Stockholm on the Move

New Urban Topologies in Alexandria

Background
Alexandria is one of the major cities on the Mediterranean Sea, and plays an essential role in Egyptian economy and cultural life as the country’s oldest and largest port. The city is a longitudinal city with the highest-class residential areas close to and parallel to the coast. South of this area are the middle-class districts and behind the railway track and south of Mahmoudia Canal are the low-income areas, usually informal. The canal, once a clean canal for fishing and transport, is today contaminated because the lack of maintenance. Nearby are some of the city’s many informal housing areas, multi-story residential buildings erected out of necessity, without permission or design regulations.

"Alexandria has something special. In cities where everything has not been designed and processed in detail, there are many opportunities for an intense dynamic life. I cannot help compare with the present Swedish situation. In our eagerness to plan and structure everything, have we in the process lost what is informal and coincidental, the things that give our cities a soul."
Joachim Granit, creative director Färgfabriken

Different cities, different aspects
The starting point of the New Urban Topologies (NUT) project in Egypt was a reception with a following seminar at the Swedish Institute in Alexandria. At the opening of the seven-hour long seminar, participants from Egypt, Sweden, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Syria listened to and discussed the prospects and challenges of the cities of Alexandria, Amman, Beirut and Stockholm.

The director of the Urban Planning Department, Alexandria Governorate, Tahani Abou Emera, told the participants about the efforts of the city in relocating inhabitants from low-income informal areas to new, often remotely located, residential area, which has proven a difficult challenge. Other main targets for the city are zoning regulations, waste management and strategies to make it more appealing for tourists, she stated.

Regional Planner Cecilia Lindahl from The Office of Regional Planning in Stockholm spoke on the Stockholm Regional Development Plan from 2010 and explained how governance works at the national, local and individual level. She underlined the importance of an elaborate participatory and transparent planning process. 

Principal and Urban Designer and Planner Rowan Attour from the Amman Institute, a non profit organisation owned by the municipality, told the participants about the Amman Plan, under work since 2006. She underlined the need of diversity in housing typologies, affordable plots and public spaces as pedestrian streets and community centers within the urban fabric of Amman.

Senior Lecturer Helena Mattsson from the Royal Academy of Technology in Stockholm explained the structure of the urban planning and architecture programs in Stockholm, among them a critical design studio that uses activism and gender theory as some of their tools. She stated that research is about asking questions, not finding answers.

Architect Ninette Fadel from the Urban Planning Department of the City of Beirut pointed out the importance of having a comprehensive strategic plan that considers the needs of the city and its inhabitants, an asset Beirut has been lacking. She described some of Beirut’s many challenges regarding transportation, overcrowding, a lack of water and a sharp divcision in the city, parting the east from the west. 

Joachim Granit, Creative Director of Färgfabriken said that one must accept that change takes time and that he believed in culture as a social catalyst. He spoke on the main projects of Färgfabriken and the development of the Swedish society, from the 1800s urban slums to 1960s massive housing projects to the segregation of today.

Niklas Svensson, Urban Planning Strategist from The City Planning Office in Stockholm underlined the importance of cooperation between municipalities and a transparent planning process where decisions taken by experts are based on the inhabitants thoughts and participation. He decribed some of the industrial renewal projects in the city and stressed the focus on new strategic nodes outside the city center.

Khaled Kaddal from Gudran for Art and Development in Alexandria described how the organization is using urban spaces to link art with society and how it creates creative meeting places and events in order for the inhabitants to meet and develop their neighborhoods. He highlighted three of Gudran’s projects, one focused on art and community strengthening in a fishing village in the outskirts of the city, the other two located in the city center, developed as cultural exhibition space and a cultural meeting place.

Finally, Assistant Professor Hebattallah Abouelfadl of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Alexandria University, concluded the session together with the seminar speakers. Main issues that she identified within the presentations that also are applicable on Alexandria were: dialog and communication; trust between the government and the people; land ownership; participation; awareness among the city dwellers of the urban systems; the gap between thinking and doing; affordable housing; densification; informal settlements; segregation; educational systems and migration to the cities and the implementation of plans and policies.

