URBAN SPORT LAB

Context: Working on social integration through spontaneous sport.

Sumary: In European cities, with the overload of housing space, the existence of informal sports spaces, from street sports and active leisure areas to the requalification of neglected sports areas, is a priority way to promote social inclusion, health and urban regeneration, aligning with the current EU priorities for "fair" and "green" cities.
We want to improve public health by encouraging physical activity through urban planning, social inclusion, and the creation of safe and accessible spaces for diverse social groups.
We believe that this kind of measures will increase the sustainability of cities and improve the well-being of citizens.

Proposal: Sharing best practices in informal sports activities across cities, relating them with social inclusion.

Target Audience/Beneficiaries: Residents, with a special focus on disadvantaged communities and isolated citizens, as well as municipalities' staff members.

Methodology: Sharing best practices followed by replication in various territories, sharing experiences and creating methodologies of sport urbanism and tools for promoting Informal urban sport.

Benefits and Impact: Adaptation of public space for sports practice and promotion of integration through Informal Urban Sport.

Investment types: Exchange of best practices. Design solutions for implementing sports equipment /circuits in cities.

Detailed project description

In an urban context where public spaces are increasingly limited, which restricts the implementation of large sports infrastructures, the way forward must involve activating public spaces for spontaneous sports practice.
There is, therefore, a path to follow in the implementation of sport urbanism, including, among other measures, the requalification of neglected spaces and the optimization of public spaces, making them adaptable to informal sports practice.
Throughout this process, we must always take people into account, promoting in these measures the conditions to provide sports practice for different age groups and ensure the inclusion of people with reduced mobility, as well as promoting gender inclusion.
In this way, we intend to instil in this proposal an integrated approach, based on 3 fundamental pillars:

1st Pillar  – Adopting an integrated approach

In a project that aims to be transversal and integrated, we cannot address a single theme in isolation; instead, we must examine several interrelated aspects.
This pillar includes, among others, social approaches, understanding who the priority target audiences are for our action, but also economic aspects, ensuring the equity and financial sustainability of the projects to be implemented, while guaranteeing a balanced environmental performance that promotes good practices in this area.
Obviously, in doing this, we will have to create multidisciplinary practices that go far beyond sports and should integrate teams that deal with social issues, sustainability, and also, for obvious reasons, urban planning teams.

2nd  Pillar – Public Participation and Community Involvement
If the ultimate purpose of public policies is always to improve the quality of life of populations, the role of people is absolutely fundamental to the success of this type of project.
Citizen involvement allows for increased levels of public participation through their active inclusion in decision-making, ensuring that local knowledge helps create better solutions to real problems.
Thus, the aim is for the entire process to involve cooperation that seeks to raise awareness and integrate all stakeholders in the development of informal sports practices within the city.
In essence, we will be working with citizens and for citizens.

3rd Pillar – Transferability

This type of joint initiative to exchange best practices will only make sense if the concepts developed and the policies implemented in the different territories involved can be transmitted and replicated from one local context to another.
Thus, all the skills, knowledge, and best practices demonstrated in the sharing process, including the different approaches to diverse scenarios in the specific contexts of each territory, should be taken into account, developing efforts to allow replication across all members of the consortium.

Once the assumptions of these 3 pillars are ensured, we also intend to replicate other good practices that may exist and that can bring added value to the project, which is why the choice of strategic partners is a fundamental step

Thus, territories focused on urban concepts aimed at making cities healthier, more active, sustainable and livable, through urban design and social participation, should be prioritized, thus optimizing this experience of using public space in the fight against social exclusion and the promotion of healthy lifestyles, using sport and informal physical activity for this purpose and making it a driving force for social inclusion.

In this new paradigm of city building, the possibility of prioritizing the regeneration of existing buildings in a reconversion strategy for sustainable and inclusive projects should not be overlooked. This would increase sustainability and recovery within the existing space, optimizing it instead of new constructions that would, strictly speaking, increase urban pressure.

Since we are a Metropolitan Area with almost 2 million inhabitants and 17 municipalities, we have, from the outset, a diverse and well-structured local group that involves various municipal officers in the areas of ​​planning, sports and social services, in addition to various social and social inclusion projects through sports implemented in the territory. Therefore, we already have a robust and dynamic working base that allows us to develop good work with other European partners who may be interested in joining the consortium.

We are naturally seeking partners with recognized best practices in the application of informal sports in public spaces, or who face similar challenges and are looking for common solutions.

In the later stages of the process, we must achieve a level of maturity that allows us, for example, to organize events in public spaces to test interest and gather feedback from the community, or to conduct workshops with citizens on the design of sports spaces, including techniques such as ground painting, installation of low-cost removable equipment to transform "invisible" spaces into playing areas, returning them to their original function after sports practice.

At the end of the project, we should have solutions that can help us improve the following problems:

1. Improve public health by encouraging physical activity through urban design.

2. Social inclusion through the creation of safe and accessible spaces for diverse social groups.

3. Sustainability, making cities greener and more functional.
4. Data utilization, optimizing the use of technology to monitor the activity and well-being of citizens.