Latin American cities are still growing in an uncontrolled way, due to informal place occupation and the absence of urban planning policies, generating the construction of informal human settlements. In this vulnerable urban context, many children are born and raised without having access to safe, inclusive and stimulating public spaces.
The MOOC “Urban Landscapes of Care” invites students from the planning and designing disciplines to participate in this important discussion and to experience the city through children´s eyes. Based on the SDG-goal 11 to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, you will be invited to explore, analyze and propose initiatives and strategies within the urban context that focus on early childhood development and the question of how the city can become an “Urban Landscape of Care”.
The MOOC was developed by the Peruvian urban laboratory IntuyLab in cooperation with the Bernard van Leer Foundation and the design school of the University of Applied Science UPC of Lima, Peru in the context of the Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability organized by the Technical University TU-Berlin and funded by the DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service.
+++ Course language: All educational material is developed in English, nevertheless, videos are recorded in Spanish. Subtitles in English are provided. +++
Based on the empirical experience of the Urban95 program of the Bernard van Leer Foundation the MOOC will generate a knowledge transfer between academy and society, striving an integrated improvement of the city by generating safe and stimulating environments for young children and their caregivers. Although the MOOC will take reference to Peruvian urban reality, parallels can be drawn to other urban contexts.
After taken this course you will be able to:
• Analyze the urban context through quantitative and qualitative methods focusing on Early Childhood Development
• Design safe, inclusive and stimulating public spaces for early childhood.
• Recognize strategies of community engagement processes and participatory tools for the development of urban landscapes of care.
• Elaborate an implementation roadmap for the realization of an urban landscape of care for young children and their caregivers.
Urban Landscapes of Care - Designing child friendly cities
Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas via Coursera
Overview
Syllabus
- The city we inhabit
- Welcome to the first Module of the MOOC “Urban Landscapes of Care - Thinking and designing child-friendly cities”! In this first week, we will give you a short introduction to the course and its challenge involved: to improve our cities for small children and their caregivers through the design and development of an Urban Landscape of Care. To begin, we will learn about experiential urban analysis methods and how to apply them during an exploratory walk through the city. With that tool, we can gain a more empathetic and inclusive perspective towards the urban environment in which we live and work. The first practical exercise will be the start of the project we will develop throughout the course. We will also discuss the diversity of our cities, the different actors and social groups inhabiting the territory, their needs, dreams, and finally their relationship with the built environment.
- The caring city
- Welcome to the second week of our MOOC! The second module will be divided into three main topics; the composed city, the public city, and the city that cares which will be summarized in a final reflection that interpellates the questions on: What is it that composes our cities? What does public space mean? What defines a good public space? What is the difference between public space, urban environment, and an urban landscape? What is an"Urban Landscape of Care"? and, Who requires an urban landscape of care and why? All those questions we will tackle in this second Module of the MOOC "Urban Landscapes of Care".
- The child friendly city
- In this third week of the course, we will learn about early childhood development and its relation with the urban space based on the experience of young children. Also, we will show the importance that early years have for brain development and cognitive abilities. Based on these concepts we will understand the city as a learning platform that has to answer to their expectations and needs.
- Urban Landscapes of Care for small children
- In the fourth week of this course, we will learn about the characteristics, elements and design strategies for an Urban Landscape of Care for small children and their caregivers. This will include design principles, stakeholders identification, and how the interaction between the small child and an Urban Landscape of Care can contribute to child development. s the Internet has had on the world.
- Principles and tools of participatory design
- In the fifth week of the course, we will learn about the design tools we can apply in the development of an Urban Landscape of Care. Apart we will reflect and learn about the role and stages of community engagement work that can accompany the design process. As well, you will explore different participatory tools that can help you to engage with your community. Finally, we will discuss the strategies and possibilities to make our projects sustainable in time.
- How to present and implement an urban landscape of care
- Welcome to the sixth week of the MOOC "Urban Landscapes of Care - Thinking and designing child-friendly cities". In this module, we will learn about the importance of communicating our projects – graphically and through an inspiring presentation. Therefore we will explore a series of tools to represent graphically and communicate the design of our Urban Landscape of Care. Apart from that, we will talk about the steps that follow the design phase of our project, such as the management of time, stakeholders and the available resources.In the process, we will raise the following questions: How do we communicate with all the stakeholders involved? How do we organize the implementation phase of our project? What resources do we have available and what others do we need to realize the project? Finally, this module gives us the opportunity to reflect on the phenomenon of "between control and uncertainty" and how we as planners can respond to these particular moments within a project. As a result of this week we will elaborate the implementation roadmap for the Urban Landscape of Care we are developing in this course. Enjoy!
- Next steps towards a caring city
- Welcome to our last module of the MOOC “Urban Landscapes of Care - Thinking and designing child-friendly cities”! In this last module of the course we will learn about how to close the cycle of a project - in Module 5 we called it the “transformation cycle”. In that sense we will talk about impact measuring tools and the possible steps of rethinking, re-planning, replicating or up-scaling our projects. Further we will evaluate our learning process within the whole course. We will travel in time and review the milestones of the MOOC. And finally we will come to our very last reflection of the course: If we are able to develop urban landscapes of care for young children and their caregivers at a small neighborhood scale, is it possible that also our cities become urban landscapes of care? What would they look like? Could this vision give us a perspective on how to plan and build our future cities and neighborhoods as safe, inclusive and stimulating spaces not only for young children, but for everybody?Join the discussion. We hope you enjoy the last module of the course!
Taught by
Hannah Klug, José Cepero Saravia, and Walter JP Soto Barrenechea
