In Madrid, the first outdoor intervention took place on 19 May in the Zofío neighbourhood of the Usera district. The proposal, derived from the co-design sessions that took place in April, aims to give a climate refugee character to the community garden Parroquia San Juan de Ávila. The activities were divided into 5 groups: preliminary work to clean and arrange the space; wood maintenance work on the existing structure (sanding and varnishing); shading location test and installation; water spraying tests and installation; planting of climbing plants and finally installation of photovoltaic LED lights.
The event was attended by approximately 25 people, composed of neighbors, young people from the youth organization Barrio Más Joven, SEPAs and researchers from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
The innovative character of this methodology also lies in the fact that although these interventions are conceived from a process of co-design, and are built together with the community, it is ultimately the continued use of this space that ensures its purpose over time. This means that the community itself maintains this space and as they make use of the place, they will be able to identify improvements.
Due to the scope of the intervention, the activities will continue in a next session in June.
In Barcelona, some diagnostic and design activities related to the outdoor interventions also took place.
During the month of May, the activity continued at Espai Llavors, a bookshop located in the neighbourhood of Collblanc in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, with the design session. In summer 2022, Espai Llavors opened the patio to the neighbours to use as a climate shelter during hot days, however the initiative was not very popular due to the poor shading of the place.
On May 27th a design session was organised with the neighbours to decide how to improve the space and start planning what elements were needed at the backdoor patio to provide shade and a fresher and more natural environment.
Another intervention will be implemented at the patio of the Centre Civic del Bon Pastor, in Barcelona. The space is divided into two parts: Espai Familiar – a space for families with children from 1 to 3 years old – and the Sala Jove – a room used by young adolescents from the neighbourhood. The first diagnosis session took place on May 31st with the educators and managers of the centre, to identify the needs and start planning solutions to provide shade to the patio.
Finally, on May 31st a diagnosis session was delivered in the neighbourhood of Les Planes-Blocs Florida, in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, specifically in the recovered park of Matacavalls.
Workshops
May has been a busy month also regarding workshops.
The month started with the workshops in Comunitat Activa, we had four workshops to learn how to understand energy bills (in Cornellà and in the Escola de Vida space), ten workshops to improve citizen’s energy culture during summer (in places such as the Energy Community of La Bordeta, Centre Obert de l’Eixample or Barri Espai 2.0), Coolkids workshops and some mapping activities like the one at the entities fair in Sants.
Communications materials
To support all these workshops and activities, information materials such as flyers were created by ABD & Ecoserveis, taking the UPM design that showed how people can cool their home with simple actions. The flyer displayed the actions in a two sided format, one with situations that create heat at home and the other one with solutions that can be used to prevent and tackle that heat. Overall, it was easy to read and understand material that the people who attend the workshops and Cooltorise activities can take home.
Besides all that, an effort has been made to contact media from Barcelona and Catalunya to cover the project Cooltorise and its activities. During the workshop at the Energy Community of La Bordeta, for example, the online media platform Xarxanet interviewed the person in charge of the workshop and it has been published as a news media clip.
