“A playground for everyone” aims to tackle social dynamics that perpetuate unsustainable situations of inequality, by making a transformation from an abandoned plot to the school playground and converting this space into a driver for health, co-education and coexistence in the community.
Scholars and locals who suffer with mental health difficulties collectively constructed Zona Santiago, becoming, not only a school playground, but also a communal space for Cabanyal’s neighbourhood.
Local
Spain
Cabanyal neighbourhood, Valencia
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Santiago Apostol School Type of organisation: School First name of representative: Jordi Last name of representative: Bosch Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Function: School's director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Escalante Street, 329 Town: Valencia Postal code: 46011 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 963 71 07 22 E-mail:colegio@santiagoapostolcabanyal.es Website:https://www.santiagoapostolcabanyal.es/
“Zona Santiago, a playground for everybody” is a project that aims to tackle social dynamics that perpetuate unsustainable situations of inequality, by making a transformation from an abandoned plot to the school playground and converting this space into a driver for health, co-education and coexistence in the community
The project is carried out at the Santiago Apostol School in the Cabanyal neighbourhood of Valencia. The school is designated a Special Educational Action school, whereby the majority of its pupils come from disadvantaged backgrounds and belong to minority cultural groups, such as the Gitanos or Spanish Roma. Other local entities involved in the project are Nautae, a mental health association; Fent Estudi, a citizen participation cooperative; and Las Naves, the municipal institute of urban and social innovation.
The process had two distinct parts: firstly, the physical transformation of the space; and then, the collective development of Zona Santiago as a communal space for the neighbourhood.
The school community was involved in the whole process: analysis of the space and relationships, diagnosis of necessities, designing and building. Scholars worked together with locals who suffer with mental health difficulties to adapt the plot, previously used as a carpark, into an educational area. Transformation was made with recycled materials donated by local institutions and enterprises, building a school garden area, an open-air structure as an assembly area, a multi-sports court, resting areas and free play areas.
Along the process, they created an identity for the area, working on their own diversities and common goals, naming the area as “Zona Santiago, free to play”. Zona Santiago was opened up to different local collectives, creating an informal meeting place for residents and extending the social function of the playground beyond its border to the wider community. The space currently hosts free weekly activities and is run on an assembly basis.
Co-educational playground
Mental health
Community space
Urban rehabilitation
Collaborative building
The sustainability of the Zona Santiago project is a transversal line throughout the process. Attending to the social sustainability of the process:
- Involvement of the educational community in all phases of design and construction of the space, generating student responsibility for the space and a sense of belonging.
- Transformation of an underutilized area into a multifunctional space where not only the school, but also the neighbourhood can propose activities and take responsibility for the management of the space.
- Study of the neighbourhood facilities, ensuring that Zona Santiago provides added value and avoiding duplication of functions with other nearby spaces.
- Promoting physical and cultural activity in the neighbourhood, offering inclusive and healthy leisure opportunities for all ages. For example, the health centre in the area prescribes people over 60 to attend the free parkour activity for seniors offered in Zona Santiago every weekend since October 2021.
Attending to sustainability in the physical transformation of the space:
- Elimination of a space used informally as a parking lot, decreasing emissions produced by motor vehicles in the streets near the educational centre.
- Use of infrastructures already built, focusing on the rehabilitation of spaces.
- Use of recycled materials donated by local institutions and companies: wood, fabric for the awning, drinking fountain, benches, etc.
- Equipping a school garden to promote healthy and sustainable eating and consumption habits.
Zona Santiago fills with life an abandoned space, the result of the housing crisis suffered by the neighborhood due to real estate speculation. The citizens' experience of the space is highly pleasant for the following reasons:
- The large circular wooden structure is a space that attracts the attention of everyone who passes by. It generates a feeling of comfort and seclusion from the inside and does not represent a visual limit from the outside. In addition, it can be decorated and adapted to the events held in the space.
- The space so far has four large murals made through partnerships with other local projects and neighborhood initiatives around values such as environmental sustainability, gender equality, inclusion of the elderly and the value of the neighborhood's community memory.
- Shaded spaces are important in a Mediterranean coastal city like Valencia, functioning as a climatic refuge in the hot months.
- Other facilities such as toilets and drinking fountains are essential to generate a comfortable experience for everyone in the space.
- The height of the walls and the distribution of the elements allows a panoramic view of the space from any point inside or outside. Giving a sense of freedom and security.
Diversity is part of the identity of the space. From the beginning it is a participatory process with the educational community where students and people with mental health problems have worked together in the transformation of the space.
Once Zona Santiago is built, a process of democratisation of the space begins through a monthly open assembly where the neighbourhood has access to the management of the space outside school hours.
In addition, it is committed to promoting the capacity for agency and leadership of people with diverse abilities. The Nautae Mental Health Association provides therapeutic support during the assembly sessions and activities so that users of the association become involved in the management of the space.
