European Standards for Vocational Training in Urban Regeneration

Our partnership aims at establishing proper and reliable standards of vocational training in integrated urban regeneration. The principle is to provide a basis for thinking about urban regeneration and therefore the partnership involves academics and practitioners. We would like to achieve through provision of manuals containing examples of best practices in urban regeneration form Europe. The project is funded by the Leonardo da Vinci fund to develop a strong partnership and framework for future collaboration; however we are planning to expand the project through a different stream of funding.

In the first year of the project partners exchange know-how in field of urban regeneration as a interdisciplinary subject of didactic and vocational activity, comprising heritage management, financial aspects of regeneration projects, GIS analysis, sustainability and innovative applied urban conservation methods. The main approach will be continuous dialogue between partner institutions during meetings, mutual visits and through exchange of didactic and training materials.

During the second year of the project the partners will develop manuals for practitioners from each partner country focused on different aspects of urban regeneration, based on the most up to date case studies from each partner. This approach will ensure that partners can present good examples of practice in their countries and provide an opportunity to think how these could work in other places.

The final manuals should form a basis for programmes of vocational training and for formulation of uniform standards for vocational training in the field of urban regeneration. Its particular value is in focus on the World Heritage Site Cities, which are required to maintain highly effective management regimes in order to meet standards set up by the Word Heritage Committee, not only in spatial terms, but also social, concerning outreach schemes. The outcomes of the project will be translated into native languages of each partner.

Wednesday, 26 February 2014

The 3rd International Urban Regeneration Congress



  - Regeneration in Urban Policy

It is the third time that Institute of Urban Development (Poland) will organize the International Urban Regeneration Congress, which will be held in Krakow on the 4th – 6th June 2014.

It is dedicated to all those  who are connected with the issue of revitalization – experts, animators, scientists, practitioners, etc.
The Congress will take place in the Nowa Huta Cultural Centre (232, Jana Pawła II Avenue - Central Square), in the vicinity of the "old" Nowa Huta, 
a model city from the socialist realism period, today a district of Krakow listed as a cultural asset in the register of historic monuments, currently being intensively regenerated.

For further information about the Congress, the program content and the necessary formalities please refer to the following  website: 
http://irm.krakow.pl/en/urban_regeneration.html
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Monday, 24 February 2014

Typology of heritage-led regeneration



Typology of heritage-led regeneration
– case of Edinburgh World Heritage Trust and recommendations for Polish cities

by Aleksandra Jadach - Sepioło, PhD

Although heritage-led regeneration is supposed to be the most appropriate scheme for urban regeneration in Poland, it is still in the beginning. You can find huge repositories of documents, analysis and expertise concerning the cultural, symbolic and the material value of heritage, prepared especially during the communist period with no reference to the regeneration, of course. After the transformation many of these analysis were put on shelves or archives (esp. in towns and medium cities). They are no more used. None takes this kind of documents during programming activities in urban regeneration. The material heritage is treated with no distinction, just as a factor for receiving higher donation for projects. There are only few programs in Poland, in which the richness of the cultural heritage enhanced the new value because of using the traditional techniques of work, materials, etc. Bearing in mind the variety and the value of Polish build-heritage the key element of analysis in the paper is the exemplification of different projects in heritage-led regeneration. The benchmark is the scope of projects realized by the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust. The choice was rather simple as the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust is one of the most important and recognizable organizations in Europe, active not only in the management of  UNESCO World Heritage Site but also as in fund-raising for a different kind of heritage projects (infrastructural, social, educational, symbolic, etc.) and lobbying for a proper place for the heritage in urban regeneration schemes.
The analysis comprises many aspects: the range of partners involved in the projects (from individual owners to many powerful stakeholders), partners’ role (e.g. renovator, fund-raiser, technical advisor, owner, landscaping), costs of the project, economic and social impact of the project for the site regeneration, etc. The typology prepared on this basis is juxtaposed to the typology of Polish projects with heritage background and this comparison highlights diversity of possibilities for new kinds of projects in Poland.
(whole text of the paper will come soon)
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Thursday, 18 July 2013

The fourth meeting in sun-roasted Vienna - June 2013

The main objective was to discuss and introduce further changes in structures of the manuals to achieve a coherent approach. It is particularly important as the manuals have to pave the way for the final report. Moreover, the mechanism that the partnership is developing has to be applicable on the future partners who will be hopefully joining the partnership to expand the SATURN idea.


It was our first meeting at CEIT Alanova’s offices and opportunity to see how the institute operates. The meeting was joined by the director of the institute, Manfred Schrenk, who unveiled us some of the projects the institute is involved in. Sadly, one of our colleagues, Daniela Patti, from the institute had to leave the partnership due to sabbatical break. Nevertheless, Julia Neuschmid joined the project to represent CEIT Alanova. Also Burcu Akinci (CEIT Alanova), who designed SATURN’s logo, as well as EWH’s project manager Fiona Rankin attended the meeting.  

The meeting in Vienna involved visits to regeneration sites, which may be used as case studies in SATURN. 



                                                                           Ankerbrotfabrik

The former anchor bread factory in the 10th District is home to ten institutions for contemporary art. Until about ten years ago this was still baked bread. Contemporary art is now at the center of the anchor bread factory in Vienna's  favourites. Beginning of the 20th Century built, have settled since 2009, studios, galleries and showrooms around the two huge courtyards of industrial building.






                                                                              Further information:
                                                                               www.loftcity.at 




                                             Visit to the Westgürtel regeneration project with Architect Silja 
Vienna’s WestGürtel area alongside one of the city’s most congested through  roads, which was in the process of deteriorating into a slum area, was successfully  regenerated through a mix of urban-development, job-creation, social and  cultural measures. The work was carried out under the auspices of the URBION project – URBan InterventION WestGürtel – which also came to assume an important image-bearing function for the entire URBAN I programme in Vienna.



                                                          Further information (page 40-41)
                                                   http://www.bka.gv.at/DocView.axd?CobId=31433 
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Wednesday, 17 July 2013


The SATURN meeting was coordinated with the annual World Heritage Day on 18th April, which in 2013 was focused on international connections, cultural diplomacy and the role of heritage in connecting different countries. It was a successful event involving over 200 guests and interesting speakers such as Fiona Hyslop MSP (Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs), Prof. Jacek Purchla (Director of the International Cultural Centre in Kraków) and Susanne Hauer (Organisation of World Heritage Cities secretariat in Regensburg).







The partners met on 19th April in Edinburgh to update each other on drafting progress of the manuals. At this point it became obvious that more focus has to be made on making the final products coherent enough to form a basis for the final report. This part of the project has to be well thought as it will lead to development of a methodology, which would be applied on new manuals and partners in the future. Also, we felt that a stronger emphasis has to be made on a didactic side of the project to maximise its utility.


We invited Sussane Hauer from the Organisation of World Heritage Cities secretariat in Regensburg to participate in the meeting and bring her perspective to the discussion table. It turned up that there is plenty to learn from Regensburg’s experience as well as projects such as HERO and HERMAN.



Krzysztof Chuchra 
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