Placemaking. What if it was not about expensive courses, pricey festival tickets and targeted gentrification mechanisms? What if it was about real people aiming for inclusion, co-creation, placemaking pedagogy & education and youth work, and all of this all free of charge for the end user? What if we could create an eco-system to link placemaking to education and youth work, with a competence framework, Design Labs, a DIY cookbook, Open Badges, and much more where urban professionals, youth workers and youth could actually become competent placemakers? That is what we aimed for with our project Placemaking for Inclusion (PM4I), co-funded by the European Union, allowing us to offer this experience completely free of charge. Two days ago we had the last live activity of this 2-year long adventure. Around 40 interested participants under 30 originating from over 15 different countries joined us on this 5-day Placemaking Lab in Brussels. As hosts, we at Urban Foxes were delighted to welcome them in our (almost ready) new space, home and Urban Lab, TRACK, located in the Brussels North Station. Thereby adding an extra layer in the place-making of our social incubator. From site visits of important Brussels' places and good practices, to the co-creation of courses for the E-learning platform, the testing of tools from our new (and soon freely available) Placemaking for Inclusion Cookbook, and the prototyping of new placemaking tools on the cross-section of education, policy recommendations and creative urbanism.
We ended this rollercoaster with a EU conference with experienced placemakers and panelists. Thank you Eva De Baerdemaeker, Yannick Roels, Ward Cannaerts, Ismael Paez Civico and Christina Tamang Høiseth.
Followed by a closing speech from Minister Benjamin Dalle, who I consider to be a true placemaker because of his concrete actions and support to this cause both in Flanders and Brussels.
I would like to thank all the participants, international and local partners and all the focus groups that have guided us along the way. A special thanks to Dieter Leyssen, Serafina Van Godtsenhoven and the team to get all the logistical things sorted at TRACK and making this happen. A big hug to Dr. Ammalia Podlaszewska and Tamara Gojkovic for all the work related to writing this application, and their friendship and support. And last but definitely not least, the wonderfully talented Laura Fernández Moya for all the amazing work on creating this groundbreaking Placemaking Cookbook that will be available soon on our website urbanfoxes.org and on the project website https://lnkd.in/e7rq2dTe
This is not the end, we're just getting started ;)
CULTURE GOES EUROPE (CGE) - Soziokulturelle Initiative Erfurt e.V. (CGE Erfurt e.V.) Youth for Exchange and Understanding (YEU) Konstantina Chrysostomou (Estel)
Cultureghem VZW Ancienne Belgique - AB
#placemaking #PM4I #urbanism #urbandesign #urbanactivism #urbanpedagogy #creativeurbanism #urbanfoxes
