Adaptation of outdoor spaces for summertime has become more and more urgent, especially in southern Europe where there’s more severe heat. Investments, collaboration multipart and regulations constitute key aspects that need special efforts to be tackled
As part of Cooltorise activities, a series of outdoor interventions have been carried out in the different pilots that take part into the project. This previous post done in May 2024 provides a deeper understanding on the outdoor interventions done in Barcelona’s pilot.
In the case of Barcelona, four co-creation processes were carried out with communities that were regularly using an outdoor space. These processes included meetings and discussions to identify the needs of the space based on users’ experience and empower them to think of solutions to increase their climate resilience in that space. In this article we discuss about key challenges found in the interventions.
Challenges in technical and social aspects
The interventions followed an innovative co-design methodology. The participants priority was to have shade. It was discussed to have vegetation or shading structures, mainly.
Providing shade has been found to be difficult sometimes, and most of them expensive. The solutions proposed focused on shade can be divided in two categories:
- Installing an elevated structure that covers the sun rays, providing shade and improving comfort to the people using the space below
- Installing trees, which provide shade, improve air quality and also have a higher refreshing potential of the space nearby
Trees offer major benefits in terms of climate resilience thant artificial shadowing elements. However, to plant them, we need to consider the soil capacity, the growing time and their care. Shading devices like structures and pergolas offer shade immediately but refresh less, can be costly and have a higher environmental impact.
Apart from technical aspects, some solutions had to be discarded due to the concerns of the participants regarding vandalism and also about losing useful public space.
Concerning the implementation, the first proposal within Cooltorise was to co-implement the solutions. However, in some cases shading structures were installed by local subcontractors to take responsibility on technical and safety issues.
To be specific, 2 interventions finalized with an actual physical implementation (Espai Llavors bookshop and Cruyff Camp Jordi Alba football pitch), whereas 1 of them is pending its physical implementation (Parc del Pont de Matacavalls) and 1 of them could not be implemented (Centre Cívic Bon Pastor).
Regarding the case of Centre Cívic Bon Pastor, it was not executed because their needs in shading were not feasible to cover with a permanent structure (due to technical and regulation limitations) and the option with a removable shade was provided by the city council of Barcelona during the process.
Regarding the bookshop Espai Llavors, the intervention was carried out with implication of users because of the private character of the space and their high engagement with the space and with the process. Also because the selected solutions (shade, vegetation, comfort elements) were quite easy to implement.
The case for both interventions in L’Hospitalet (Parc Matacavalls as public urban space and Cruyff Camp football pitch as public sports space) was more challenging because the shading structures needed to cover a large space, including new supports and ensuring safety, and because drought period in 2023-2024 prevented from planting any kind of vegetation. These interventions took much more time (many months) than expected because we followed an unusual scheme not foreseen beforehand (some departments from the city council were engaged during the process, as well as community users, local subcontractors and Cooltorise partners). This multipart collaboration was very enriching and opened for future similar schemes, however it needed some adaptation from all parts.
It is worth mentioning that the expectations from the participants in the co-design process were high. Local communities have a good knowledge of local needs and are willing to provide ideas that are implemented. There was a process of selecting feasible solutions within the project, but many proposals remained not executed and became like an asset for following steps beyond the project. One of the interventions (Parc Matacavalls) will be physically implemented with own municipal budget, by the end of summer 2024.
Activities during the celebration session in the Cruyff Camp Jordi Alba
Economical challenges
Some economic challenges were also raised when considering the solutions. Firstly, the funds for material execution available from Cooltorise project were low, and just allowed to do small interventions, so the team decided to search for external financial support. In that sense, solutions that impacted the public space were implemented through a new collaboration built with the municipality of l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, where the city council was supporting the interventions with their own technical and economic resources. The process of subcontracting the installation of the shading structure was led by the local authority, in order to fulfil with technical, safety and economic requirements.
Final celebration and open opportunities
Both executed interventions were closed with a final event. In the case of Cruyff Camp, as the engaged community included many youngers, some pedagogical activities were prepared. This was helpful to link the perceived heat and physical phenomena, so they could better understand how the shades are working in terms of climate resilience. This closing session counted with all involved stakeholders, excepting the company (local community, public authority, Cooltorise partners). We firmly believe this has opened the path for more projects and opportunities and to raise visibility of the urgent need of shade and vegetation in our outdoor spaces.
Activities organized during the celebration of the intervention in L’Hospitalet
These actions were carried out within the framework of the Cooltorise project, financed by the European Union’s H2020 program. Cooltorise is a project aimed at tackling summer energy poverty and it counts with the participation of Associació Benestar i Desenvolupament (ABD) and Associació Ecoserveis as the partners in Barcelona region.
For more information about the outdoor space interventions and summer energy poverty mitigation activities carried out by the Cooltorise project, you can consult the website: https://cooltorise.eu/
