Youth 4 Bauhaus

We have been implementing the Youth 4 Bauhaus project with an international consortium since 2022. We are creating solutions for deeper involvement of young people in the processes of participation in the creation of public space, increasing the capacities of participating organizations to work with young people, and last but not least, we are using beauty, inclusiveness, and sustainability as three important criteria for building cities of the future. As the main visualization digital tool, we use the Minecraft Education program, which, due to its versatility and widespread use among young people, was the best choice for visualizing proposed solutions.

The principles of beauty, inclusiveness and sustainability are the three pillars of the European Commission’s New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative. The goal of the initiative, launched in 2020, is to bring the European Green Deal to our cities, which aims to reduce emissions by 55% (by 2030) and achieve climate neutrality (by 2050).

The project has a European dimension not only because it works with the values of the New European Bauhaus, but mainly because it is implemented by an international consortium led by Creative Industry Košice n.o.. Its members are Teatro Circo Braga from Portugal, GEYC from Romania and Collective Up from Belgium. In Košice, the High School of Construction and Geodesy is a project partner.

The project is funded by the Erasmus+ program.

The Youth 4 Bauhaus project aims to strengthen the capacities of the consortium’s organizations and to involve young people in discussions about the shape of public space in cities and villages so that they are beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive. We also use digital technologies throughout the process (Minecraft Education program) to increase the appeal and encourage young people’s creativity and digital skills. We have summarized our theoretical findings and practical experiences in handbooks that will help anyone interested in involving young people in the discussion about the future of the cities in which they live.

To achieve the goals of the project, to test, tune and verify the methodology, we organized 4 events. They were attended by 40 young people from 4 European countries: Slovakia, Belgium, Romania and Portugal.

We paid particular attention to inclusivity, and therefore youth with various handicaps (autism, physical handicap, deaf, etc.) were also involved in the seminars. We carried out activities in Košice, Ghent (BEL), Bucharest (ROM) and Braga (PORT). In each city, a public space was identified, which young people visited and then proposed their solutions in a facilitated seminar. These were captured and presented in their “Minecraft world”. During several days of meetings, they learned to discuss with their peers from other countries, to present their views, to understand the importance of public space and the values on which the cities of the future should stand so that the world can move forward in the fight against climate change.

In addition to training and testing activities, we also organized the first events to inform and involve the wider public in the project and its outputs.

On May 11, 2023, we organized an international conference called Youth 4 Bauhaus: participatory urbanism in the cities in Košice. At the conference, the partners presented the project and their experiences, the young people involved in the project were also given a chance to participate. The conference also featured excellent lectures by architect Petra Marko and sociologist Milota Sidorová.

Project outputs:

• NEBI-enabler toolkit for participatory practices for 3D creation of sustainable public spaces
• Inclusive Guide on Participation in a City
• Inclusive Guide on Participation in a City Braga
• Inclusive Guide on Participation in a City Bucharest
• Inclusive Guide on Participation in a City Ghent
• Inclusive Guide on Participation in a City Košice

Project is co-funded by the European Union.