We are happy to share with you 4 good examples of placemaking. They are from Bulgaria, Spain, Romania and Malta and are 4 stories on piloting placemaking that explain their guidelines and considerations on how to manage the place, who to involve, possible tools/concepts to use. 

Bulgaria 🇧🇬

Driven by the desire to develop activities that will have a long-lasting impact on public places and local communities, as an implementing organisation for Bulgaria, Power Jump has decided to focus on one specific location and local community while implementing the pilot actions of the PARK project. Power Jump has been motivated to do so by the core philosophy of the placemaking approach where they could be the ones initiating change in the environment but it should be based on local community identified needs, their intensive and constant engagement in each and every step of interaction and the process should be leading towards community empowerment and ownership in maintaining and developing their public spaces after the project activities are over. 

Read a full story here: https://park.bgbeactive.org/park-pilot-actions-in-bulgaria/ 

Romania 🇷🇴

The pilot project on placemaking in Romania took place in 3 municipalities – Suceava, Gura Humorului and Oltenita covering 3 different geographical areas. We involved stakeholders from various fields of activity: school teachers, businessmen, representatives of the local community, managers of public institutions. For a better promotion of the concept of placemaking but also to develop a network of stakeholders, partnership building workshops were organised in Bucharest, with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, as well in Oltenita and in Suceava.

Read a full story here: https://park.bgbeactive.org/park-pilot-actions-in-romania/

Spain 🇪🇸

In Spain, the placemaking intervention has been developed in the city of Fuenlabrada. Fuenlabrada, a municipality that was European City of Sport in 2019 and is currently bidding to become European Youth Capital. First two initial stakeholders were identified: A secondary school included at the regional program of promoting physical activity and sport schools, the “IES Carpe Diem”, and a strong association of students very interested in the development of social projects, the Phoenix Association. Both organisations, together with the Municipality, have been excellent local partners for the development of the project in Spain and have provided a very interesting experience using the tool and submitting it to a “stress test” that gave excellent results. 

The placemaking interventions for physical activity were carried out in the Loranca Park in Fuenlabrada, where an initial visit was made to assess the situation and potentiality of the space and, also, interview users and citizens visiting it. This is a successful the new PARK methodology.

Malta 🇲🇹

Driven by a desire of the local community to claim back the streets and revive the long-lost art of healthy social interaction, a pop-up playground was set up in the quaint village of Gharb in Gozo as a PARK pilot intervention to support and inspire long-term change. Street play and habitual physical activity are something of counter-intuitive in Malta, where despite the small size of the island the car seems to have taken precedence, creating a hostile environment for daily exercise such as walking and social interaction. The pilot intervention, therefore, challenged the way citizens look at spaces and find ways on how to address this contemporary issue in a meaningful way. As a result, the intervention helped the local community to understand better the dynamics of the space around them, think of alternative options on how the space can be shared by different users and create a vibrant space that promotes physical activity and healthy social dialogue.   

Read a full story here: https://park.bgbeactive.org/park-pilot-actions-in-malta/