After most presentations a number of questions from the audience followed, where the participants discussed issues as the approach to the inhabitants living in informal housing in Alexandria, public transportation in Stockholm, segregation in Beirut, and questions of general character as energy efficiency, land ownership, commercial interests, planning methods, and participation.

Eight sides of Alexandria
The second day, the participants visited a number of areas, places and monuments throughout the city in order to generate a discussion and new thoughts within the group. The route included eight sites, which had been picked by Sameh El Halawany, General Manager of Gudran, and Hebattallah Abouelfadl who hade the role of guiding in the bus. The aim was to show a wide spectrum of what the city of Alexandria is like today. As a result the participants got to see many sites that are normally not included in similar architectural excursions, which usually only show recent profile projects. 

On Saad Zaghoul square, two obelisks of Cleopatra once stood and there an attempt also was made in the year of 1919 to unify the Egyptian people against the British. The Minet El-Bassal District was an important center for cotton manufacturing in the 19th century. Today many of its industrial buildings stand empty, but the area is still a vibrant market area for old goods and could perhaps be renewed. Stanly Bridge is a landmark, inspired by the architecture of the Islamic Period and the first bridge in Egypt to be constructed over the sea. The Chatby-Aflaton Street hosts educational complexes, examples of the revivalism, an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. The new Alexandria Library designed by Norwegian architects with support by Unesco is a contemporary Alexandria landmark of international acclaim. The excavation area of Kom el Dikka accommodates architectural remnants of the Greco-Roman, Arab, the Othman and the modern periods, highlighting the many historical layers of the city. The palace and garden of El Montazah is the former summer residence of Egypt’s sovereigns. Nearby are high-end hotels and beach resorts.

After the sites had been visited, the participants were showed around at Gudran’s cultural center Al-Cabina. The participants were asked to contribute with topics and issues for the workshop the coming day, and some added one or many topics or questions. On the basis of the presentations, the informal discussions that had taken place earlier, the suggested topics, and discussions with the seminar speakers and some other participants Färgfabriken summarized five themes for the coming workshop day. The themes were: Transport and public utilities; Public space; Vision and identity; Participation and communication; Case study: Minet El-Bassal, the Cotton District. A sheet with 84 key sentences was also written, based on the input from the participants. Some of these were: Learning from Tahir: City belonging to the people; Transparent planning processes; Implementation of plans and policies; Women in public space; People-based tourism.

Discussions
The discussion on transport and public utilities spontaneously led to the case of the Qaitbay area near the Cornish as it is a social active district with different social levels, strong local identity and a mental ability to accept changes which could help spread the ideas to the rest of the city. The team members concluded that Alexandria today is very crowded, with traffic jams and poor public transport. They perceived an area with pedestrian streets, an involvement of artists shaping the look of the streets and means of transport, bicycle paths, and green sitting areas.

The group that focused on public space came to discuss the problem in connectivity between the public spaces in Alexandria. The team members furthermore recognized that many of them have semi-public or private character where beaches and parks have been turned into clubs or are charging an entrance fee. Shops and street vendors are also taking up a lot of the public spaces, a trend that has increased since the revolution in February 2011.

The team members that that focused on vision and identity saw a present scattered identity and sought to find a common ground in the description of Alexandria. They identified five areas that characterises the city which could and should be enhanced. Alexandria is a cosmopolitan city with a heritage of cultural institutions, arts and music. It is a coastal city and could be made even cleaner, more accessible and pedestrian friendly with a new fishing port. It is a linear city, why it is important to work against urban sprawl and the segregation of different socioeconomic areas.

The participants who discussed participation and communication saw a gap between the old and the young, the individual and the authorities as well as gender differences and a socioeconomic structure with a lack of dialogue. They also saw a lack of awareness of urban issues and the mechanisms of the planning laws. The team members suggested an increase in public contribution, public debates and artistic interaction. This could happen through community centers, community groups and media channels.

The participants focusing on Minet El-Bassal, the Cotton District, pointed out problematic aspects of the area, among them buildings in decay, an absence of life, and a lack of trust to the society, green areas, and security. However, positive aspects are the location, with closeness to the canal and the port, the beauty of the buildings and the spirit of the local residential and business community. The team recommended a preservation of the identity of the district where it could be developed step by step with the inhabitants and people who work there in mind.

