On Friday 28 March, students from the master’s programme in Arts and Heritage Creative Cities Course, students from the Premium project in Cultural Planning in the Euregion, and bachelor’s students from the Culture, Creativity and the City Marble project took part in a Newtropolis workshop to examine the potential for the Euregion in the future. Please click here for more information.
During this workshop hosted by Schunck* and Betahuis in Heerlen, the three different groups of students each contributed to the promotion of the Euregion, with ideas on crowd funding, car-pooling and street-level transformation.
The event was also attended by representatives from municipalities within the Euregion, including Liege, Hasselt and Aachen. The workshop was hosted by Hein Smedts, Curator of Architecture & Urbanism with Schunck*, and chaired by Huub Kloosterman from Urban Xchange. The workshop started with an introduction to the Maas-Rhine Euregion and was followed by a talk introducing the Espon project. This was followed by group discussions, where the focus was on the question: ‘How Big is the Euregion?’ Drawing upon maps by Studio Kernland, we set about thinking through the manner in which people engage with the Euregion. The discussion ranged from the importance of transport connections to psychological barriers and mental mapping. With their diverse backgrounds and experiences, both the Masters and Marble students injected some fresh ideas into the discussion, including, for example, their experiences of car-pooling in the Euregion.
For the second session, it was the turn of the MA students to present their research.
First, the MA Arts and Heritage Creative Cities group (Judith Graf, Petra Linhartova, Roxana Cernicky, Nino Tabutsadze, Dina Abdel Hafez and Alexandra) presented their findings on the transformation of Heidenstraat and Hondstaat in Maastricht. In drawing upon discussions around the dynamics of urban transformation ranging from dormancy to gentrification, the students demonstrated the link between everyday experiences and literature pertaining to culture and urban transformation (The final project can be viewed on: http://beerbreadbourgeoisie.tumblr.com/).
The second presentation was by The Cultural Crowd Funding in the Euregion Premium group (Petra Linhartova, Stella Fangauf and Jasper Fränznick). Drawing upon data collected from various culture-oriented organizations, in the Euregion, the presentation demonstrated the potential for promoting crowd-sourcing as a means of encouraging Euregio nal interaction. As outlined in the presentation, this is to be a long-term project, with the aim to examine the possibilities for crowd-sourcing in the coming years.
As well as providing a platform for presenting their findings, the event also allowed for networking and making new connections.
