The focus of this year’s Cities in Transition course was to study public life in the City of Tagbilaran, the Philippines, in order to enhance citizen participation in urban planning.
In January 2017, students of the Cities in Transition course conducted a field study in City of Tagbilaran, the Philippines, focusing on the dynamics of public life. The aim of the study was to study public life in multicultural and multidisciplinary teams with the aim of promoting citizen participation in planning by designing together in collaboration with local communities.
“Empowering local communities through working together and giving marginalized communities a voice was a crucial part of our work,” explains Taru Niskanen, Lecturer of Cities in Transition. “Each of our teams conducted research workshops and small-scale design interventions in the city to test design solutions to local issues.”
Project teams worked on building a playground with locals, studying informal settlements and identifying their voice, making recycled LED lanterns with children, and promoting local heritage by highlighting the overlooked vernacular structures of Tagbilaran.
“Since 2015, the Cities in Transition course at Aalto University has worked together with Nagoya Institute of Technology from Japan and Bohol Island State University from the Philippines to enhance sustainable development on Bohol Island and Tagbilaran City in the Philippines,” says Niskanen. “The course highlights the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development, using participatory and multidisciplinary approaches to problem-solving.”
Cities in Transition -course is a master’s degree level advanced studio course in the Aalto University, department of Architecture for students of architecture, landscape architecture and design. It focuses on the reality of planning, architecture and product design outside Europe, with cultural understanding as the point of departure. Cities in Transition is part of Aalto’s World in Transition –network.
KaliPLAY video about playground: youtu.be/N-82nyeF8Ho
See pictures from the trip #CitTagLab www.instagram.com/explore/tags/cittaglab/
Cities in Transition 2016 E-Book is found at: urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-60-7026-1
Students and teachers in the course in the year 2017 were Taru Niskanen, Charlotte Nyholm, Inari Virkkala, Ragnar Agustsson, Jin-Young Chun, Andrea Gilly Marquez, Catarina Ketonen, Laura Laso Buceta, Maria Mercer, Elina Nikkanen, Emilia Puotinen, Sara Rueda Mejia, Linda Vanni and Johanna Marttila.
More information:
Inari Virkkala, teacher
+358 40 574 1926
This post was written by Roope Kiviranta
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