The territory of Mūkusala, Latvia is within the UNESCO World Heritage Site know as the Riga Historic Center.
The area was heavily industrialized during the Soviet era, and now has a wealth of brownfields awaiting remediation and redevelopment.
As the challenge of developing a brownfield site is complex in itself, the City of Riga considered using a cross-disciplinary student team with knowledge from different disciplines to generate new and fresh solutions seems to be an option to try out during planning competition for the Mūkusala Territory in Riga. The teams add extra value since they can provide different perspectives and solutions to urban planning challenges – e.g. more ecological or economically feasible solutions for soil remediation.
From the experiences of the four Baltic Urban Lab partner cities—Turku, Norrköping, Riga and Tallinn—planning contests and other ideation competitions have been a great method to collect ideas for urban redevelopment.
The cities indicated the importance of clear methodology and thinking the concept of the student planning competition through in order to get the best outcomes. Clear aims and instructions are thus important and something to keep in mind. Developing brownfield land offers many different challenges – from land use to health risks due to contaminated soil.
Local students there have been given a great opportunity to get involved in the Public Outdoor Design phase of the Mūkusala Territory Development Concept. The objective of the the project is to create innovative, interdisciplinary Latvian student working groups. Under the supervision of the head manager, they will develop a pilot development concept, in close cooperation with the pilot area’s inhabitants and entrepreneurs. Students will submit the developed solutions to a professional jury that will decide on the winner.
Dace Kalvāne, Architect and Head of Concept Development, says: “One of the most attractive challenges for a degraded area development process is its complexity and a wide range of stakeholders. Development of the concept of brownfield development in Mūkusala is a great opportunity for students not only to formally get acquainted with real urban planning problems, but themselves to be participants in the process of research, analysis, conceptual proposals. As socioeconomic conditions change, there is a need not only to organize degraded territories, but also to discuss public outdoor space, urban environment and architecture, which has become topical in conditions of social transformation and growth. Within the framework of the pilot project, students will be provided with cooperation not only with the city’s representatives, but also with residents and entrepreneurs of the Mūkusalas area, listening and evaluating the opinions, ideas and proposals of the parties involved, creatively integrating them into their conceptual development of the territory.”
Within the pilot building concept, it is planned to create three student teams. The teams will comprise students of Riga Technical University, University of Latvia, and the Riga International School of Economics and Business Administration who have completed at least 1 year studies.
Each student’s team will be composed of students from the following fields: architecture, landscape architecture, spatial planning, involving, as much as possible, transport engineering, economics (real estate), sociology or social anthropology, marketing students. Students will present their concepts and the jury will be informed about the best vision of the Mūkusalas Development Concept and will present promotional awards at the final event to be held in February 2018.
As a result of the project, three conceptual Mūkusalas pilot area spatial development visions will be developed reflecting the use and functionality of the site, the type of building, traffic flow, green and blue structures, principal architectural and public outdoor design solutions, conceptual sketches, pilot visualization and stylized layouts.
Dzintars Balodis, director of the City Council Department of the Riga City Council, emphasizes: “Using a new method involving the involvement of interdisciplinary students, the project will enable the Riga municipality to acquire three team visions for the Mūkusalas pilot development concept and the results of some kind of experiment that will allow the further use of this type of cooperation model developing development proposals. At the same time, the Riga City Municipality will promote the acquisition of practical experience by young specialists, ensuring the involvement of wider community groups in the process of urban planning. Students will be able to get real practice in the professional field, developing communication skills in an interdisciplinary team, presenting their concept not only to university staff, but also to residents of Mūkusala, entrepreneurs and industry professionals.”