Three day course in The City at Eye Level: observe, analyse and improve public space KTH, Stipo and The City at Eye Level organize a three day course looking at the processes of self-organization, co-creation and placemaking, and The City at Eye Level, as well as identify relevant actors, their connections and networks. Apart from theoretical input, the course will include practical exercises inside and outside and site visit studies to locations, analysing plazas and streets in Stockholm. We will work on the street level, but also on the level of the strategy for a city as a whole. In an ever more complex urban environment, planning practices are in transition and the role of urban professionals is changing. Governments have fewer financial resources and can no longer sustain the classical, top-down approaches from before. In a networked society, collaboration with and between the different levels of government, the market, the community and the third sector is becoming increasingly important. How can these actors – including you – contribute to making everyone feel “at home” in the city? Stipo (interdisciplary team for urban development) believes that small interventions in public space, also called placemaking, can have big impact, even at a larger scale; and that the City at Eye Level should be a centre focus in the city’s overall strategy at the same time. We want to share our expertise on this subject, both theoretical and practical, with you. At the same time, the course will be enriched by bringing in your experiences as well. Programme outline Wednesday 4 November
• •
Introduction to design thinking and co-creation Placegame: placemaking in practice on a plaza in Stockholm
Thursday 5 November
• •
City at Eye Level workshop: 3 existing streets in Stockholm CaEL workshop: 3 new areas in Stockholm
Friday 6 November
• •
How to set up place-management and street-management City-wide strategy: building a strategy for your whole city
About The City at Eye Level Public space quality is the backbone of a sustainable city. Great streets, places where you intuitively want to stay longer, human scale interaction between buildings and streets, ownership by users, placemaking and good plinths (active ground floors) and a people-centred approach based on the user's experience - that is what The City at Eye Level is all about. We help cities develop these places, in collaborative networks throughout the world. The second edition of our open source book has been developed with an international network 90 co-authors (and it’s still growing), and put together in partnership with the UN Habitat, Future of Places, Project for Public Spaces, Faculty of Planning of the University of Porto Alegre, Copenhagenize and Gehl Architects. With our local and worldwide network partners, we set up strategies for new city development; help change existing streets and districts; organize workshops to co-
create with the local network; set up street coalitions and place management; give lectures and organize training programmes and masterclasses. We would like to invite you to exchange your ideas, insights and best practices via www.facebook.com/thecityateyelevel. Book downloads via www.thecityateyelevel.com. Available in English and Portuguese (and always looking for new translations and new chapters). About Stipo Stipo is a multi-disciplinary office for urban strategy and city development. Its operating area is spatial development and strategy, economic and cultural development, placemaking and public space, urban anthropology, and community planning. We are based in Rotterdam and Amsterdam, work nationally and internationally, are partner to the UN Habitat Future of Places programme, and are affiliated with the international network Inspiring Cities. We work with cities, civic initiatives, private developers, regions, ministries, housing providers, knowledge and innovation centres, and international partners and universities. Stipo stands for Strategy, Innovation, Process development and Open-source. Our core values are the Breathing city and long lasting quality, the Public city and public realm quality; the Soul city with ownership and identity. We work in collaborative networks, in co-creation with partners and co-makers from both the ‘planned city’ and the ‘lived city’. Recent themes are The City at Eye Level, plinths, placemaking, streets and squares as places; the shift from Making to Being a city, collaborative urban development, organic renewal, vacany and temporary use; incubator strategy and innovation districts, smart cities and social enterprise. As a public developer we make ourselves co-responsible to bring new ideas from strategy to implementation. www.stipo.nl www.facebook.com/stipoteam