Urban landscapes of care — Thinking and designing child friendly cities
In April 2021 IntuyLab won one of the 7 fundings tendered by the “Global Centre of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability” (https://gcsmus.org/) of the Technical University of Berlin in order to design and execute an Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) focussing on the current urban challenges of Perú in order to share experiences and learnings between the Global North and South community. Beside 6 other academic teams from India, Brazil, Indonesia, Tansania and Nigeria, IntuyLab developed in cooperation with the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF) through it´s programm urban95 and the Design School of the Univeristy of Applied Science Peru (UPC) within 6 months an online course that aims to deepen and resignify the concept of public space as “urban landscapes of care” focussing on early childhood development and what city can provide in order to live in more human environments.
The challenge we are facing in the MOOC
As intuyLab we defined three main challenges the MOOC as an experiential and practise based online learning format is challenging:
01 — Lack of access to inclusive public spaces for young children
Latin American cities are constantly growing due to urbanisation processes, leading to the construction of informal human settlements. In this vulnerable urban context, many children are born and grow up without access to safe, inclusive and stimulating public spaces. Based on the vision of SDG goal #11 to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, the course aim promotes the social inclusion of children and their caregivers in undeveloped urban areas in order to reflect on the issue of social sustainability, social inequality and social exclusion in the urban context of Latin America.
02 — Lack of access to green areas and contact with nature
On the other hand, urban vegetation is at high risk due to climate change and lack of access to water that many cities face. According to the World Health Organisation, a sustainable city should have at least 9 m2 of green area per inhabitant. Lima has an average of 3m2. The lack of contact with the natural environment alienates many people in their treatment of nature itself, the main source of life.
03 — Lack of connection between academia and society
Higher education aims to understand, reflect, criticise and propose new solutions for future development. Schools of architecture are therefore in need of constantly rethinking their role as an urban actor and the way they teach. According to this debate, there is a need for “contextualised” architectural education and an active participation of universities in local urban development that constantly links education with the local urban context. In Peru, there are very few links between academia, university teaching and practice in the field of urban planning, architecture and landscape architecture. Furthermore, there are few educational initiatives that start from the local city as a place of learning. The consequence is that many students and young professionals do not know how to face the urban challenges of Lima.
The concept Urban Landscapes of Care
“…Landscapes of Care are multilayered in that they are shaped by issues of responsibility, ethics and morals, and by the social, emotional, symbolic, physical and material aspects of caring (…).”
C. Milligan — J. Wiles, 2010
The term “urban landscapes of care” helps us to question and rethink the way we want to inhabit our cities, as places where everyone has the opportunity and freedom to enjoy them as well as to take care of the social and environmental balance to maintain it. In this equation the initiative recognises nature as the main ally and therefore we propose an intelligent educational methodology based on personal experience that allows a relationship of mutual concern creating spaces of care, play and dialogue between people.
The course structure & learning methodology
The course is structured in 7 learning modules and includes theoretical inputs (videos, readings, podcasts, case studies) and practical activities (quizzes, practical exercises, discussion topics and peer reviews). In total, the course brings together 25 and 30 hours of educational material and actual work time to complete the course.
By combining theoretical inputs with experiential and practical learning activities, participants explore the city through the eyes of children and will learn about the challenges and needs of early childhood specifically in cities in the Global South. In addition, students learn to apply different social and spatial research strategies, to deepen their understanding of the real needs of the early childhood population and respond through empathetic design and implementation strategies to develop a project proposal for a “Caring Urban Landscape” in their own city during the course.
Although the MOOC takes the Peruvian reality as a reference, similarities can be established with other urban contexts.
The competencies we search to promote within the course
Throughout the course participants will develope the following competencies.
EMPATHY AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: The critical approach, which starts by understanding the city from the own perspective and perception, allows the participants to recognise themselves as part of the city that surround them, both as a citizen and as a professional, and to reflect on their role and responsibilities. Experiencing and witnessing the multiple realities of different urban actors and the importance of nature for children’s development will help to approach an urban development project in a sensitive and inclusive way.
CRITICAL REFLECTION: Through individual and collective moments of reflection within the course forums, course activities, as well as through the practical exercises and real case study, participantes will be constantly confronted with the urban reality that surrounds them and they will be invited to promote a critical discourse and reflection on current urban development in their city and their roles as professional and citizen.
ADAPTABILITY AND FLEXIBILITY: By working with the city as a learning space, participants will be confronted with a dynamic, diverse and moving system that has to be previously studied in order to design innovative strategies that can respond flexibly to the dynamics of the city. Apart our work as urban designers needs to be constantly rethought and adapted to the changing environment. Within the course partipants learn to recognize the uncertainties of the city as a resource and potential instead of as a limitation.
