The right to play – TDK2020

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  • Image Source: Patkó Klári, MTI

The Right to Play – György Dániel Győrfi, Laura Kovács
Student Research Societies 2020 – 2nd prize and “There is no Planet B!” Sustainable Special Award
National Student Research Societies 2021 – Special Award

We played with the idea: what kind of society would grow up if the children were given the city usage rights that they might deserve even today? What if game, and thus community life, were not just locked into enclosed buildings and fenced playgrounds? What if we didn’t squeeze children into smaller and smaller spaces so that we could keep them safe, but we, grown city dwellers, tried to coexist with attention to children as well? After all, they have the same right to our public spaces as we do.

In our research we tried to find a strategy how to start to bring in the child friendly viewpoints into the streets of Budapest. Our main tool for that was to get know the children of the area and to map the routes they take in their everyday life. After we had these routes, we could select strategic points like crossings and vacant lots where we could start to transform the urban environment more child friendly with the tool of the placemaking. As a pilot place we chose the surroundings off the Kiss József street in the 8th district.

We believe that placemaking could be one of the best ways to give back the children the space they deserve if we handle it as an element of a bigger strategy. And as a result, this new approach will be profitable for all of the citizens, because the city that serves the smallest, and most vulnerable, actually has a positive impact on everyone.

The entire research can be viewed here.

Consultants: György Alföldi DLA, Olívia Kurucz

The ABC of public space – TDK2020

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The ABC of public space – István Bence Cselényi, Lilla Kammermann, Lilla Luca Varga
Student Research Societies 2020 – 3rd prize and Special Presentation Award of Student Representation

Our POP UP parklet action urges for a discussion on the current situation of public spaces in the 6th district of Budapest. We aim to draw the attention of the local communities, the local government and the urban developers to the issues listed below and also provide an easily and quickly realizable solution to them. One can say that the district of Terézváros, with its narrow and busy streets and an 86% built-up density, does not satisfy the ideals of a 21st century of urban environment; especially with regards to its liveability and climate-sensitivity. The area’s public spaces, with the notable exception of Hunyadi Square, do not offer a high quality spatial experience. Meanwhile, every street of the neighbourhood boasts immense parking spaces for cars on both sides of the road – often at the expense of cyclists and pedestrians.Moreover, the basic amenities of urban infrastructure (waste receptacles, telephone booths, planting boxes, parking ticket machines, etc.) are pushed onto the already constricted pavements. Even the cyclists and motorbikers are under the necessity of locking their bikes and vehicles there, due to the lack of storage opportunities elsewhere. The densely built-up urban fabric of the district, along with the traffic calming measures of the local government and their revision of the parking system, requires immediate and pointed action for improvement.

Közért (a name which translates to both ‘in the public’s interest’ and ‘mom-and-pop store’ in Hungarian) is a parklet designed for the dimensions of an average parking spot (2.5 x 5 m; 12,5 m2) whereby these public spaces shielded from traffic would be transformed with improved functionality. As a mean of tactical urbanism, our long-term ambition is to create a tendering system that allows members of the local residential and business communities to gain rental rights over these spaces. Through a modular system, which lets them choose from a list of units and functionalities, these reformed public spaces would be tailored to better suit the needs and desires of locals.

This would not only yield a better urban experience for all, but also provide small businesses with opportunities for growth and development, as well as widening the awareness of the issues that the locality is currently facing. We aim to accurately map the interests of residents and businesses and establish the appropriate forums for effective communication between these communities, their government, and urban developers; paving the way towards a future where space is used more equitably.

The entire research can be viewed here.

Consultants: György Alföldi DLA, Soma Pongor [Studio Nomad], Olívia Kurucz

PET Hacks – Rethinking Public Toilets 2020

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PET HACKS – Sustainable aid tricks to shrunken rural settlements

UFLab participated in The Little Big Loo – Rethinking Public Toilets 2020 – Architecture Competition by Volume Zero.

REASON – The main trend of the world is the experiencing unprecedented demographic growth of cities. But this process also connotes the extraction of residents from rural settlements, who have the opportunity to move to the city in the hope of a better life. In order to balance this accelerating process and avoid the deterioration of the living conditions of people in extreme poverty there is a need and demand for alternative survival techniques.

