Empowering communities with participation
[Music]
hello
my name is gonzal fogad i’m an architect
and urbanist
and i’m here to talk about the power of
doing things collectively in the
community
but before we go ahead in this talk i’m
going to ask you
three plane questions first question is
that have you said hello to your
neighbors today
do you like the neighborhood that you
live in
and last but not the least do you have
or had
this really cool idea that could change
your street
your neighborhood or even your city
i’ll bet you did now what if i told you
if that could be so much more than an
idea it can be a real project
and all you have to do is start by
talking with your neighbors about it
i’m going to explain you how did it
happen for us
so while we were still students
at the faculty of architecture in 2011
we were in this mixed feeling situation
on one side
we’re really excited by the new tools
that we were learning about urban
transformation
but on the other side were really
frustrated because all we were doing
with those tools
were nothing but fictional projects so
we created this collective to do
something in a neighborhood across the
street
my favorite neighbor in lisbon and as
you can see
there is my it’s located in a real
privileged location
it’s really near to the national palace
of judah it’s really near
to the judeo universitarian campus and
it’s half walled
with monsanto lisbon’s urban forest
and on top of this you got to see the
best river site seeing over the tigers
and then you have those the first thing
we have did as a collective we just went
to the neighborhood
and we start by asking the people in the
streets in whatever ways could be useful
to them
and soon we have realized that we didn’t
have the resources to solve all the
problems
but we have not given up we had it back
to the university
and we have challenged our teachers and
the institution itself to do something
on the neighborhood
and that’s when we got to learn this
real life lesson then
diagnosing is also a tool of
intervention
and once again with university the
community and our newborn collective
we have um draw this uh urban report
about the the territory
a lot more about the neighborhood itself
not only the physical plot
but its history and how deeply connected
it was with the portuguese revolution
i’ll explain you know this neighborhood
it was meant to
those houses what was meant to be
attributed to the former regime’s
employee
a dictatorial one but then something had
magical has happened in portugal in 25
of april
of 1974 it was a carnation revolution
and the people who were living in the
surrounding areas of these under
construction
building neighborhoods they were
compelled by the these revolution values
of right to the housing and better life
conditions to everyone
and they’ve organized themselves in
order to occupy those houses
and not only occupied because they have
finished the houses with their own
resources
now knowing a lot more about the
neighborhood based on this urban report
based on our countless perceptions and
mostly on the endless conversations we
we had with the community we drew up
this uh
local action plan this time with more
funds with more resources by the way we
were being funded by the municipality
program bipzip
which funded local initiatives so
our first principle of of activity
it was to empower people by giving them
tools and the first thing that we have
done
it was to rehabilitate this uh whole
basement it was an open door process
where we invited association companies
informal groups
universities public power citizens you
name it who wanted to be
in that process were more than welcome
one of the most emotional parts
of this uh of this project is that the
ones who had been
children on that on that old basement
were helping uh
as now as parents and that has mobilized
a lot of people in the community to do
something
although this was a real participated
project i must stand out one stakeholder
in particular
which were the kids the kids were there
from the day one and they have done it
all
since breaking down walls guarding the
materials thinking about
what that space could be and due to that
they claim that space for their own even
nowadays
and the space sits quite like this if
you want to be part of a collective
decision
or an improvement process in the
neighborhood
that’s the place you’ve got to go to the
next one i’ll bring you
it’s building communities with urban
gardens and
while we were still doing casa pratoj um
this new opportunity for us to use our
toolbox as architects
has popped up but this time on public
space
and there was this small tension
between the municipality and the
residents on one side the municipality
wanted to reconfigurate the urban
gardens but on the other side
the inhabitants didn’t want to wreck
their gardens down
so our role on this one more than doing
any kind of architectural procedure
it was more of a mediators and we have
three steps planned the first step it
was to re-engage
that local group as a community again
they were no longer a community
the second one was to show the different
kinds of gardens and the different kinds
of
agriculture and permaculture techniques
that they could be using on their
gardens in order to improve the crops
and only by fulfilling these two steps
we would go for the architectural
procedure
so we have done these seminars where we
have invited
other agricultures and permaculturists
from outside lisbon
in order to change it to ex to share
experiences with the urban farmers from
the neighborhoods
then we have done these workshops of how
to do it
how to do the your own composer and
to sign a landmark in the community we
have built this
aromatic spiral in order to to celebrate
that they were no longer a group they
were a community back again
and then we have advanced for the
the architectural procedures and the
collaborative planning things
it was quite easy to do this part
because all of the other
steps were were taken and by telling you
this