Alexandria revisited
After the project days ended many of the attendants have asked for further collaboration and contact information to the other participants. “This seminar was an eye-opening experience to me. I got to understand where my city stands and what the problems we are facing really are compared to Alexandria. This was an opening to new solutions and new possibilities to how I can help my city” wrote Mai Awawdeh, Media for Development officer at PBYRC, Amman.

Inspired by the results from the workshop, the director of the urban planning department in Alexandria initiated a second meeting for the New Urban Topologies in February 2013. The main focus for the workshop was participatory democracy and communication during planning process. In addition, NUT also initiated a research based on how information, communication and technology (ICT) are able to establish or improve the dialogue between municipalities and its citizens.

By bringing together cultural institutions, international NGO’s, representatives from the city planning offices in Alexandria, Stockholm and Mostar, academic representants, students and other artists, NUT Session II created a valuable interesting conversation in which participants shared knowledge and experience regarding participatory democracy and how ICT-tools can be used in order to establish or empower the dialogue between municipalities and its citizens.

Participants and contributors in Alexandria:

Egypt: Gudran for Art and Development, Alexandria; Alexandria Governorate, Urban Planning Department; Alexandria University, Faculty of Fine Arts, Architecture Department; Pharos University in Alexandria, Faculty of Engineering; The Library of Alexandria; Eskendrella for Culture and Arts, Alexandria; House of Environmental and Architectural Designs (HEADS), Alexandria; Energy Efficiency in the Construction (MED-ENEC), Cairo.

Sweden: Färgfabriken; The Swedish Institute in Alexandria; The City Planning Office in Stockholm; The Office of Regional Planning in Stockholm; The Royal Academy of Technology in Stockholm; The Royal Academy of Art in Stockholm.

Jordan: Amman Institute, Urban Development; Hamzet Wazel Foundation; Jordan University (JUST); Princess Bossima Research Youth Center (PBYRC); Rubicon Holding.

Lebanon: The City of Beirut; Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA); 98Weeks/Project Space; Solidere, Urban Development Division.

Turkey: Istanbul Technical Universit.

Syria: Syria Trust; All Art Now.

New Urban Topologies in Amman

On 8–12 May 2012 Färgfabriken in conjunction with its Jordanian partners Royal Scientific Society, Hamzet Wazel Foundation, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Princess Basma Youth Resource Center, Turath Architecture and Design Consultants and the Swedish Embassy in Amman carried out an extensive program on urban topologies in Amman for city hall representatives, architects, urban planners, academics, students and other interested participants from Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Belarus, Moldova, Macedonia, and Sweden.

The four-day program in Amman contained different methods as field trips, workshops and seminars. The aim of the workshop was to rely on new approaches, urban planning and community engagement to promote transparency and cooperation and expand the range of topics and disciplines related to spatial planning. The participants represented Universities, City Governments and NGO:s from Alexandria, Amman, Beirut, Minsk, Mostar, Skopje and Stockholm.

Getting to know Amman
Amman is going through various urban transformations; planning, migration, economic, social, environmental and political, that are affecting the city’s growth, its urban form and its socio economic dimensions. These aspects are creating a possible spatial risk that could increase social discrepancies and polarization in the city.

A bus tour for the NUT participants was organized going to a number of areas, places and monuments throughout the city in order to generate a discussion and new thoughts within the group. The aim was to show a wide spectrum of what the city of Amman is like today. As a result the participants got to see many sites that are normally not included in similar architectural excursions, which usually only show recent profile projects. The route included twelve sites, picked by the Jordanian partners and presented to the participants in a map. The day started at the large-scale model of Amman located in the information center of Amman City Hall, Ras Al Ein. Urban planner Rima Odeh gave a presentation on Amman and its population growth, the work of Greater Amman Municipality (GAM), and the latest master plan, initiated in 2007 as a response to a former mainly investor driven development. She highlighted GAM’s efforts in enhancing community participation and making Amman a green and pedestrian city at a human scale. During the following discussion the participants wondered about the legal status of the plan and the possibility to actually implement its aims.

