PEOPLE-CENTRED, WIDE-OPEN, AND FORWARD-LOOKING

The Eyes Hearts Hands project supports cities with innovative co-design and co-investment practices. These bring together local business and education communities as well as entrepreneurs, social enterprises and city residents. The aim is to design and apply solutions to their biggest challenges such as environmental and climate adaptation, social segregation, and reconversion of existing or heritage infrastructure – and to make cities sustainable and resilient for the long haul.

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Intro

FULL OF EYES, HEARTS AND HANDS: OUR UNIQUE APPROACH

The novelty of the Eyes Hearts Hands lies on its methodology, engagement and financing practices, and high-potential replication in different contexts.

The implementation of the Urban Revolution rolls out through three pillars: Eyes, Hearts, and Hands.

 

EYES

AESTHETICALLY VIABLE AND SOCIALLY ACCEPTED URBAN TRANSFORMATION

This pillar fosters the transformation of cultural heritage and traditional infrastructure through aesthetic design by leveraging local resources for materials, and techniques. It also harnesses human capital, local skills, and the commitment of multiple stakeholders.

Architectural strategies take into consideration the history, functionality, cultural heritage, and peculiarities of the districts. They enhance the aesthetics of the selected areas with more innovative designs and modern renovation of public spaces. New European Bauhaus principles are adopted by using circular principles and bio-based materials.

HEARTS

INCLUSIVE AND SOCIALLY FAIR INVOLVEMENT OF LOCAL COMMUNITIES

To be successful, green urban transformation mustn’t leave anyone behind. The Heart pillar, which builds on the Eyes pillar, is all about ensuring fairness, equality and inclusiveness.

In this respect, local co-design and co-creation processes will embrace different socio-economic contexts and ensure that older adults and people from underprivileged backgrounds or with disabilities can have their say in matters. Many lighthouse districts will establish citizen energy communities (CEC) or similar to promote inclusive and sustainable energy behaviour.

HANDS

CONCRETE ENGAGEMENT ACTIONS FOR FULL SUSTAINABILITY

With the advent of smart cities, co-creation has become a key requirement for urban planning and service provisioning. New participative processes were experimented to confront citizens’ ideas about how built spaces should develop and/or to interact with them on policy related issues. There are several examples of innovative engagement tools, co-creation and co-design models that can be adopted and/or adapted from other sectors.

The project develops a flexible model that will leverage these tools to enable all key stakeholders, especially citizens, to become effective agents of change in each lighthouse district. This is achieved at different rungs on the engagement ladder: inform, consult, involve, collaborate, and empower.