This deliverable 3.1 is the first deliverable of Work package 3 on participatory processes. As such the deliverable identifying the actors involved in participation and the conditions needed for active, positive and ethically sound participation.

Deliverable 3.2 (D3.2) is the second deliverable of work package 3 (WP3) on citizens’ engagement. D3.1, submitted in month 12 of the project, reported on the strategic design, use of participatory solutions and relevant digital tools in support of the uptake of n ature-based solutions ( NBS). D3.2 reports on the advancements of the URBiNAT project in tailoring participatory methods and tools to city cultures for the co-design and co-implementation of NBS processes.

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.

Canto Moniz, Gonçalo &Ferreira, Isabel. Healthy Corridors for Inclusive Urban Regeneration. in Rassegna di Architettura e Urbanistica No. 158, May - August 2019

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.

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.