After passing some industrial areas, the group reached the second stop of the bus tour, “Decent Housing for Decent Living” in Sahab. A royal initiative for social housing, these areas was described by the guides as “distant islands” that pushes the poorer segments of the society to the outskirts of the city far away from public transportation, social services and commercial activities. The next stop was Princess Basma Youth Resource Center (PBYRC), a center founded in 2002 that aims to promote the active role of youth in the society by encouraging their participation in the development process.

The next site was the Business Park, planned as a military camp but now a business park for computer technology. Here one of the managers of a gaming lab targeted towards young Jordanians held a presentation. Other stops were the Al Hussein Park, the biggest public park in Jordan, the Tabarbour Bus Station that opened in 2007 and accommodates all the transportation lines to the north of the country, Rainbow Street, one of Amman’s early commercial hubs that recently underwent an urban rehabilitation project, making it more pedestrian friendly with more public spaces, and the Zahran Corridor, on of the city’s most important streets.

Furthermore, the participants got to see the Wadi Abdoun Bridge, a landmark and the only cable-stayed bridge in the country, Limitless, a luxury real-estate project put on hold, and the Al-Abdali project, a real-estate project promoted as “the new downtown” with skyscrapers and high-end offices and residential spaces in addition to retail, commercial and other tourist activities.

Discovery Challenge
The second full day, the participants took part in a “Discovery Challenge”, designed as the micro scale complementing the macro scale provided at the bus tour the day before. The participants were divided into groups of four, mostly with three non-Jordanians and one Jordanian. The aim was to introduce the participants to Amman in an unconventional way. Now the groups discovered Amman using public transportation and their feet through a series of clues and challenges. These tasks were set out to reflect the diversity of the city, the opportunities it contains and the challenges it is facing.

During the day, the participants made their own traditional Jordanian lunch, interacted with locals, discovered old and new districts while mapping their services, and tried local arts and crafts, among other things. The last task of the Discovery Challenge was to make kites with the help neighborhood children at a small public space close to the citadel. When finished, participants and children went up to the top of the hill watching the kites flying by the panoramic view of Amman.

The workshop day
The participants gathered in a contemporary public space that was once the major electricity hangar in Amman. Transformed by Rami Daher and his team at Turath Architecture and Design Consultants, the hangar represents a new approach in reusing and preserving urban industrial heritage, a strategy that can be seen worldwide.

At first, Färgfabriken asked the participants to share their experiences and give feedback on the passed two days and suggest themes for the upcoming workshop. The different aspects that were brought up during this discussion were then grouped into five major themes: Transportation and Public Utilities; Public Space; Vision and Identity; Participation and Communication; Segregation and Socioeconomics. The five themes were then discussed at five different tables. At each table were one Jordanian and one non-Jordanian facilitator. The rest of the participants were divided into five groups that rotated during the first hour. When all groups had been at all tables and discussed all themes the groups went to the table where they started and continued working with that theme, now also having the input from all the other participants, in sketches, slogans, and notes gathered by the facilitators. This working method was a development of the original Färgfabriken method in which attendants are placed in different groups where they are mixed according to their professions and nationalities.

Workshop presentation
After the daylong workshop, the non-Jordanian facilitators presented the conclusions and proposals that was the result of the group work. The team focusing on Transportation and Public Utilities concluded that transportation in Amman is a main problem, especially the public transportation network, which they thought should be extended. The group described Amman as city unfriendly for pedestrians and suggested that some streets should be open only for pedestrians, and that others must get better sidewalks and in other ways adjusted with disabled people in mind.

The participants that discussed Public Space saw a great lack of public spaces in Amman where even those sites designated to be used by the public were not utilized in the proper way. The team agreed on that the level of intervention should be done at the small scale. Instead of planning large parks there is a need for grassroots initiatives and public spaces at a human scale that make use of forgotten scars, holes and voids in the urban fabric. The work with creating more public spaces should start with small steps and mapping, the public spaces must be multi-use, which means that they can be utilized for different purposes different times during the day. Only when involving the residents living nearby the new public spaces the process of transformation will be sustainable.

