Recently formed urban territorial communities have launched processes of rethinking the way of life in the city. As a result, people's requirements for the quality of the urban environment have increased. People began to defend their right to good parks and squares, comfortable streets and courtyards, high-quality and affordable housing. The concepts of “comfortable city”, “city for people” have become trends in different regions. Design bureaus of a new type are working on projects for comfortable sustainable urban development and improving the quality of the urban environment. The authorities also reacted to the changes - a large number of urban forums are being held, architectural projects with new approaches are being implemented, and institutes of urban studies are opening.
Against the background of all these events, the method of designing urban areas, which does not take into account the opinion of the end user, his true problems and needs, is not viable. It leads to inefficient use of territories and resources, lack of demand and empty real estate, and an increase in negative sentiments of the population.
Vologda has become an example of building a new model for designing and planning an urban environment, which is based on PARTICIPATION. Participatory design aims to involve residents, city officials, businesses, local communities and activists and other stakeholders in the city's decision-making process. This approach can be applied in various areas of urban management and planning, but one of the most obvious and necessary is the area of design and development of urban areas. Vologda is a small city with a population of just over 300 thousand people, which is characterized by close social ties, and, accordingly, has great potential in implementing this approach as part of an urban strategy.
But a strategy is a long story, while most of the townspeople want to achieve positive changes here and now, and it is very difficult to make large-scale changes in one day, so today we are turning to a simple principle - “Think globally, act locally!”. In other words, we have chosen the form of tactical urbanism as a tool for realizing the big idea of a socially oriented city. It is important to note that with the participatory design of the urban environment, we build communications between residents, government officials, business and local communities at the stage of the inception of an idea. Together with all stakeholders, we program future changes and learn to make decisions that are useful and interesting for everyone. At the same time, it is important to understand that “complicity” is not a collection of wishes, but a decision-making mechanism and the principle of distribution of responsibility and resources in the common interest.
One of the first noticeable changes in the urban environment in Vologda in the mode of joint planning was the social and environmental project "Activation", as a result of which 5 new public spaces appeared. The project was initiated by the young architectural association "AVO!" In the development and implementation of the project, in addition to young architects, students of the Vologda State University, local business communities, and in some objects - the townspeople took part..
The goal of the project was to show the townspeople what modern spaces can be. The "Activation" project has become a notable event on a national scale. Two objects of "Activation" in 2013 were awarded the All-Russian ARCHIWOOD prize in the category "Design of the Urban Environment"
This experience made it possible to draw conclusions about what mechanisms should be used in the formation of public spaces. “Activation” showed that, in addition to architectural design and physical creation of an object, it is necessary to engage in social design from the very beginning, involving all stakeholders, so that new objects are integrated into existing urban life.
Our next object, designed in the mode of complicity, was the Drama Theater stop. The idea of the project was to create a pilot stop project together with public transport users and come to a common understanding of what modern Vologda stops should be like. The Association of Young Architects "Project Group 8" presented this idea at the beginning of 2014 at the Youth Forum "Your City". It is conducted by the GorCOM35 youth center, opened in Vologda by the decision of the head of the city, Evgeny Shulepov. At the end of the forum, the best projects are supported by the Vologda administration. The project was among the winners, and we got the opportunity to bring it to life on the principles of urban partnership, involving residents, the business community and the authorities in the work.
The project of a public transport stop pavilion in Vologda is a social project and a city initiative, the result of research work using participatory design techniques, during which Vologda public transport stops were analyzed, a social and functional scheme of a new stop pavilion was created, taking into account the wishes of public transport users, city authorities, carriers, management of nearby institutions, city activists. A pilot project was developed and one pavilion was built.
The city authorities allocated a stop at the Drama Theater for our project. This is the very center of the city, one of the most crowded places, at the intersection of two busy streets, next to the university. We started with surveys, interviews and project workshops with the participation of all stakeholders. The main wishes of the townspeople were as follows: a large opaque canopy, many seats of different heights, anti-vandal performance, minimization of transparent and fragile surfaces, protection from rain, wind and sun, safety, the use of wood as the main material in order to emphasize local traditions.
The construction of the stop was carried out under the control of the public, people were keenly interested in each stage of the construction of the facility, since they were directly involved in its design. It is important to note that almost a year has passed since the commissioning of the object, during this time there were no manifestations of vandalism at this stop complex, since people perceive it as their own work. At the bus stop, designed and built by common efforts, no one wants to spoil something, which is surprising in comparison with other city stops, which are often vandalized.
In 2015, the stop project was awarded the ARCHIWOOD All-Russian Prize in the Urban Environment Design category.
As noted above, participatory planning can scale to different levels of urban design, and the next important and challenging step was courtyards. For more than 6 years, the city project "Blooming City" has been implemented in Vologda. The goal of the project is to involve residents as much as possible in the process of improving their own yards and urban areas in the summer. The project is carried out on a competitive basis in several nominations. In order to improve the quality of the original landscaping within the framework of the city project, a regular educational program “School of Landscape Design” appeared, in which landscape architects and other specialists in the field of urban landscaping conduct lectures, workshops and seminars.teaching residents the basics of urban landscape design, and we also took part in this project. One of the main tasks of the "School of Landscape Design" was the creation of an effective step-by-step instructions for the transformation of courtyard areas with the participation of residents. An example of this approach was the courtyard on Severnaya Street in Vologda, with which Project Group 8 also worked.
