Placemaking and Sport - Innovative European solutions

 

Duration: 17 months: August 2023 – January 2025

Location:

The project has a European scope and take place in Denmark, Italy, Malta, France, Spain, Bulgaria

 

Coordinator:

International Sport and Culture Association - ISCA (Denmark)

 

Partners:

• UISP APS, Italy (Pilot city Matera)
• DGI, Denmark (Pilot city Copenhagen)
• MOVE Malta, Malta (Pilot city Zejtun)
• Azur Sport Sante, France (Pilot city Nice)
• DES, Spain (Pilot city Valencia)
• Gehl Architects, Denmark (expert)
• BG Be Active, Bulgaria (expert)

 

Funding body: Co-funded by European Commission under the Pilot Projects & Preparation Actions (PPPA), PPPA-SPORT-2022 GRASSROOTS-INNOVATION Programme

 

SUMMARY

The project proposes a demand-driven approach, where citizens’ needs are listened to and accommodated. It looks at physical activities in a broad sense, and takes the view that sporting organisations should provide for such activities by adapting their offers.

Furthermore, it addresses the challenge of shortage of sport facilities per se by addressing public space more broadly as the venue for sport and physical activity. Using public squares, plazas, parks etc. for physical activity and sport accommodates the need for citizens to be active at the doorstep.

It also meets the growing demand for activities in the (urban) outdoors, as evidenced in the Eurobarometer survey on sport, published September 2022.

Placemaking entails designing simple, innovative and often cost-effective solutions for the way a public space looks (hardware) as well as programmes and activities in that space (software).

The direct target group of the project are the sport and placemaking stakeholders that collaborate to redesign public spaces and activities. These include for instance sport organisations, city representatives, community organisations, placemaking experts and urban designers. 

The ultimate target group of the project are the citizens that make use of the public places that are developed in placemaking processes.

They are therefore comprising citizens from many demographics as placemaking by definition should be inclusive of different target groups around a given public space, and attentive to their different needs.

 

OBJECTIVES

The main objective is to enable sport organisations to rethink their sport and physical activity offers through placemaking.

Strategic objectives:

• To test and demonstrate the value of placemaking for sport through pilot actions in 5 European cities
• To compile an inspirational knowledge- and practice base on placemaking and sport in Europe
• To build capacities in further sport organisations to take up placemaking

 

PROJECT ACTIONS

• Experimentation of the placemaking model in 5 pilot cities
• Creation of a network of stakeholders and citizens and organization of workshops in the 5 pilot cities
• Research on sports/physical activities and the concept of placemaking: practices, lessons learned and models
• Creation of narrative and video documentation of the experimental actions in the 5 pilot cities
• Elaboration of a manual including scientific literature, case studies, policies, lessons learned and approaches to placemaking methodology

 

EXPECTED RESULTS

• Document of analysis of the piloting in the 5 pilot cities
• Citizens’ and stakeholder consultations and vision/design workshops in the 5 pilot cities
• Infrastructure and activity programming and implementation in the 5 pilot cities
• Desk research on sport/physical activity and placemaking: Practices, learnings, and models
• Case studies of the 5 pilots, followed by picture documentation and 5 narrated videos for inspiration
• A review of scientific and grey literature, case studies, policies, networks and collaboration groups, leading to a categorisation of inspirational learnings, and approaches

 

 

News:

 Doc & Outputs:

Website: https://placemaking.isca.org

 

 

For more information: progettazione@uisp.it