The team members that focused on Vision and Identity stated that the identity of Amman is tightly linked to Jordan’s history of immigration and war. But even though there have also been times of stability and progress, there is no doubt that the diversity among the population has put its mark on the city. The connections between different cultural, religious and ethnic groups are fairly good, and the segregation that exists is rather at an economic scale, where the richer inhabitants live in West Amman and the poorer in the East – the older part of the city. The identity is already present: Amman is a multicultural and diverse city with a spectacular geography and meandering staircases. This must taken into account when forming the image of today and the vision for the future of Amman, the team concluded.

The group that looked into Participation and Communication stressed that the urban development process in Amman is lacking dialogue and transparency. They underlined that the public must have access to public spaces in order to participate in society, but there is also a need to raise awareness through education regarding urban rights and ways to participate. As the public cannot go through with this whole process of transformation in their own, there is a need for engaged non-governmental organizations that can be discussion partners with the government and are strong enough to raise social demands.

The participants who discussed Segregation and Socioeconomics pointed out that these subjects are huge and important topics in Amman, spanning from the lack of green areas to the question to how spatial planning contributes to segregation in the city. The team started with changing the title to Cultural Integration and Socioeconomics, as integration and not segregation must be the aim for the future. Among the topics discussed was the present transit culture in Amman that origin from the vast immigration history. Besides cultural and ethnic segregation, the team identified segregation and divisions in society based on gender, age and disability, where young boys are forbidden to enter shopping malls and disabled people are stigmatized and therefore cannot be seen in the streets.

The group also discussed the gentrification of Rainbow Street. Under the slogan “Reclaim the Gentrification”, the participants stated that it is not bad to improve poor areas per se, but that it is crucial that the original inhabitants have the possibility to stay and are supported in doing so.

Conclusion
One may conclude that the NUT participants that met these days in Amman, all of various backgrounds and from different countries, had a strong desire for a common dialogue and were pleased to meet and exchange experience and knowledge. They also saw a need for greater dialogue between citizens and decision makers and for a greater transparency and room for grassroots action within processes of city planning and urban design.

The non-Jordanian participants stated that they found the Amman academics and officials very well aware of the challenges and problems their city faces. This highlights the need of talking about potentials and strategies, they concluded.

Many participants raised the question of extending, redesigning and creating new public spaces in the city in order to facilitate the interaction between the inhabitants of the city. In many of the presentations and discussions, dialogue and communication was also a great subject matter. The interaction with local Ammanians was highly appreciated by the non-Jordanian participants. Furthermore, the great presence by officials from the City of Amman and national government bodies showed that transparency within the planning process was not only words on a sheet of paper but that those people in power took the NUT message of dialogue seriously.

Participants and contributors in Amman:

Jordan: Royal Scientific Society; Hamzet Wazel Foundation; Jordan University (JUST); Turath Architecture and Design Consultants; Allied Planning & Engineering Corporation; Princess Bossima Research Youth Center (PBYRC); The Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Greater Amman Municipality Committee; Greater Amman Municipality; Al Ghad Newspaper; Consolidated Consultants.

Sweden: Färgfabriken; The Swedish Embassy in Amman; The Swedish Institute in Stockholm; The Swedish Institute in Alexandria; The City Planning Office in Stockholm; The Office of Regional Planning Stockholm; The Royal Academy of Technology in Stockholm.

Egypt: Alexandria Governorate, Urban Planning Department; Gudran for Art and Development, Alexandria; Alexandria University, Faculty of Fine Arts.

Lebanon: The City of Beirut; Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (ALBA).

Belarus: Belarusian National Technical University Architecture department.

Macedonia: University St. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, Faculty of Architecture.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: The City Planning Office in Mostar.

New Urban Topologies in Mostar

On 7–9 November 2012 Färgfabriken in conjunction with its Bosnian and Herzegovinian partners the City of Mostar, University Džemal Bijedić of Mostar, Association of Local Democracy Agencies Mostar and the Sweden Embassy to Bosnia Herzegovina carried out an extensive program on urban topologies in Mostar for city hall representatives, architects, urban planners, academics, students and other interested participants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Macedonia, Latvia, the Netherlands, Egypt, and Sweden.

