This deliverable has been framed for the objective of collecting and structuring information as a basis for enhanced understanding of how to apply so-called “digital enablers” to support the co-creation process around NBS and healthy corridors in URBiNAT cities, and to draw wider lessons thereof. Despite the opportunities offered by digitalisation, as observed in ambitious plans for the development of smart cities, urban planners continue to struggle in addressing serious outstanding issues, including fragmentation and lack of engagement by disadvantaged groups. Although the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) will not by itself resolve these issues, the constructive application of digital enablers can be greatly helpful. Building on the experience at hand and linking to the evolving experience of URBiNAT cities, this report sets out to cast new light on ways forward in this respect. The audience includes members of the URBiNAT project along with others interested in the project and lessons on how to address the issues at hand.

The objective of the present deliverable is to examine conditions for Digital Enablers in URBiNAT cities, prepare and initiate new use and draw lessons for their continued advancement on terms relevant for the co-creation of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and Healthy Corridors. The title has been slightly adjusted from the Grant Agreement, to appropriately reflect that the advance of these programmes has been subjected to some delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The approach we took in preparing this deliverable was based on the understanding, that the responsible team preparing and organising the participatory design process of the URBINAT project, needed a manual in toolkit format so that the internal dissemination of good practices and agreed tool descriptions could be as effective as possible. Furthermore, it would be the guiding principles and practices of each of the cities in URBiNAT in their participatory design processes. From the beginning, we want to signal that the process will be open to customization, adaptation and parameterization by the local city teams according to their contexts, experiences, knowledge and willingness to experiment / innovate in the way they involve and create commitments with their stakeholders, citizens and other resources engaged in the territory. Prior to gathering an information report, incl. an evaluation of how the participatory design processes are conducted in cities, we understand that it is necessary to present a guide / toolkit describing the general process itself.

The URBiNAT Project was conceived from the outset as a consortium of partners where the institutions (academic, municipal and business partners) will work at different moments in conjunction with the inhabitants of the cities and neighbourhoods where the actions of regeneration and integration will be thought through an innovative and inclusive catalogue of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS). This document contains information relating to the visual identity of the URBiNAT project (fonts, logos, presentation templates, business cards etc.).

This document includes the technical and design specifications for the URBiNAT website.

It is an internal document for use by URBiNAT Consortium Members only.

ABSTRACT: Designed as social space according to CIAM principles in the second half of the 20th century, the open public space in the large housing estates in the periphery of Sofia was transformed for the recent 30 years due to the changing socio-economic, political, and cultural conditions. The broad open spaces have been adapting to the arising societal demands, changing lifestyles and mixed uses by accommodating competing or complementary uses, generating new activities or “waiting” update or re-design. The paper discusses the potential of integrating social dimensions and physical characteristics for sustainable management of open public space in large housing estates. Based on a case study approach developed within on-going research project, the paper summarizes the results from the set of conducted qualitative and quantitative methods, spatial analyses, and participatory activities in the URBiNAT Living Lab in Nadezhda district, Sofia. Urban open space is analysed as territorial asset and through the social practices thus revealing the complexity of overlapping roles, users, and audiences. The perceptions, attitudes, dreams, and aspirations towards public space as well as the motivations and liability to participate are studied from the perspective of pupils, citizens and district administration staff. The research findings outline the need for reinventing urban policy by integrating the right-based approach into all phases of public space lifecycle management, (re)considering traditional property and ownership paradigms, building new frameworks for participation and meeting local institutional efforts and bottom-up movements, establishing dialogue with diversity of actors, and providing flexible design that enables multiple interpretations and uses.

4 – 5 October 2021: URBiNAT researchers from Frontrunner City Sofia (Bulgaria) and Follower City Nova Gorica (Slovenia) introduced URBiNAT themes during the HURBE2021 Conference.