i’m not saying that this was an easy or
a soft process
it wasn’t it took us almost two years to
make
all of this happen but nowadays it’s
quite like this
you can see a lot of people uh on the on
the gardens because this picture was
taken in the afternoon
and these people really go hurly to
their to their to their garden
but fortunately that working in
community isn’t just about architecture
in
urban planning you know party takes a
huge role on this
in fact party is identity and when we
started
planning and co-designing and
co-producing fedor dugal roosters fair
we felt the community suppose
differently on this they were more
engaged than the usual
and this may happen due to
two reasons the first one is that we
were bringing back
an old tradition of making this party
the older ones knew the newer the newer
generations
they just heard uh about these these
parties so they were
really excited to to experiences this
the second one it was the place one
once again the place we were touching in
the in the community’s heart
because in the neighborhood people often
told us that the palace
the national palace of judith belongs to
the rich and the powerful
although the the square the square that
this party would uh
would take place it belongs to the
people so
they were really engaged to do something
in there
and our role on this one it was just to
engage all of the stakeholders in the
community to do something
to to the party and to help them and to
support them to achieve their goals
for instance the faculty of architecture
they have the communication materials
the
the design the flyers providing
really cool and real dignifying looks
for the
for the party then the residents
association
they have operated in a real
professional way
like a communication agency they are
they are from these
small block parties in order to
communicate and to advertise the party
itself
and actually they have them did so well
that
we as a collective were receiving dozens
of volunteers on a daily basis
to do something and to post the
billboards around the the parish and the
territory to advertise the party itself
but we weren’t ready for what was coming
next we started to see the tents
and the stage being assembled well this
happened
everybody was there and by being there
on that particular place
and hurting people talk about uh how
could they be part
of an improvement process in their own
community in their own street
with their own people it was something
that still today give me
give me the the goosebumps and
it was maybe i wouldn’t say maybe but
it was the most impactful thing that
we’ve ever done
by the mindset that was generated on
that on that night
by doing fair dual we have understood
that we weren’t the only ones
doing this kind of projects grass-rooted
and participatory ones
there were other collectives that like
us were doing the same kind of things
and standing up for the same values as
we did
but there was this small gap because
there wasn’t any kind of platform any
kind of
uh local network
that i could be access to others
projects and uh
and methodologies and stuff and so we
came up with this idea
how about if we create this platform
where we can search
this kind of different projects by
activities by
territories by organizations by
objectives
you name it and this is how foreign
urbanus pop-up
in fact foreign isn’t just an archive or
repository of projects
it’s also a hub of partnerships imagine
you want to do a gender equality project
on your neighborhood but you didn’t know
how to do it how to start it
you can go to the platform you can
search who has done what
you can learn from their experience but
more than that
you can invite them to be partners with
you and to do something on your
neighborhoods
but foreign isn’t just this
because due to this recent
coveid 19 virus we were challenged by
the municipality
to map and to systematize again what
were the kind of the responses that
dislike these local networks were
providing
and one more time there we were
in these mixed feeling situations on one
side
we were devastated by the consequences
of this virus
but on the other side our hearts were
filled with joy and hope
because we got to see on real time the
ability that these
local networks have in order to reinvent
themselves
and to provide real and impactful
answers to the communities
we have seen something like
simplification of
juridical content for the the people who
are going on layoff
we were seeing these organizations
producing this digital content to go
online
in order to make people’s lives easier
by
getting them entertained and imagine
these uh local networks were even doing
these
crowdsourcing campaigns in order to get
these computers and tablets
so that the kids could have their online
classes
in a real fair way so it was uh it was
something
quite beautiful seeing all of this
happen at the same time
one of the the coolest things about
platform
as this small marketplace where the
associations can say what are the
the the goods or the resources that they
need but more than that
what are the resources that they have
and that they are
willing to share with others once more
to cross territories
to create partnerships and synergies so
this is uh
really cool by the way when we asked
when we have
started all of these i can
i admit it to you we were playing a deep
bluff
because we didn’t know if this worked
out if participation would be the
the path to go to but almost 10 years
later
i can say it’s not only the it’s not
only effective but it’s the right way to
go to because
first if you bring people to the
decision
they will have their their their value
by their
by bringing their perspective second
people feel heard and this is quite cool
for their self-esteem
and third and that’s the most important
one
by feeling that their opinion it’s taken
in consideration by the ones who decide
people start to believe again in
democracy
and if you want to make a change in the
world
maybe the best place to start with it
it’s in your neighborhood
thank you
you