In the project, we studied various Vologda courtyards and identified three main states of city courtyards - "stagnation", "adaptation" and "development". In the event of "stagnation", residents are passive and do not relate to the yard, and the elements of improvement without proper care are gradually destroyed. The process of "adaptation" is the familiar "lebidism", when the inhabitants of the yard sincerely want to transform their territory, but for obvious reasons they cannot do it professionally. This is how “tire swans” and other homemade objects appear in city courtyards. The "development" stage implies an ideal picture when, instead of rubber and tires, really high-quality objects appear in the yards, made with the involvement of residents.
In search of an answer to the question - how to go to "development" together with the townspeople - we came to the conclusion that this requires guidelines - improvement instructions that allow you to gradually develop the courtyard. You can find many sites on the Internet with step-by-step instructions on how to make a swan out of tires, but finding step-by-step instructions on how to make a really good bench is very difficult. Therefore, today the main task of the project is to provide people with an effective and understandable tool for change, which they can use on their own.
Instructions for the improvement of courtyards for residents are being developed in parallel with another strategic project of the Department of Urban Development and Infrastructure of the Vologda City Administration for the development of new standards for integrated improvement of residential areas, which should provide a legal and legal basis for improving the quality of the living environment, identifying the necessary parameters and criteria for integrated improvement. The peculiarity of the new standards is that the document is being developed with the involvement of the professional community - experts from Vologda, Moscow and St. Petersburg, developers, local manufacturers and interested citizens.
Another example of how participatory planning strategies are being implemented in Vologda is the New School program, which was developed in the fall of 2014 at the initiative of the city authorities and contains two main areas - the construction of new schools and the transformation of existing ones. As part of the program, a study of several city schools was conducted, in which about 400 people took part, including teachers, students, their parents and representatives of local communities. The methods that were used in the work included analysis of the current regulatory framework, analysis of the best world and Russian theoretical and practical experience, participatory research and participatory design: design games and project seminars with children, teachers and parents, in-depth interviews with the involvement of teachers and the local community. In the course of our research, we collected more than 500 original wishes about what the new school should be like.
The research resulted in 10 principles of the "New School" and the terms of reference for the design and construction of a new cultural and educational complex along Severnaya Street in Vologda. The modern school is the cultural, social and educational center of the microdistrict. It is a flexible and easily adaptable space for the needs of the educational process. It is an accessible and safe environment for the implementation of inclusive education through architectural and spatial solutions. The new school is an example of combining interior and exterior space, high-quality design solutions, spatial diversity, expressed both in the size and equipment of classrooms, and in the colors, textures and materials used. In such a school, a friendly environment is created for all participants in the educational process, which motivates and stimulates learning. Due to the availability of modern technical resources, the economic efficiency of design solutions and operation is ensured.
The project of the new school is being implemented with the involvement of teachers, students, parents, taking into account the developed 10 principles, which are aimed at effective and local transformation of the school space and the development of the school as a cultural and educational center of the local community.
Participatory design is a relatively new and innovative approach for Russia, which is gradually gaining its popularity primarily in small towns such as Vologda.
In May 2015, the architects of the Vologda Project Group 8 were invited as experts to the USA to the international conference on social design and environmental research EDRA (Environmental Design Research Association). We presented the experience of Russia in participatory design using the example of Vologda. In addition, we managed to establish international cooperation on the topic of participatory design with specialists from the USA, Singapore, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Norway.
The engagement strategy and new mechanisms for making design decisions with the participation of citizens, the business community, city authorities and other stakeholders imply the development of social design tools and the formation of active urban communities, which, in turn, will participate in the life of the city, creating a sustainable social environment. moving from local tasks to more ambitious and global ones.
It will be possible to see with your own eyes examples of complicity and urban partnership in Vologda at the 2nd forum of the best municipal practices “Social innovations. League of the Young”, which will be held in Vologda from 3 to 5 September 2015.
Experts about Vologda:
Svyat Murunov, urbanist, producer, specialist in network models of the city, director of the Institute of Applied Urban Studies:
“Vologda is an example of a systemic process of changing a city through changing social interaction scenarios and reformatting public spaces. And what is not typical for our cities: a dialogue with the authorities has been established in Vologda. This is not a PR process, it is systematic work, it is power."
Nikita Tokarev, Director of the Moscow Architectural School MARSH, Member of the Board of the Union of Moscow Architects:
“A modern city in a market economy is a place of interaction of various forces with sometimes opposing interests: residents, business, government, public organizations and movements. The dominance of only one of these forces leads to the degradation of the city, its loss of vitality and attractiveness for both residents and visitors. If the desire to make money on everything prevails, to squeeze the maximum out of every piece of land, then the city is unfit for life, it loses its inhabitants, life becomes more expensive, the historical environment is destroyed. If there is an overabundance of social programs (this, alas, is not about us), then the city budget becomes scarce, taxes grow, business goes away, and with it jobs. The city, convenient only for the authorities, suffers from bureaucracy and excessive regulation. This means that only in partnership it is possible to solve the complex problems that are posed before us today. And partnership has to learn, neither the Soviet experience, nor the experience of the 90s help us in this. What remains is common sense, the goodwill of all participants and reliance on world practice. Therefore, the Vologda initiative seems to me very promising. For me, as an architect, the key concept here is the environment, it is in the urban space that all our efforts are realized and our dreams of a comfortable and full of life city come true."
To participate in the forum “Social innovations. League of the Young”(Vologda, September 3-5, 2015) all interested persons are invited. You can inform the coordinators of your participation in the forum:
Paneva Larisa Vitalievna 8 (8172) 56-30-59, e-mail: [email protected];
Smirnova Yulia Evgenievna 8 (8172) 72-96-70, e-mail: [email protected]
Forum e-mail: e-mail: [email protected]
