Description
In Romania, university campuses lack personality and are, usually, perceived only as "bedrooms" for students, without being culturally and urbanistically integrated in the sustainable development plan of the city. The Creative Campus project offers a new perspective on these spaces and proposes students and high school students that live and study in the area to recreate the space through their own concept of urban interventions. After attending the workshops, the beneficiaries will implement the concept in creative activities such as: creating urban furniture, exterior paintings, a mascot for student residences, QR codes for each interventions, marked routes, creating a space for socialization, an application for a bridge over the Dambovita river, regenerating the green space between the students residence. Near the recreated space, the beneficiaries will organize a cultural event for the community. The reconstructed space can be used for future projects that stimulate the residents creativity and their active participation in community development.
Summary of project results
In Romania, university campuses lack personality and are, usually, perceived only as “bedrooms” for students, without being integrated in the sustainable development plan of the city from a cultural and urbanistic point of view. The Creative Campus project offered a new perspective on these common, public spaces. Implemented in Regie neighbourhood (the biggest university campus in Bucharest), the project offered the chance for students and high-school pupils that live and study in the area to recreate the space through their own concept of urban interventions. A study was implemented with the participation of students from the Polytechnic University in Bucharest, as well as high-school students who live or go to schools in the target area. Based on this study, a set of community needs have been established and two themed workshops, for six groups of students, were organised. After attending the workshops, the beneficiaries turned the concepts which emerged from these workshops in creative activities such as: creating urban furniture, developing QR codes for each intervention, creating two spaces for socialising and improving the image of the pedestrian bridge over the Dambovita River, bridge which makes the connection between the student compound and the Polytechnic University’s buildings. The students assumed also the regeneration of green spaces between the students’ residence buildings: they used the urban furniture created within the project activities and turned them into pleasant meeting and socialising areas. Near the recreated space, the beneficiaries organised a cultural event for the community. The reconstructed space can be used for future projects that stimulate the residents’ creativity and their active participation in community development. The most important result of the project was that students learned how to engage in participatory actions which directly influence their life and well-being.
Summary of bilateral results