Author(s): Nathalie Nunes, Emma Björner, Knud Erik Hilding-Hamann
Published in: Sustainability, Issue 13(23), 2021, ISSN 2071-1050
Publisher: MDPI Open Access Publishing
DOI: 10.3390/su132313378

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ABSTRACT: Participation and citizen engagement are fundamental elements in urban regeneration and in the deployment of nature-based solutions (NBS) to advance sustainable urban development. Various limitations inherent to participatory processes concerning NBS for inclusive urban regeneration have been addressed, and lessons have been learnt. This paper investigates participation and urban regeneration and focuses on the development of guidelines for citizen engagement and the co-creation of NBS in the H2020 URBiNAT project. The methodology first involves the collection of scientific and practical input on citizen engagement from a variety of stakeholders, such as researchers and practitioners, to constitute a corpus of qualitative data. This input is then systematized into guideline categories and serves as the basis for a deeper analysis with researchers, experts, and practitioners, both inside and outside URBiNAT, and in dialogue with other cases of participatory NBS implementation. The results highlight an ‘ecology of knowledges’ based on a ‘living’ framework, which aims to address the specific needs of various segments of citizens and to match citizen engagement to the participatory cultures of cities. Implications and further research are also discussed, with a special focus on the implementation of NBS. The conclusions broaden the research context to include the refinement of the NBS approach, with participation being seen as both a means and an end.

Author(s): Gonçalo Canto Moniz, Ingrid Andersson, Knud Erik Hilding-Hamann, Américo Mateus, Nathalie Nunes
Published in: Nature-based Solutions for Sustainable Urban Planning. Contemporary Urban Design Thinking, 2022, Page(s) 105-146, ISBN 978-3-030-89524-2
Publisher: Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-89525-9_5

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In recent decades, many city authorities have been implementing strategies for the development of urban regeneration in their central areas. Most of these processes aim to improve the use of public space, and are often to be found in historic areas and waterfronts. The aim of this text is to put forward an alternative urban regeneration plan which focuses on the peripheral areas of cities, areas which were often built as neighbourhoods of social housing, and which now face environmental challenges as well as social and economic ones. To this end, the URBiNAT H2020 project is promoting inclusive urban regeneration that engages citizens and stakeholders in all the stages of the co-creation process. The overall objective is to implement a cluster of human-centred, nature-based solutions (NBS) in order to create Healthy Corridors that bring together both material and immaterial solutions that will impact the environment and the wellbeing of the community. The activation of Living Labs in the seven URBiNAT cities is building a Community of Practice so that knowledge can be shared with project partners, within the cities themselves, and with the public in the wider world. The intermediate results achieved in the pilot case studies validate the overall methodology and are helping us to identify lessons to be learnt and recommendations for the future.

Moniz, G.C., Andersson, I., Hilding-Hamann, K.E., Mateus, A., Nunes, N. (2022). Inclusive Urban Regeneration with Citizens and Stakeholders: From Living Labs to the URBiNAT CoP. In: Mahmoud, I.H., Morello, E., Lemes de Oliveira, F., Geneletti, D. (eds) Nature-based Solutions for Sustainable Urban Planning. Contemporary Urban Design Thinking. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89525-9_5

Author(s): Moniz, Gonçalo Canto Ferreira, Isabel
Published in: Rassegna di Architettura e Urbanistica,, Issue 158, 2019, ISSN 0392-8608
Publisher: Sapienza, University of Rome
DOI: 10.1400/273027

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The European Commission is promoting an inclusive urban regeneration, in the frame of the Smart and Sustainable cities, that should integrate the environmental approach, through the nature-based solutions (nbs), and the social approach, through the co-creation process. More than research projects, the financing programs, as H2020, are supporting innovation actions that move the research from the universities to the communities, creating living labs. These laboratories are holders, municipality technicians, companies and researchers in order to develop together solutions for new urban challenges.

Journal Parcerias Estratégicas - v.25 - n.50 - junho de 2020 - Edição especial

Transformations around modes of production have changed the way citizens, users and consumers are considered and recognized in the processes of cocreation and co-production. However, at the same time that the spaces for networking and sharing are expanding, new challenges arise for co-production and co-government. In development since 2018, the URBiNAT project foresees the implementation of healthy corridors in 3 European cities. In these cities there are active living labs to promote processes of active involvement of citizens in the design and implementation of corridors through the catalogue of nature-based solutions (NBS). This paper aims to focus on the current understanding about participation and knowledge and how they operate at the level of URBiNAT strategies; and reflect on how a European project experience can dialogue with other experiences and contexts such as Brazil. It is an inclusive urban regeneration project centered on people, which tries out new approaches and new combinations of traditional approaches, and as inherent in its nature, prioritizes the specific aspects of its path.

