This summer throughout the month of July 2021, Urboteca and Association for Urban Transition ran the DANUrB+ Summer School: Urban Exploration Workshops for Youth as part of the local activation of the international project DANUrB+ in Giurgiu. The project, which aims at valorising the local danubian heritage was developed in partnership by Association for Urban Transition, "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism and Giurgiu Municipality.

The programme was tailored for young people interested in discovering Giurgiu with new eyes and inexploring the heritage of the city through its buildings, streets, spaces and collective stories with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the local challenges and opportunities.

A group of 11 young residents of Giurgiu took part in the summer school, guided by Urboteca tutors and students from the Urbanism Faculty at “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest. The youngsters gathered every Monday in the courtyard of the Regional History Museum “Teohari Antonescu” in Giurgiu, where we ran the workshops around Urboteca’s mobile lab for participatory urbanism. The atmosphere was positive and the young participants were keen to get involved in creative exercises, critical thinking challenges and collaborate on developing stories about Giurgiu.

From 5th to30th of July 2021, diffrent workshops were held in a hybrid online and physical format. Between each workshop the participants undertook small practical projects and urban observation exercises with online support from organisers.

Workshops were conducted, as follow:

5th -11th July: Urban observation and walking through Giurgiu

Theory: What is urban observation, how it’s done, what tools to use?

Practice: Documenting a walk through Giurgiu using a mobile app

12th – 18th July: Critical thinking and analysing the city   

Theory: How to analyze observations, generate ideas and define a research topic?

Practice: Documenting a place in Giurgiu 

19th -25th July: Fieldwork through interviews and filmaking    

Theory: How to gather info from other people, what is an interview, how to use creative filmmaking?

Practice: Filming an interview with older residents from Giurgiu

26th – 30th July: Video montage and storytelling    

Theory: How to develop a story based on audio-visual materials?

Practice: Defining a short story about Giurgiu

With the kind support of local stakeholders, trips were organized around Giurgiu to key locations relevant for the industrial heritage of the city. The participants had the chance to see the inner workings of the active naval shipyard in Giurgiu in a guided tour at Shipyard ATG as well as discovering more about the water infrastructure in a trip at Apa Service S.A. and the water purification centre.

Across the different workshops, the participants developed skills in urban observation, critical thinking and learned how to work with creative tools from live-tracking apps to video equipment, which has increased their confidence and brought them closer to the city.

Throughout the 4 weeks, the  students had worked in groups and individually to develop a story about their city. From the first week, they went on exploratory walks around Giurgiu, they gathered (collected) information about the urban space and thought about different aspects of the built and social environment. Once they decided on a topic, they work together with organisers and tutors to identify how they could bring the topic to life through resident interviews, urban footage and personal reflections.

The result was a set of posters and short films created by each participant which were exhibited in a final event on 30th July at the “Nicolae Balanescu'' Atheneum in Giurgiu. The final event was the perfect occasion to show Giurgiu residents the results of the summer school in a vernissage featuring participants’ posters and diploma posters of students from the Urbanism Faculty at “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest, followed by a projection of the short films about Giurgiu.

The event gave the public the chance to understand more about  the threats, the challenges and the opportunities the city is facing. The residents had the possibilities to learn about best practice examples in urban regeneration for shrinking cities through the screening of the documentary Planeta Petrila and the presentation from Dr. Arh. Ilinca Păun Constantinescu, one of the driving forces behind the community activation and urban regeneration efforts in a shrinking city in Romania with a mining heritage.

The closing of the event was dedicated to DANUrB+’ friends from the theatre company ​​Des Châteaux En L'air, they presented a footage from their boat journey along the Danube and they shared what they’ve learned from interacting with the residents in the visited towns.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Project co-funded by European Union funds (ERDF and IPA).