INNOVATION THROUGH DESIGN: Within the MOOC we encourage the participants to recognize “design” as an innovative tool to influence and improve our cities. Community participation within the analysis, design and implementation process is understood as a component that generates sustainability in our work.
EXPRESSION AND COMMUNICATION: Graphic expression and an emotive discourse are recognized in this course as important tools to join different actors within the development of an urban landscape of care in the city. Participantes will learn to apply expression and communication strategies.
Transversal values of the course
Beyond the methodology, the course is based on 4 values that appear in a transversal way. This means that in each module you will encounter the following values
VALUE 1: STARTING FROM REALITY. Many cities in the Global South have peculiar dynamics to organize and build themselves. This situation has led to an enormous deficit in research and theoretical production that documents and gives meaning to these realities. For this reason the exercises, reflections and contents that you will see in this course give priority to observation and solutions that start from the identified needs in the urban reality that surrounds us.
VALUE 2: OBSERVING FROM A MULTIPERSPECTIVE. In order to show the diversity of our cities and to better respond to the challenges they raise, each module is designed to show the perspectives and needs of the different actors involved in the creation of Urban Landscapes of Care, especially the perspective of young children and their caregivers.
VALUE 3: STEPPING OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONE AND CHALLENGING OURSELVES. In all modules of the course you will find challenges and practical exercises that ask you to break out of your comfort zone. The biggest challenge of this course is linked to the task of designing an Urban Landscape of Care in your city, which is sensitively and sustainably integrated into the existing social dynamics without forgetting the active participation of the neighborhood community. In this sense, each module includes one or more practical exercises that will help you to internalize the developed contents. Once solved, they will serve as inputs for the design of your final project of the course.
VALUE 4: MEASURING AND EVALUATING TO ADAPT OUR PROJECTS. To achieve the required level of efficiency and effectiveness, it is essential to obtain, process and analyze data. Therefore, each course module includes one or more measurement activities, which will teach you how to collect the relevant data in an agile and simple way.
Our outlook towards an Open Access MOOC
Currently the MOOC is in the test phase. So far the initiative is open to 40,000 students from the Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas del Perú (UPC). From July 2022, the course is expected to be open to the global audience of Coursera, which has a community of more than 87 million people taking an online course on the platform.
Since than we invite you to check out the Official Trailer of the MOOC!
This MOOC was developed by and thanks to many different people and institutions. We would like to thank #BernardvanLeerFoundation (https://bernardvanleer.org/solutions/urban95/) and #DesignSchoolUPC for the collaboration. The Global Centre of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainabilty (https://gcsmus.org/) and the TU Berlin.
As invited experts we are happy to have lectures included of:
Vanesa Lainez, B.Sc. in linguistics by the Universidad de Granada, Spain. Her professional career focused on the design and management of innovative social projects for the protection and promotion of children’s rights and their families’. Current program coordinator of the Bernard Van Leer Foundation in Peru.
Cristina Dreifuss, Ph.D. in Architecture Theory by the Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Italy. Associate professor and coordinator of research at the Faculty of Architecture, ‘Universidad de Lima’, Peru. Founding member of IntuyLab.
Susana Lopéz, Ph.D. in urbanism by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain. Urban planner and project coordinator at ProLima, Metropolitan Municipalty Lima, researcher and professor at Pontifica Universidad Católica del Peru.
Marianela Castro de la Borda, MA. Architect by the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, United Kingdom. Today researcher and professor at ‘Universidad de Lima’ and ‘Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas’ in Peru, as well as director of FANCYSTUDIOLIMA.
Carlos Javier Vega, architect and general coordinator of the project “Limeños al Bicentenario” and Urban95 program at the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima, Peru.
ANIDARE, represented by Andrea Loyola (B.Arch) and Particia Quevedo (M.Sc. in Social Management). Anidare is a company specialized in spatial design focused on early childhood development.
A special thanks goes to Rosario Vasquez Torres, Nancy Morales Pajuelo, Maria Nole Perez, Andrea Jazmin Javier Goycochea, Asencia Tuanama Tuanama, Liz Real Mozombite — neighbours, strong women and mothers sharing their fears and dreams with us! Thank you for your trust!
#urbanplanning #architecture #design #designeducation #urbandevelopment #earlychildhood #urbanlandscapesofcare
The design and production team: IntuyLab (Hannah Klug, Walter Soto, José Cepero, Kiara Wong, Abel Castelo, Lesly Jimenéz)
Graphic design: Diego Miyasato
Audio-visual Production: Calato Consultorio Creativo
*The MOOC “Urban Landscapes of Care — Thinking and designing child-friendly cities” developed and produced by the Peruvian urban laboratory intuyLab in the context of the Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (GCSMUS) funded by the DAAD with funds from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ).
