City as Classroom

BAAB is an architecture, research and urban design studio established by Irina Niculescu and Alexandru Belenyi in 2015. In the past 8 years Irina and Alexandru together with their collaborators and colleagues have developed numerous architecture and design projects for both private and public customers such as boutique hotel in Vama Veche or the CDRF building in Bucharest comprising a café space, exhibition hall and classroom, all dedicated to teaching and promoting photography. In more recent years the company designed and implemented several tactical urbanism projects for the improvement of public space. Their most recent project, “City as Classroom” focused on involving high school students in building third spaces for youth, as a means of regenerating the Urban Historical Area of Brașov. BAAB Architecture and urbanism is based in Bucharest, Romania.

HUB IN innovative educational programm “City As Classroom” - For young people, public space can offer opportunities for healthy engagement and socialization or can promote harmful habits such as alcoholism, or even insecurity and fear. Public space is often seen as an urban accessory that appears after other issues are resolved. However, the street and the square are the places where democracy and community are born. The importance of public space is linked to concepts such as the third space (Lefebvre 1968, Soja 1996), spatial justice (Soja 2009), and the right to the city (Lefebvre 1968), which discuss how urban space can support a resilient urban community or exclude certain social groups. Students, especially teenagers, are one of these groups. The Historic Center of Brașov is unwelcoming for teenagers and pupils, even though they are the main users of the area, surpassing the number of permanent residents (approximately 5,000). The "City as Classroom" program, conceived and implemented within the HUB-IN European project, aimed to increase the active participation of young people in the city's public life through urban design exercises. Participants went through an educational innovation program organized in four stages over the course of a year. They explored freely, selected intervention areas, and during a Summer School, proposed and built urban furniture "in situ" using a Design Kit specially created for this program. The results were presented to a jury of relevant stakeholders. Together with the participants, 10 urban furniture prototypes were selected to be built and placed in public space for a duration of 36 months. The selected prototypes were improved by our team together with a constructor to ensure design, safety, and durability elements. By the end of the program, the young people had in-depth knowledge of historical and cultural heritage, urban regeneration, public and architectural lighting, architectural history, entrepreneurship, innovation, and civic engagement. The city gained four new urban installations - the first social infrastructure designed and planned by teenagers, for teenagers, young people, and the public. The project was well received by the local community. The "pretext objects," as they were called, are used daily by hundreds of people and are well-maintained. We were delighted when a bench, broken due to a construction defect, was repaired by an anonymous benefactor.