The Importance of Youngsters’ Responsible Action in the Urban Environment: An Experience of Street Co-Design

By 2030, 5 billion people will live in cities asking for more transport, resources (energy, water, etc.) and waste systems. While cities generate economic growth, they are also responsible for 70% of global CO2 emissions. For containing this problem, it is necessary that all urban actors (citizens, local authorities, research bodies, professional and production world) become more aware of the relationship between local/individual choices and global/collective challenges. So, a trans-disciplinary approach, which integrates research and practice, through the cooperation between various working and educational realities, and considers citizens as “knowledge producers” and “community builders” in urban redevelopment processes, has to be used. Therefore, citizens, especially the younger generations, have to be involved in urban co-design processes, as users but also as bearers of knowledge. This paper reports an experience carried out in a project funded by the ESF-PON 20142020 “For schools, skills and environments for learning: enhancement of global citizenship skills”. One of the modules of this project, aimed at enhancing the active role of secondary school students and their ability to identify problems and solutions through collective reflection, focused on the re-appropriation of the street spaces facing the entrance of a historic school in Rome. Two different proposals (low and medium/high budget), aimed at improving users’ quality of life, stemmed from theoretical lessons, applying a requirement/performance approach, and surveys and laboratory sessions, including: the devising and administration of an online questionnaire to define local problems; a brainstorming to propose possible solutions; some sketches. The proposals, displayed in the school to involve all the students, were presented to the municipal authorities which expressed the intention to carry on the design for future realization.