The main focus of the project New Urban Topologies Mostar was District, a centrally located urban area that presently lacks a master plan. The City of Mostar wanted ideas on this former division line from the participants, and a report was also sent to the City in December 2012.

Background
With the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement, which was signed in 1995, the city of Mostar was divided into six municipalities and District. Three municipalities had mainly a Bosnian Muslim population, three mainly Bosnian Croat population. District served as the division line during the war and was thus the urban quarter where the unification was expected to start. Today, all municipalities but District have master plans which makes the integration of this central narrow urban area into the rest of the city critical. The City of Mostar is now preparing a new master plan for the area to transform it to the new city center for all citizens of Mostar.

The Mostar Case
New Urban Topologies in Mostar had a slightly different structure compared to former project-cities. In relation to the new master plan The City of Mostar asked Färgfabriken and the New Urban Topologies participants to focus on this area. The project has a symbolic value in the sense that it is not only about physical reconstruction but also unification. District has the potential to be a gathering point for all, which could give new meaning to the area and revive the city as a whole. The City named the project ReCode District – Urban DNA for 21st Century and set out five major themes on before hand to highlight different perspectives and needs, formulated as follows:

1) Integration of the District Into the Already Existing Urban Tissue That Surrounds It. As almost all areas surrounding District already have developed master plans it is important to embed and connect District to these.

2) Traffic at the Bulevar Narodne Revolucije. The most frequent road in the city is also an obstacle for District. It would be interesting to see if there can be an alternative solutions for it.

3) Green Transverse. District area is surrounded by a major city park on one side and the Neretva river bank on the other. But in District there are no designed green spots or public spaces, except of the Spanish Square at its border.

4) Social Aspect of District. Twenty years ago this area was a division line between two war sides. Despite all efforts that have been invested into this process there are still traces of the wounds made by war. It would be interesting to hear proposals from someone who comes from abroad. New approaches, new visions and new perspectives for this city area are needed.

5) Local People – What Do They Think About? It would be of a high importance to hear the public opinion, to draw the poll with questions so that during the workshop we can realize what people generally think about District. One of the important elements in our law is to have public hearings during the planning process. Within the workshop it would be important to present the importance of public hearings as well as methods of participatory planning.

Excursion by bus
The starting point of the New Urban Topologies project in Mostar was a dinner in the Old Town where all invited participants got the opportunity to meet and discuss the city of Mostar and share experiences in an informal way. The following day, a bus tour was organized to a number of areas, places and monuments throughout the city and its outskirts in order to generate new thoughts within the group. The aim was to show a wide spectrum of what Mostar is like today but also to inform the participants about the city’s past. 

The first stop of the tour was Podvelezje Hill, a viewpoint at one of the mountainsides overlooking the city. Here the guides told the history of the city and presented its recent urban plans, both pre and post war. They explained how the present political system works in the city, with double governmental institutions on almost every level. The group also discussed the increase of informal settlements the later years and its reasons. Then the participants got to see the university campus, the new sports stadium and a large shopping mall in construction at the border of District.

The guides explained how illegal buildings are legalized in new master plans, and said that in Mostar politics seem to come before planning. The next stop was Bakijina Luka residential area in the outskirts of the city. Here the group discussed potential strategies for having more tourism as well as the present divisions in the city and the aims for unification during postwar times. At the end of the tour the participants got to see the countryside, ending up in the historical village of Blagaj where the discussions continued.

Public seminar
In the afternoon, a public seminar was held with a larger audience of officials, activists and other actors within in the urban field. The session was held at University Džemal Bijedić, in the amphitheater of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. New Urban Topologies project director Thomas Lundh gave an introduction to the program and explained its goal as initiating discussions on urban planning and participation in cities that lacks transparency.

The first speaker was Ljubo Bešlić, mayor of Mostar, who underlined what a complex task urban development is but stated that he has faith in the future and wanted closer collaboration with Europe, which he said the New Urban Topologies project was a proof of.

