Collaborative City-Making: Transforming School Surroundings through Participatory Urban Interventions

This communication aims to present the results of a socio-urban intervention project in a city in the North of Portugal, around two public schools (ISCED 1 and 2). The project is promoted by an urban intervention association in partnership with organisations in the field of technology and bicycle mobility. The project proposal focuses on three themes: children's mobility (home-school); learning about technologies and renewable energies; and changing the public space at the school entrance.

Based on participatory methodologies for intervening in the public space, the project aims to promote new forms of mobility to school for children (such as bicycle trains) and together with the school community and the school's neighbourhood, to make the space around the school more attractive for collective use, to the detriment of the occupation that cars have in this space (such as parking).

In this communication we intend to focus on this mobilisation to transform the public space around the school and potential new mobility practices for children. The paper will be based on a project impact assessment methodology developed by the authors, in which we will share the results of a pre-intervention survey carried out at the schools and preliminary post-intervention results. The aim is to understand whether the intervened public spaces have had an impact on the perception of the school community and neighbourhood and whether there have been any changes in children's mobility habits during the school year.

Finally, we aim to understand how this intervention, specifically localised in these two schools, can contribute to future interventions in schools with similar mobility problems and uses of their surrounding public spaces. At the same time, we want to reflect on the potential of participatory and collaborative practices for urban intervention and their contribution to the democracy of cities.