The Project aims to develop an urban planning and design methodology, which adopts a collaborative and co-creation approach to integrate Climate elements (air temperature, relative humidity, direct solar radiation, wind and human radiant temperature), Places (vegetation, building materials, water elements, shading devices, among others), People (connections, practices, interests, needs) and Agencies (policies, scientific evidence), to plan and design high balanced public spaces (urban / green) and socio-urban resilience.
Through scientific methodologies, the Project aims to design, to simulate and to evaluate a set of steps, procedures and resources that will allow (in the medium and long term), to improve the climate adaptation conditions in vulnerable urban areas, such as urban regeneration areas (RJRU), as well as their older people and communities. This set will give rise to a Handbook for a Climate-Responsive and Community-Based Urban Planning/Design, which will empower local stakeholders for (Municipalities, Parishes, Universities, Companies, Social Organizations, NGOs).
These goals are shaped in the Project research plan that will articulate methodologies from the research team scientific areas (Human and Economic Geography, Urban Studies, Architecture, Gerontology-Geriatrics, Ethnography). A theoretical framework supports these methodologies, so as to understand cities and communities based on older people daily life, thereby their behaviours, perceptions and representations.
Composed by seven tasks, the Project research plan include: (i) project management, communication and dissemination, continuous all along the three years; (ii) methods for a literature systematic review, including the Portuguese urban policy (Task 2); (iii) methods for analysis of the ecological and urban systems (Task 3); (iv) methods for urban ethnography for describing and understanding older people everyday life (Task 4); (v) and, methods for conception, simulation (pilot and replication), evaluation and dissemination of a climate-responsible and locally participatory urban planning and design methodology (Tasks 5-7).
These tasks will be interconnected, sequentially and interdependent, so that the results of the first tasks can be used by the following ones, until the conclusion of the last task. In this way, the research plan will allow the observation (collection) and triangulation (systematization) of data from different sources, typologies and scales (e.g., statistical, urbanistic, environmental, descriptive, reports, images, video, literature, policies), to analyse and understand the complexity and heterogeneity of the study object and problematic.
From the study it is expected as a result of increased visibility and interest for the civil, professional and institutional community, the publication of a Handbook for a Community Based and Climate Responsive Urban Planning in Opensource format for the scientific community, local stakeholders and communities, in particular older people.
The construction of the Handbook will contribute to enrich scientific research and innovation (publications, communications) and higher academic training (master, doctoral, post-graduate programmes), in the areas of climate change, ageing, health and quality of life, and bioclimatic urban design.
In the medium and long term (after the conclusion of the Project), the Project research team believes that the replication of the Handbook may contribute to the innovation of urban planning and design practices, helping to mitigate and reverse the adverse effects of climate change, thus promoting the health and quality of life of older people, and supporting their socio-economic conditions. |