Opening the courtyard of Santiago Apostol School to the neighbourhood creates a space for coexistence and mediation in the relationship between the school and the neighbourhood. As the majority of the pupils belong to ethnic minorities, one of the objectives of the space was to generate a good atmosphere and interaction between different cultures.
On a physical level, it is an accessible and spacious place that generates a sense of security and does not limit the movement of people, whatever their physical and mental condition.
The social impact of Zona Santiago benefits first and foremost the educational community of the Santiago Apostol School, but also the entire neighbourhood of El Cabanyal and the city of Valencia.
For the school, it is an open space where they can develop sports activities and innovative educational methodologies such as the assembly model of student participation that they develop, as well as being a safe space for rest and playing during the school hours.
In the Cabanyal neighbourhood, more than 20 associations and organisations have already participated in the space, organising free activities open to all citizens. A leisure and cultural offer for all audiences that is organised by the monthly assembly of Zona Santiago, made up of anyone who wishes to take part in the project. They are generally held on weekends, and are usually attended by people not only from the neighbourhood, but also from other parts of the city. The activities often coincide in time, sharing the space and making the entities and the different publics interact with each other and generate a network.
For the city of Valencia, it is the first example of a school playground open to the public outside school hours. It is estimated that in the city of Valencia there is around 6,000m2 of public school playground area that is underused outside the school day. Zona Santiago is a pilot project to democratise urban space in favour of citizens, paying special attention to the participation and inclusion of people in the management processes of these spaces. The project has served to draw up a roadmap for the shared management of these spaces. It is planned to replicate the project, thus multiplying its impact in the city.
The project involves the design and implementation of the Santiago Apóstol School, the social entity Nautae and the social participation cooperative Fent Estudi, and is subsidised by the Valencia City Council's foundation for social and urban innovation.
Educators, planners, architects, wood professionals, participation technicians, psychologists and therapists worked together in the design and construction process of the space.
The emotional and psychological accompaniment of the work team was key to shaping the collaboration of the different disciplines that were part of the process. the vision of the educators and the technical ones of participation was key for the diagnosis of uses and necessities of the space that later was moved to architects and urbanists to realize the design of the space on which the team of carpentry worked. All the professionals then participated in the construction of the space.
Once Zona Santiago was opened as an assembly, educators, therapists and technicians in participation have continued to be part of the process from their disciplines to ensure quality participation.
One of the components that differentiates the Zona Santiago process from other transformations of educational spaces or school playground opening projects is the fact that it has been incorporated into the school's educational project. In addition, the role played by people with mental suffering has been key to building an inclusive space from the ground up.
The replicability of the project is high in its two phases: transformation and opening of the schoolyard.
The transformation of the space follows a scheme of analysis of the recreational spaces and the relationships that occur in them; diagnosis of the needs and interests identified; collection of design proposals; elaboration of a collaborative design; construction of the space; and the transversal work of creating and linking the entity of the space.
Although each experience is subject to the neighbourhood context, which is constantly changing, the opening of the space is also a replicable process that has been drawn up as a roadmap for the city of Valencia. It focuses on identifying the interests in opening up the space, establishing a management mechanism and taking care of the relationship between the different actors to ensure the sustainability of the project.
The first part of the project, the transformation of the space, followed the next steps:
1. What happens in our playground? A socio-spatial diagnosis of the existing recreational spaces, the ways in which the spaces were used and how the student body related to them.
2. What do we want in our playground? The pupils came up with proposals for improving the various spaces used based on the diagnosis made.
3. How do we transform our playground? The necessary construction work enabled secondary school students to participate in a service-learning project, working alongside users of the mental health services provided by the Nautae association.
Then, in the opening phase, the project adapted the OASIS Methodology developed by the ELOS Institute (Brazil) consisting of seven steps to identify the potential of the neighbourhood and incorporate them into a common project of collective construction. The final step is the celebration of the work done, which in our case was implemented in a festival of activities during a weekend.
This project aims to tackle social dynamics that normalise and perpetuate unsustainable situations of inequality, by making improvements to the school playground and converting this space into a driver for health, co-education and coexistence in the community.
In the face of the mental health crisis and the increasing number of suicide cases, especially among young people, the provision of relationship and community spaces for the creation of mutual support networks is a mandatory line of action in cities. In addition, coexistence between people with mental diversity and adolescent students means an approach to mental diversity, developing basic skills such as empathy.
The Zona Santiago project has been awarded in the Valencia Regional Government's Citizen Participation Awards in 2021. It has also been mentioned in the Valencia City Council's social and urban innovation awards in 2021 and 2022.
In the educational field, it has been awarded in the category of participation in the state awards for service-learning processes, in which the Ministry of Education collaborates.
At present, the space continues to be used not only as a school playground but also as a meeting space managed in an assembly way.
The process around Zona Santiago creates a path towards the paradigm shift needed to make cities sustainable living spaces by introducing this awareness directly into school learning.