Bosse Hedberg, Ambassador of Sweden to Bosnia and Herzegovina who stressed the importance of transparency and participation within the planning process and encouraged the audience to enter the New Urban Topologies project with openness and curiosity, even though the political landscape in Mostar is difficult.

Joachim Granit, creative director of Färgfabriken presented some key projects from the center, as I Will Never Talk About the War Again – dealing with the Balkan wars – and Stockholm on the Move – focusing the importance of communication over professional borders and neighboring municipalities within the field of infrastructure.

Bojan Boric, architect and head of the Urban Studio at the Royal Academy of Technology in Stockholm lectured on urban development, comparing cities like Hong Kong, Chisinau, London and Stockholm and underlined the importance of public spaces for a democratic society.

Ulrika Egerö, ecologist at the Stockholm City Planning Office presented the strategic plan of Stockholm and discussed its key focus areas, as environmental awareness, social integration and participation within the planning process.

Pelle Persson, urban planner and counsellor at the Embassy of Sweden in Sarajevo presented the Swedish governmental project SymbioCity which is a conceptual framework for sustainable urban development.

Marina Deronjić, head of the Urban planning department of the City of Mostar presented the structure of the department and some of its present challenges as the new plan of District. Salem Bubalo, director of the Institute for Urban Planning of the City of Mostar thereafter showed how the City maps Mostar in an advanced way with computer programs and shares the data with the citizens. Dženana Dedić, representative of Association of Local Democracy Agencies Mostar, explained how the organization supports local democracy, with training programs and meetings where politicians meet the civil society. The aim is to strengthen communication and to enhance transparency and participation. 

Excursion by foot through the district
The second day, the participants took part in an excursion by foot through District, designed to complement the bus tour. The aim was to introduce the participants to Mostar and District in an unconventional way. The participants were divided into groups of three to five, both Bosnians and foreign participants, and were asked to focus on the themes set out by the City (described earlier in this report).

The five teams also got maps but without much explanations on them so that they could come up with new ideas for the area without being influenced by present plans. The groups walked around for three hours, made planning analyses, conducted interviews with locals, took photos and mapped both well visited and abandoned parts of the area.

Workshop presentation
In the afternoon, the participants gathered in the premises of University Džemal Bijedić of Mostar. Each group was designated to discuss the theme they had focused on during the walking excursion, develop it the way they find appropriate and thereafter come up with concrete suggestions for the future of District and the city of Mostar.

The group that presented Integration of District Into the City stressed that District has been and is still in many ways a barrier in the city of Mostar. However, the area has great potential to become the unifying core. In this process, a substantial effort has to be made to transform it to an integrated part of the surrounding city. It is also important that any changes made are implemented with the citizen’s fully support. District already has many existing meeting points where people socialize, which is a great asset. 

The participants that discussed Bulevar Narodne Revolucije had investigated the future potentials of this historically important road and concluded that it not only has a functional quality that serves automobile traffic or is an infrastructure connection but also could be an integral part of public life. They called their proposal Boulevard of Dreams stating that by making the boulevard more pedestrian friendly and by focusing on the quality of public space, the boulevard could become a stage for social and cultural activities. New nodes, paths and crossings over the boulevard would make it easier to walk from one site or neighborhood to another. By performing these multiple interventions one would create a web of spaces that link public activities throughout the city. The road should be perceived as a connective tissue for future possibilities for the young generation.

The participants that got the topic Green Transverse called their proposal A Green Mindset. They stressed that the vacant plots in District, many fenced in, form barriers. These plots cut off movement patterns and are painful reminders of the past for many of Mostar’s citizens according to the group. But unexploited spaces in such a central location are also a great assets. The same goes for the riverbank – a barrier today but with the potential to be an accessible highly appreciated green space for inhabitants and visitors. In order to gather people from the whole city to District one could initiate a community center for different groups to meet with contemporary art, a theater or similar cultural activities, the team thought. 

The participants that focused on the social aspect of District called their presentation Meeting Points Strategies said that the character of the future public spaces must relate to the needs of people. Starting on a smaller scale, perhaps offering empty lots temporarily to cultural organizations and youth groups, for such things as art pavilions or community gardens, District could become a thriving and highly popular area. In Mostar there is a dynamic street life, and District is no exception. People do want to meet; they just lack enough spaces for it. They advised to transform the large empty areas around District into popular well-designed open spaces used by all citizens of Mostar with the Spanish Square as a model.

