On October 11, the Baltic Urban Lab project partners met in University of Latvia's Natural Sciences Campus located in the Pilot Site to explore the area and to discuss student planning competition that had been lauched earlier in October as a part of Joint Pilot Review Day for the City of Riga. Representatives from Tallinn, Turku and Norrköping joined the local urban planners and the students involved in the planning competition to discuss the Pilot Site area, its potential and challenges and to offer some concrete feedback and suggestions to Riga for further implementation.
After the presentations of the Mukusala Pilot Site and the Student Competition, the urban planners headed outdoors to admire the views of from the rooftop of the University Building before going for a guided walking tour rounding the Pilot Site area. The afternoon sessions presented the challenges facing brownfield development in the area and offered different viewpoints from university researchers as well as presentations from Turku, Tallinn and Norrköping on the topic of how and what kind of participatory methods (competitions, brainstorming sessions, theses etc) they have used for student involvement in the brownfield planning activities. The case study workshop that later followed focused on how Riga could make their student competition more fruitful and concrete and wishes from the students were also heard.
All in all, we wish Riga best of luck with the competition and hopefully they will receive great results when it finally ends.
