! Our participatory machine is already in full motion, and currently we are planning our next big event in Slavonice, Czech Republic. See you soon!

Marko Jozić, one of the founders of the organization Novo kulturno naselje (New Cultural Neighbourhood NGO) from Novi Sad, which is a V4Participation partner, has won the prize in the Youth hero competition organized by Exit foundation. Marko has won the 3rd prize in the field of social activism.  The aim of the competition was to get young heroes in Serbia out of anonymity, to presents them to the public and promote them in order to become an inspiration and a role model for new generations. Congratulations, Marko!

It is our great pleasure to announce that the V4participation project team has successfully conducted first project workshop in Lublin, Poland, organised and coordinated by our project partners, the Open territory foundation and Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, with the support of tutors from Lublin University of Technology.

The workshop was organised as a two-day event with a main aim to explore the possibilities of integrating the concept of participatory processes in the educational practice of planning and design of the built environment. 32 students of architecture, spatial management, landscape planning, art education and art from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and Lublin University of Technology, were divided into multidisciplinary teams and involved in the local participatory action. The fieldwork was conducted within the large urban housing estates of Słowacki and Mickiewicza neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Lublin and was especially focused on the deprived pavilion buildings. Being a constitutive part of the neighbourhood identity, offering services and spaces for gathering and social activities in the past, the pavilions at Słowacki and Mickiewicza districts are today mostly abandoned and neglected, with an unclear perspective related to both ownership and programs. These buildings are currently seen as a burden for local administrations and are mostly not being used anymore by inhabitants, but they hold many decades of history which proved their usefulness. The thematic focus of the workshop was based on the idea of the practical experience of citizen involvement that would in future lead to the definition of more sustainable solutions for the pavilions as gathering communal places. This idea was explored within three specific sub-themes: Market at Wilenska Street (with the focus on architecture and heritage), Pavilions at Balladyny 10 (with the focus on exploring the future scenarios of use) and Social spaces of Mickiewicza Estete (with the focus on exploring the economic viability). Students had the opportunity to engage with local community, talk to inhabitants and get an insight into their memories, associations and habits, as well as their needs and preferences related to future use. This experience provided the students with tools for understanding value, challenges and essential role of public and civic involvement in urban interventions. The conclusions drawn from the work with citizens were presented using PechaKucha presentation format and hopefully will be used further by local stakeholders in the process of defining viable scenarios for future of the pavilions.

At the same time, the members of the V4participation consortium had the opportunity to test the new means of cooperation, engage in the learning process and to explore the adaptability of multidisciplinary teams of students to different contexts and working environment related to the participatory action.

In the end, the workshop was conducted to everyone’s satisfaction: students, tutors and engaged members of the local community. The great praise is owned to the organisers of the events, the Open territory foundation (Paulina Paga, Karol Kurnicki and Rafał Lis), with the generous support of tutors from Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin (Cezary Klimaszewski) and Lublin University of Technology (Hubert Trammer and Marcin Semeniuk). The great benefit to the event was brought by involvement of lecturers and tutors from project partner institutions: Milica Kostreš and Ranka Medenica (Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad/Novi Sad, Serbia), Marko Jozić (New Cultural Neighborhood/Novi Sad, Serbia), Henry Hanson and Lynda Zein (Architectural Institute in Prague ARCHIP/Prague, Czech Republic), Tomáš Heczko (Centre for the Future/Slavonice, Czech Republic) and Eszter Dávida and Tímea Szőke (Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre KEK/Budapest, Hungary).

Looking forward to our next workshop in Slavonice in Czech Republic, in October!

The V4participation project will realize its first workshop which will take place in Lublin (Poland), from 23rd till 26th of April. Local partners from Open territory organization and Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, together with Lublin University of Technology, have prepared the two-day event, which will gather project partners’ representatives, local students, tutors and experts from different disciplines and sectors, dealing with the issue of participatory processes on a local level.

The thematic focus of the workshop is pavilion buildings located in large urban housing estates in Słowacki and Mickiewicza settlement. Despite the fact that they were planned as constitutive parts of the neighbourhood, today they are often neglected, in the state of disrepair, and by many considered obsolete. Their current ownership status and physical condition are precarious. Therefore, the V4participation workshop in Lublin will investigate pavilions as part of a changing landscape of the neighbourhood. The wider issues of socio-spatial transformations of estates will be explored, together with the uses of public and semi-public spaces, the role of public services provision, as well as the matter of ownership and responsibility for common spaces.

Participants of the V4participation workshop in Lublin are students of different disciplines from Marie Curie Skłodowska University - UMSC, local tutors and experts from the UMSC, Lublin University of Technology, Museum of Housing Estates, together with lecturers and tutors from project partner institutions: Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad (Novi Sad, Serbia), New Cultural Neighborhood (Novi Sad Serbia), Architectural Institute in Prague ARCHIP (Prague, Czech Republic), Centre for the Future (Slavonice, Czech Republic), Marie Curie Skłodowska University UMSC (Lublin, Poland), Open Territory Foundation (Lublin, Poland), Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre (Budapest, Hungary).

The workshop will take place at Municipal Startup Space, located at one of the estates, including the on-site work and visit to the examined pavilions and Słowacki and Mickiewicza neighbourhoods.