PROJECT DESCRIPTION LED Landscape Education for Democracy LED (Landscape Education for Democracy): An interdisciplinary, international course unit training conceptual thinking, diversity management and intercultural communication for building leadership competence in spatial planning. The objective of this strategic partnership is to empower younger generations to take a more active role in community-based planning and design processes that are democratically-determined, socially-sustainable and inclusive of diverse populations. Cities are governed by development plans that are often created in a top-down fashion, with minimum public input. Planners and designers need to have a strong understanding of their role and responsibilities in involving stakeholders, and identifying common goals. This awareness and skills set need to be built in at the university level and through practice. According to the European Landscape Convention (ELC) "landscape means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors. This includes outstanding as well as everyday and degraded landscapes". The ELC calls for changes in the way in which public authorities and planning professionals engage with the landscape. It encourages greater citizen engagement and inclusivity in the way we understand, map, represent, and communicate the value of the landscape of our communities to its residents. The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) devotes an entire guidance document to public participation and cites key benefits like increased transparency, increased public awareness, social learning and enhanced knowledge base. Yet, in cities across Europe we see profound obstacles to democratic decision-making. These include: - Displacement of disadvantaged populations by profit-driven redevelopment projects; - Disparities in amount, accessibility and quality of green open space in affluent and poor urban neighborhoods - Disparities in accessibility, quality and quantity of cycling and pedestrian infrastructure in affluent versus poor urban neighborhoods with significant consequences on public health; - Disparities in public and private resources invested in livability, safety, and maintenance of community landscapes. In spite of this, education in democratic decision-making processes and civic engagement is largely absent from the curricula of design and planning schools. Civic literacy must, however, not only be learned but also practiced, and only through collaboration and involvement in collective decision making does one gain and regain in confidence as a democratic citizen. Just like every other skill, the design curriculum should offer opportunities for the practice of participatory democracy as a prerequisite for the training of enlightened design professionals. As a result, landscape architecture and spatial planning pedagogy may be transformed to teach students how to manage the democratic process in their own communities.
In today s world, planning professionals are taking the lead in community-based projects that seek to shift public discourse from decline to renewal and regeneration in many existing communities. These processes are also calling for the integration of our communities collective intelligence with expert knowledge. This requires rethinking design and planning education so that future practitioners will have the knowledge, skills and sensitivities necessary to design and implement democratic decision making in landscape planning. The ability to work with other nationalities in managing landscape challenges at a variety of geographic scales helps strengthen a sense of unified European identity in the next generation of spatial planners. The transnational nature of the project is essential to its success because it offers students and faculty the opportunity to work in international projects in multicultural settings. In spite of the Bologna accords for unifying European higher education, most programs remain locally-grounded. This proposal offers key skills development because different EU countries have different democratic and spatial planning traditions, and planning policy now more than ever crosses national borders. LED proposes a total 15 ECTS study module in the form of a blended learning course for students in environmental planning that combines traditional and virtual learning environments. The Landscape Education for Democracy project will adapt and complement existing learning resources, both national and European, and provide new materials derived from the partners local contexts. The online theoretical portion is followed by practical on-site intensive programmes in each consortium partner s country that involves identifying a set of ecological, social, cultural and other types of challenges in the landscape and formulating solutions for them. The project is designed to identify gaps between theory/legislation and practice, and significantly contribute to building a community of professionals with a deep understanding of democracy and inclusiveness in decision-making on landscape issues. In recent years there have been other projects designed to initiate greater public participation in landscape democracy. Among these are projects designed to facilitate greater regional cooperation in planning processes such as the EUROSCAPES project, which sought to author a bottom up methodology for landscape assessment. An important precedent is the E-Clic (Challenge, Learning, Innovation, Cooperation)project, which aimed at enhancing public knowledge of the European Landscape Convention. This two-year trans-national project encourages schoolage children, university students, and the general public to focus on a number of different landscape issues through competitions, conferences and multiple learning platforms. The LED consortium includes one university that was part of the E-clic team and Corvinus and HfWU Nürtingen served as external evaluators for the project. We propose to build on what E-Clic has accomplished by making active public participation in landscape design and planning processes a more integral part of environmental planning higher education. The project is innovative because: - It promotes cooperation among an interdisciplinary target group of educators, students and young professionals in the fields of urban/landscape planning, architecture, administrative sciences and economics from five different European regions. - The carefully conceived combination of online activities with international project/field work will allow for inclusiveness and address different types of learners depending and at a pace and intensity that are made flexible so that every student can commit at their own pace.