The team that had investigated what local people thought of District named their proposal Propeller of Creativity. They declared that a democratic platform for urban development starts with people – individuals, families and local cultural institutions, what we call the civil society. If given the chance, people will find solutions to community problems, they will demand policy changes, raise public awareness and increase participation and in the end create social harmony and a thriving democratic society. Thus, the starting point should be to think small – capture people’s creativity, invest in people, not big development projects that are many times corrupted or stop due to bureaucratic gridlock or lack of funding.

On a micro level, people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds do get along in the city. How can we create a critical mass on a macro scale? The team suggested to use the infrastructure the city already has, the cultural spots that already exist. Small projects are doable, cost less and the civil society can initiate and run them more effectively. In this way, people would take charge of their own destiny; a larger number of people would be involved in forming the future of their city. Once you have this running, new investments will come automatically. And new cultural institutions and events will in turn attract capital and subsequently the propeller will start to move, they concluded.

Conclusions - Think small!
Many participants in NUT-Mostar raised the question of extending, redesigning and creating new public spaces in the city in order to facilitate the interaction between the inhabitants of the city. Here the slogan Think Small! that was coined during the workshop would be a appropriate conclusion as all participants agreed on that Mostar would gain in starting on a smaller scale in order to get things to happen.

Another important subject matter was the way history is present in the city and the urban development. The foreign participants saw a need to strengthen the presence of the pre-war history of the city, and by doing so create a counterweight to the painful history of the war, which still hunts the citizens of Mostar and have a great influence over politics until this day.

Participants and contributors in Mostar:

Bosnia-Herzegovina: City of Mostar ; City of Mostar, Urban Planning Department; City of Mostar, the Institute of Urban Planning; Herzegovina Neretva Canton, the Institute of Urban Planning; Association of Local Democracy Agencies Mostar; University Džemal Bijedić of Mostar, Faculty of Civil Engineering; University Džemal Bijedić of Mostar; University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Architecture; Abart, Youth Cultural Centre Abrašević; Mostar Youth Council; Mostar TV Group.

Sweden: Färgfabriken; The Embassy of Sweden in Sarajevo; The Swedish Institute Baltic Sea Cooperation; The City Planning Office in Stockholm; The Royal Academy of Technology in Stockholm.

Egypt: Gudran for Art and Development, Alexandria.

Macedonia: University St. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, Faculty of Architecture.

Moldova: Center for Contemporary Art in Chisinau.

Latvia: Riga International School of Economics and Business Administration, Faculty of Architecture and Design.

The Netherlands: Delft University of Technology, Department of Urbanism.

The Chișinău and Minsk Experience

In october 2010, Färgfabriken, in conjunction with its Moldovan and Belarusian partners Oberliht and Y ̆ Gallery, conducted extensive programs on urban topologies in the capital cities of Chişinău and Minsk. The participants were municipal administrators, architects, urban planners, and students, among others.

The result and the experience from these two cities are now gathered in the book The Chisinau and Minsk Experience. By making a complex process more accessible though visualizations, proposals, and stories about how each city could develop, we believe that more people will become interested in the future of their societies.

As each city has its own unique conditions, the program and results of NUT will differ from one site to the next. Nevertheless, it turned out that the same kind of overall themes were critical in both Chişinău and Minsk. The five themes that make up the whole of the publication are based on the main concerns expressed in both cities: cities of history, architectural aims, on public space, sustainable infrastrucutre and exchanging ideas. Some of these themes were the basis for workshop groups; others were strongly articulated in discussions and presentations.

The book’s thematic chapters include presentations from seminars, bus excursions, and workshops. In each chapter the reader will also find interviews with participants conducted throughout the span of the visits, as well as shorter freestanding statements and comments on the presentations. The book also includes essays written by contributing authors in retrospect.

Please click the icon down below to download the electronic version of the book. 

 To order the paper version of the book, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..