Author(s): Toporkoff, Sylviane
Published in: Innovative Solutions for Creating Sustainable Cities, 2019, Page(s) 61 - 62, ISBN 1527-535932
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

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NBS for inclusive urban regeneration will be co-designed, co-developed and co-implemented in a trans-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder and participatory context. NBS consider the social sciences and humanities which play an essential role for social innovation, and thus addresses complex social and sociological challenges. The expected results of URBiNAT are multiple: it raises EU leadership and creates economic opportunities in global markets (supply and demand) with new products, services, protocols and standards. To ease the development of NBS appropriate measure favouring implementation include leveraging investments, reducing regulatory and administrative barriers, creating new local green jobs and, of course, increasing awareness of the benefits of renaturing cities. URBiNAT will demonstrate that the implementation of NBS is also a source of healthier, culturally diverse, and a greener, regenerated Europe, which may alter currently deprived districts as well as neglected or abandoned areas.

ABSTRACT: Les effets du changement climatique en Afrique subsaharienne commencent à être bien connus, en lien avec la hausse des températures et la modification des précipitations. Ils touchent de nombreux secteurs vitaux tels que l’alimentation, l’eau, la santé. En parallèle, l’urbanisation croissante passée et future, à l’échelle mondiale et africaine, peut accentuer certains de ces effets en milieu urbain, en lien avec la gestion de l’eau et le confort thermique, entre autres. A l’échelle européenne, les solutions fondées sur la nature sont proposées comme stratégie d’adaptation, dans les villes. Elles permettent en effet d’améliorer la gestion des eaux pluviales urbaines et le confort thermique. Elles ont d’autres bénéfices comme la santé, la cohésion sociale, la sécurité, etc. Au travers de trois projets français (VegDUD) et européens (Nature4Cities, URBiNAT), les connaissances dernièrement acquises sur les performances de différentes solutions fondées sur la nature (toitures végétalisées, noues, arbres de rue, façades végétalisées, parcs) vis-à-vis des deux enjeux gestion de l’eau et confort thermique en ville sont présentées.

This report summarizes the key challenges faced by the UACEG team during the implementation of activities in the URBiNAT co-creation process of the Healthy Corridor in Nadezhda district in Sofia. Important links between the healthy corridor plan and the changing planning system in-between two planning and programming periods have been discussed. Possibilities for integration and delimitation between the Plan and higher level planning instruments and between the territorial management instruments at local level are studied. A critical assessment of the possibility to coordinate phases and time frames, aims and thematic focuses, processes and results of URBiNAT project and the existing practices and administrative procedures of Sofia Municipality is made. Recommendations are suggested for improvement of interactions and communication between scientific research and introduction of innovations in spatial planning, as well as capacity building through action research and incremental incorporation of innovations.

The paper discusses the long-term urban planning impacts on the urban morphology and mobility patterns in the large housing estates designed and built at the periphery of Sofia in the period 1960-1990 and undergoing continuous transformations under the changing political, demographic, sociocultural and economic conditions in the country since 1990s. Based on a casestudy-based approach developed within ongoing URBiNAT research project (HORIZON 2020), and applying a set of qualitative as well as quantitative methods, spatial analyses (territorial mapping, behavioural mapping, quality of life survey), and participatory activities (cultural mapping, photovoice and walkthrough), the research undertaken in Nadezhda district, Sofia, outlines major urban challenges of the present day and claims needed changes in the planning approaches for building a healthy and socially inclusive urban environment.

ABSTRACT: The research presented in this paper investigates the development of ``3D printed ceramic green wall'', a technological Nature Based Solution (NBS) aimed at regenerating urban areas by improving spatial quality and sustainability through clean and autonomous energy production. Building upon previous research, the challenge of this system is to adapt additive manufacturing processes of ceramic 3D printing with biophotovoltaic systems while simultaneously developing digital and cyber-physical frameworks to generate site and user responsive design and autonomous solutions that optimize system performance and energy generation.