The project aims to conceptualize an innovative combination of virtual and real mobility. The core is an open access course concept composed of video lectures, digital learning materials, virtual classroom sessions and collaborative writing. These online elements are then complemented by local landscape democracy labs and cross-regional/country exchange in the form of international mobility and virtual team work. - LED addresses many critical issues in the job market and helps build missing professional competences that make landscape architects more prepared for the market challenges as well as the new challenges brought on by the EU s increasingly diverse population. Competence for virtual teamwork across national borders, an aspect gaining increased relevance on the global labor market, will be an integral part of the learning activity. - Designing and managing democratic processes and working with English as the common working language are among the other skills that enhance the economic viability of future professionals - The course utilizes - and therefore gives students the opportunity to master - methods and theories typically not taught in spatial planning programs in architecture, landscape architecture or urban planning. These include: Participant Action Research, service learning, participatory design, ecological democracy and ecoliteracy. - The course s virtual component will bring students of diverse backgrounds, nationality and training together for exchange and individualised learning/coaching. In doing so, it will become possible to include a large number of learners. - The virtual components will be organised in an open access mode and allow also participation of learners with limited abilities to attend. Flexibility and openness allow for LED to enhance skills and knowledge in an extremely wide variety of learners, not just full-time environmental planning students. A maximum of 15 ECTS can be achieved with the course which enables students to set a clear emphasis in their studies. On the other hand, learners with limited abilities for full engagement (i.e. private or professional factors) may opt to start with the basic module and continue with the other components as soon as their personal schedule will allow them to do so. ACTIVITY PLAN In relation to the above mentioned program, the person who will follow the progress of the project for Bologna s Unit should be able to - Participate in all the phases of the project (On line meeting, physical international meeting, planning activities) for the whole length of the project itself. - Participate and give lectures on specific topics related to the project general plan during on-line courses - Organize the Bologna s international workshop in Zingonia (june 19-29, 2016) - Organize the scientific program for the international Zingonia workshop adhering to the following main issues. The winner of this Grant, working within the project, should be able to foster
greater awareness of the implications of designing for a democratic landscape; knowledge of tools and methods to operate and become active agents of democratic change in such a landscape. Why Zingonia? The University of Bologna intensive program will focus on the New Town of Zingonia, Italy as a case study. This case study is particularly relevant to the landscape and democracy discussion, because of the place s identity as an unique immigrant enclave. This case study can help us test strategies and representation methodologies to be applied to similar contexts. Intensive program main theme: A) Zingonia as a multiplicity of communities. Citizens of Zingonia belong to many communities operating across many physical landscapes. What is the landscape of each community? Where is each community s identity center? Which kind of geography emerges from the representation of these spaces and centers? Students will learn how to map these spaces and centers and map them for the future. B) Zingonia as a transitional community Zingonia lived the trend of the Italian economy, from industrial era to the actual post-industrial one. Changes in system of industrial production require the re-design or re-purposing of industrial structures areas and infrastructures. Students will help to ignite with citizens and communities this process of conversion. C) A place to study dependences between democracy and quality of urban design The fresco of Buon Governo in Siena (Lorenzetti, 1338) illustrates a parallelism between democracy and the quality of urban design. Thinking about landscape democracy in contemporary cities requires challenging old assumptions. Zingonia s original plan was not the result of a participatory program or democracy. Nevertheless, Zingonia presents a recognizable image that needs to be re-interpreted. Is there a democratic landscape aesthetic for contemporary cities? D) A place to experiment landscape as a narration of community s evolution Zingonia is a 50 year-old New Town. It is a paradigmatic place where to study the binomial relationships between city and history, memory and community. How can the landscape of a New Town represent a community s history, social memories and traditions?
E) A place to re-consider relations between landscape and boundaries Zingonia is neither a town nor a municipality. It is the name of an area that bridges of five different municipalities. In Zingonia, traditional political and administrative boundaries do not correspond. What do these boundaries mean in democratic terms? What constitutes the boundaries of a landscape? Who and how should determine them and how many boundaries/lines of distinction can exist in one place? F) A place to observe relations between a town and its virtual image Today, the identity of many communities and cities are deeply connected (and often disconnected) from their virtual image. What is the relationship between real and virtual landscape? Which tool do citizens have to represent their community and envision its future identity? While the virtual world may help a democracy by giving voice to non-dominant images of the city, we need to become aware of the limitations that the virtual layer can create in the relationship between citizens and a physical space. Activities of the intensive program: Lectures and in-depth analysis regarding Zingonia and themes connected to it. Focus group with community representatives (e.g. public administrators; immigrants groups; religious communities; urban farmers, etc ) Design Interventions aided by professors and tutors and in collaboration with community people. Participants in this intensive program will be asked to creatively represent, understand, document and synthesize/layer information on the physical and non-physical attributes of Zingonia s landscape. Workshop participants will later partner with local stakeholders (administrators, stakeholders, focus groups etc.) to develop a strategic vision for the democratic, adaptable and resilient future public realm of Zingonia.