Advanced Studies
in Integrated Urban Development 2016 / 17

Overview of the global challenges in Urbanism; recent and emerging trends in urban development; overview of contemporary schools of thoughts in urban planning and design, links and contradictions between them.

Getting to know about data, sensors and dealing with complex and coded datasets. Overview of dynamic infrastructure of a city – movement of people, goods, services, raw materials, food, etc.; visualisation of dynamic stocks and flows movement with GIS technologies usage. Learning about forming new datasets and ways to analyze data; discussion of influence of data analysis techniques on research/ field trip based project's outcomes.

Practicing methods and tools of interdisciplinary research based on a field trip, critical thinking & mapping, participatory planning, storymaking and communication. Developing jointly with the citizens ideas to upgrade the city through a number of urban intervention projects. Introducing the practice of decentralization, post-Socialist urban spaces transformation, decommunization, participatory planning and social realities on the example of Lithuanian experience. Producing a booklet, comprising the most interesting reports on data found during the field trip and a number of reflections, reviews on the interventions implemented during the session, supported with maps, photos and illustrations, which will be publicly presented at the CANactions School in Kyiv.

Brief overview of the relevant design and planning approaches to urban development with a specific emphasis on the social aspects. Social and political challenges for Integrated Urban Development: inequality, segregation, gentrified urban renewal, marginalization of the elderly citizens, post-industrial unemployment aftershocks. Training skills for organizing participatory planning process; discussion of benefits and weaknesses of public involvement

Finding balance between human activities and natural ecosystems: coexistence with nature, leisure, recreation. Natural landscapes, habitats and links between them as an infrastructure for urban planning. Learning about planning incentives for citizens to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Overview of relevant mobility planning strategies and policies. Compact city as a compromise between proximity and density; discussion of adapting the compact city's principles in a post-Soviet urban planning context. Mobility planning for emerging city-regions: goals, tools, indicators

Elaboration in groups graduation projects of integrated urban development for Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr and Poltava. Presentation of results at the CANactions International Architectural Festival.

The district of "Graviton" was founded in the ´70ies as part of the industrial development at the South Eastern fringe of Chernivtsi. Its industrial heart was the rocket factory. Today "Graviton" is a home to ca. 14,000 people. Applying the metaphoric image of a space ship, which just has landed in this heterogenic spatial and functional context of this part of the city would describe best its current appearance. While situated between closed and run down industrial areas, newly constructed low cost shopping centres, a regional bus hub and the airport in the South, as well as romantic "Bukovina" village houses and waste green land to the river Prut in the North (already sparkled with "modern" villas), "Graviton" has fairly kept its unique spatial and architectural identity. However the quarter faces typical challenges of East European transition, from decay of the housing stock, lacking acceptance and care of public spaces, demographic changes, unemployment due to abandoning nearby industries, etc. In addition, "Graviton" is very poorly linked by road infrastructure and public transport to the city (centre). Social and cultural infrastructure is missing or hopeless overcrowded.

Like most of the world's major cities, also Vinnytsia was built around an area of freshwater. The Southern Bug supplied the city with freshwater and goods. Eventually the river worked as its sewage and became polluted. This all created a less-than-idyllic setting and Vinnytsia – like many other cities - turned away from its river and its banks.

The Western part of Vinnytsia with its historic center grew densely towards the river creating an urban riverfront. With the construction of a railway station, the city made a leap over the river towards the East. Today surrounded by city fabric, the Eastern riverbank remained as undeveloped open space / green area.

А complex mix of challenges was a starting point for a CANactions School team focused on the strategic development of a former water tower in Zhytomyr – a middle-size Oblast center located about 131 kilometers to the West of Kyiv. According to the School methodology, the project group has been composed of the participants who represented three Ukrainian cities (Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Mykolaiv) and had various professional backgrounds (an architect, urban planner, project manager, and two economists). In addition, the team united employees of the city administration, urban development agency, and NGO creating a mixture of viewpoints on what the city is. From that perspective, the team was set-up in the same way as one would usually encounter in the real-life conditions of working in the urban development field.

Sometimes life just hits you upside the head with a crowbar and knocks you into a new reality. Such was the case with the Poltava Team and the project for the Poltava Riverfront.

What began as a rather linear educational experience to apply the urban tools and learning introduced during the CANaction's program to a specific spatial context, was unexpectedly transformed into a lesson in the harsh realities of Ukrainian urbanism – black-box, undemocratic decision-making for private gain, by politicians, captured by the business elite.