Transforming urban quarters to human scale environments: applying superblock concepts for different urban structures
Meeting sustainability goals like the Paris Agreement or SDG11 requires re-allocating urban space to transform the metabolic regime of mobility towards a fossil-fuel-free, zero-emission transport system prioritizing walking, cycling and public transport. Barcelona’s Superblock concept – a disruptive spatial and mobility innovation emphasizing human scale – opens pathways for climate-adapted, healthy, and resilient cities where accessible and connected micro-neighborhoods ensure livability and sustainability. Such re-allocation of street space is currently of utmost importance in urban adaptations to COVID19.
The goal of the TuneOurBlock project is to expand the superblock concept as a policy and planning strategy for transformative urban adaptation. The task of AIT is the modeling of superblocks with the help of traffic simulations. The traffic effects will be integrated in the discussions with stakeholders using planning tools. In addition, AIT identifies the stakeholder groups relevant in the participation process and the tools and methods suitable for them, which are tested in the Urban Living Labs (Vienna, Berlin).
Urban planners, practitioners, researchers, and non-governmental organizations will collaborate to develop effective and transferable guidelines, policy options, and tools for implementing superblocks in different urban contexts. These implementation strategies, together with the elaborated stakeholder involvement strategies, will be tested in the Urban Living Labs, and validated by partners in Slovenia and Romania and piloted with pan-European peer groups of municipal and civil society actors.
Superblock framework
- Evaluate existing superblock concepts
- Determine criteria and indicators for superblocks’ selection and quality
Implementation strategies
- Analyze how superblocks fit into the existing planning context
- Explore strategies to implement planning tools for redistributing street spaces in superblocks
- Analyze effects of superblock implementations with traffic modelling approaches
Involvement strategies
- Analyze and identify involvement and communication strategies for stakeholders
- Assess and select involvement strategies for urban living labs
- Test impact assessment tools for the implementation in the urban living labs
Project consortium
TU Wien – Technical University of Vienna (Project Lead), AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, City of Vienna, Studio LAUT, Smarter Than Car, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Deutsches Institut für Urbanistik, Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Changing Cities
This project is funded under the JPI Urban Europe Urban Accessibility and Connectivity program with funding from FFG. www.ffg.at https://jpi-urbaneurope.eu/
The FFG is the central national funding organisation and strengthens austrias innovation power.
