Dear Friends,

I hope this issue finds you all well and staying healthy. Whether you’re working from home or braving it to the office, take a few minutes to read about a ground-breaking installation in CAMP and the new accessibility features of the space, a handy new guide for architectural competitions, spreading participatory planning throughout the districts of Prague, and other news from the Prague planning world.

Best wishes for good health,
The EU and International Relations Team, IPR Prague
 

Urbania exhibit lays out eight principles of urban planning   

In January, IPR Prague launched URBANIA, an interactive exhibition that let visitors try their hand at city planning. The installation at our Center for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning (CAMP) highlighted the importance of the work performed by government administrators and planners. Eight scenarios revealed the inner workings of administrative offices, and each of these situations illustrated a fundamental principle of urban planning. From January 16th through mid-March, visitors were able to explore the principles which lay the groundwork for organic and sustainable urban governance and experience the city from the perspective of civil servants.
 
The exhibition was prepared by IPR Prague in cooperation with Prague City Hall. Thanks to this collaboration, the exhibit was able to draw on the experience of dozens of public administrators.
 
“Through structured interviews, we identified eight basic principles that, when applied, typically lead projects to a successful end. These include, for example, the principle of participation, i.e. the involvement of all participants, and the principle of communication, which ensures all people involved have up-to-date and correct information,” explained Ondřej Boháč, Director of IPR Prague.
 
The URBANIA exhibition was nearly one year in the making. During this time, numerous interviews were conducted with employees of Prague City Hall and IPR Prague, and the results were incorporated into the project. “One very interesting and important finding was that local government employees often work long into the night and even on weekends. These are generally well-educated and motivated people who enjoy what they do, but this reality differs sharply from how the public sees their work,” said Adam Pajgrt from IPR Prague, curator of the exhibition.
 
More information is available here.

IPR Prague wraps up five successful years of the Triangulum project 

In previous issues of our newsletter, you’ve read about IPR Prague’s participation as a Follower City in the Triangulum Horizon 2020 project. After five years, this project has come to an end, but not before the completion of a wide array of deliverables and a long list of valuable lessons learned.
 
The Triangulum project was born in the boom of the smart cities agenda, and helped establish the idea that a smart city uses technology as a means of responding to the needs of its citizens and users-- not the other way around. In Prague, the project shifted from the setting up of an ambitious, smart city strategy for the whole city to a complex, yet tangible pilot project in Smart Homecare in the district of Prague 7. The aim of the pilot was to use technology to provide safety and enhanced quality of life to Prague 7 senior citizens who are still able to live at home.
 
Triangulum also provided the resources to upgrade the 3D model of Prague, facilitating advanced spatial data analysis of the city.
 
The main lesson learned from our participation in Triangulum was that in order to implement successful solutions, mindsets must be changed, as true smart city solutions require multi-stakeholder involvement. Our last deliverable in Triangulum, therefore, was the creation of Urbania, an interactive exhibition described in the previous article. This exhibition, held at CAMP, focused on the culture of cooperation and engagement between citizens and civil servants.
 
Please click here to read more about IPR Prague’s participation in the project and here to learn more about Triangulum overall.
 

IPR Prague publishes new guide for architectural competitions

IPR Prague has recently published a new manual called “Competitions pay off!”, a guide to organizing architectural, urban and landscaping competitions. The guide describes the process of planning a competition from the first moment of inspiration to the commencement of construction, and demonstrates how architecture competitions can be an effective tool for implementing planned developments. IPR Prague has already organized or consulted on more than ten major competitions, including projects for developing the Smíchov area, the design for the new Prague street furniture, and the footbridge connecting Holešovice and Karlín.
 
“The ‘Competitions pay off!’ guide is the first published manual to address the correct organization of architecture competitions. Many commissioning bodies fumble in the dark during the commissioning process or when the conditions for competitions are formulated. This guide will make it easier for competition organizers and building departments, as well as for architects themselves. I am delighted that we helped publish this guide,” said Ondřej Boháč, Director of IPR Prague.
 
The ‘Competitions pay off!’ guide may be downloaded free of charge here (CZ only) or purchased in hardopy at the PageFive bookshop at CAMP once the space reopens. More information is available here.

IPR Prague spreads participatory planning to Prague city districts

Prague City Councillors have approved a plan that will change how the city is planned in the future, and revamp how citizens cooperate with both city and district authorities. Over the course of a two-year pilot project, selected employees and policy makers from 12 Prague district authorities will learn how to promote transparent cooperation between local residents, local authorities, developers and municipal and state institutions through the “Participative Planning Coordinators” program. The program will be run by IPR Prague, with city-wide rollout set for 2022.
 
To date, IPR Prague is the only institution in the city that actively involves citizens in the planning process. Given the sheer number of projects planned for the city, the demand for this type of involvement can no longer be satisfied by one institution alone. For this reason, IPR Prague has set up the “Participative Planning Coordinators” program, which aims to pass existing participative planning expertise from IPR Prague to city district administrations, enabling them to manage participative planning processes on their own in the future.
 
“I am delighted that participation is becoming a routine part of the city’s planning processes. I believe that the program will result in a more responsive approach to citizens and in strengthened transparency and confidence between district administrations and city institutions, the private sector, political representatives and the residents of Prague,” says First Deputy Mayor, Petr Hlaváček.
 
More information is available here.
 

IPR Prague collaborates with REKOLA on gathering biking data

As part of a pilot project, IPR Prague has been collecting cycling-related data during the month of March. This project is being conducted in cooperation with REKOLA, a company which operates bike-sharing services in Prague and several other Czech cities.
 
The data that is collected will enable the city to improve its analysis of the movement of cyclists throughout Prague. If this data collection project proves successful, IPR Prague plans to carry out similar activities in the future.
 
While IPR Prague already receives and monitors data from sources such as Prague by Bike, Strava, and others, additional sources and monitoring periods will only improve our ability to model the real movements of bikers throughout Prague.
 
Data sharing between different companies has not yet become a standard practice in the city, although this type of activity fits in with what IPR Prague considers the true meaning of the term “Smart City.” Last year, IPR Prague cooperated with Alza.cz and Liftago; using the data provided by these companies, we were able to model an alternative system of parcel deliveries using taxi services. CAMP subsequently hosted a lecture on the results, which was attended by Prague Mayor, Zdeněk Hřib.
 
You can watch a recording of the lecture here (CZ only).
 

CAMP makes strides in accessibility

Following in the footsteps of the Tate Modern in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, among others, CAMP is now more accessible to blind, deaf, and mobility-impaired visitors. While in the Czech Republic, accessibility is generally associated with barrier-free access for people with physical disabilities, CAMP’s notion of accessibility includes access to information and programming.
 
Specific measures that CAMP has taken to increase accessibility include:

• Translation of the CAMP website into Czech sigh language;
• Interpretation of selected events into Czech sign language;
• Availability of printed information in large-type black print or Braille;
• Preparation of subtitled videos and audio descriptions of basic information about CAMP;
• Simplified entry to the building and movement through it, with a navigation system that guides visitors clearly through the space;
• Screening of selected films with dimmer lighting and quieter sound; and
• Equipping of the auditorium, large hall and coffee bar with an audio induction loop.

In addition, as Adam Švejda, Director of IPR’s Department of Public Relations notes, “accessibility is not just about physical adjustments. Staff and their attitude are just as important, which is why the entire team at CAMP, from its director and production staff to custodians and baristas, has been trained in communicating with and providing assistance to visitors with different types of disabilities.”