SITE SELECTION – Tarnabod is a desolate, Hungarian rural settlement, that do not have any public transport connection to other settlements. More than 80% of residents are minors of Roma origin in extreme poverty, who have moved in local, abandoned properties. It is hopeless to build sanitary rooms in these old-fashioned peasant’s houses and in addition, the village does not possess an existing sewerage system. Drinking-water is supplied from groundwater wells, holes for collecting rainwater make the traffic on the streets more difficult.

THE PUBLIC TOILET – The PET HACKS public toilet is a modular construction, which applies both nature-based solutions and simple physical laws, while its main construction materials are PET bottles. The creative usage of these bottles (qualified as rubbish) may substitute several building materials and engineering systems. They can be used to create plasterable or transparent wall system, water filter configured to be facade cladding, nature air cooler or water-heater as well. Ideas that work in large systems can be implemented and used by residents in their own gardens and properties, and through the production of sufficient bath- and washing water by themselves as micro societies, their state of health and hygiene circumstances may be improved. The three-module building comprises a public laundry, shower rooms and toilet blocks, and in addition, meetings, hygiene and lifehack education take place in a large, covered-open public space.

Architects: Olívia Kurucz and György Alföldi DLA

BP9 / JALTP – Studio Works – Urban Planning and Design 2

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BP9 / JALTP – Studio Works – Urban Planning and Design 2

The focus of the Urban Planning and Design 2 course was the future visions of József Attila housing estates in the 9th district of Budapest.

Based on online databases, maps, documents and social media platforms, we analyzed the area’s economy, built environment, natural endowments, social stratification and transport infrastructure, and then outlined various visions of the 2070 state of the housing estates. Because of the pandemic situation, we could not organize „regular” public participation events, therefore we created online platforms to encourage citizens to share their viewpoints of the future plans. Based on the multiplatform alayzes the students made suggestions for the development of the city center.

Urban Planning and Design 2 – 2020
Consultants: prof. György Alföldi DLA, Olívia Kurucz
[Students: Azeb Mehdi / Bodó Sára Borbála / Borics Péter / Bugovits Janka / Fekete Adrienn Eszter / Gaál Renáta Dóra / Gunther Ágota Anikó / Hernádi Zsombor / Kálmán Mónika / Kiss Barnabás / Kovács Orsolya / Lu Tong Xintia / Márki Franciska / Moró Júlia / Nádasi Ádám / Nyiri Csongor / Oláh Liliána / Rostás Nikolett / Stadler Anna Dorottya / Szakács Domonkos / Szeitl Virág Nóra / Szemelveisz Nikolett / Szilágyi Eszter / Takács Laura Panna / Tóth Bence / Várady Jázmin / Velky Anna Luca / Zacher Márton]

Pecha Kucha Night Budaörs vol.01 – UPGRADE

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Pecha Kucha Night Budaörs vol.01 – UPGRADE

Upgrade was the theme of the first PechaKucha Night in Budaörs, where Olívia Kurucz performed a presentation about Datafication of the city – in context of the UFLab Artifical Intelligence research.

The event was organized by Húsznegyven Egyesület in Budaörs, 11/2019.
You can find more information and photos of the event on this Facebook side of Húsznegyven Assosiation.
Orgainzers: Botond Zsolt Dobos DLA, Judit Gerzsenyi, Olívia Kurucz
Grapics (cover picture credit): Daniel Pucz
Photos: László Regőczy

Community Planning Conference – Budapest

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Community Planning Conference, Budapest, 2019.

From the UFLab research team Prof. György Alföldi DLA and Olívia Kurucz performed at the Community Planning Conference with the presentation title: Experiences of public participation applied in planning courses.

One of the biggest challenges for public participation is to create communication and commence dialogue between participants. For this reason, we considered it important to include this tool in the teaching of urban planning subjects. At first, we started involving the city’s actors with smaller interactive tools, and then felt the need to create a larger, attention-grabbing installation that could be easily shaped for the current event, which invite the person of the street to plan. Thus came the idea of a community information gathering and gamified voting tool – called Urban 3D Diagram. The design process of U3DD was integrated into the Creative Week 2017, where architect students could invent the operation, communication interface and structure of the installation together. The goal was a lightweight construction with the lowest possible storage requirements, the possibility of easy assembly and interchangeability of communication surfaces.

Students built a prototype of the installation during the Creative Week and have since we used it as a means of gathering information and reaching out to the public through a number of research, educational, and public participation processes – like at Pesterzsébet UCL research project and the public events of Salgótarján or Pécel2030.

The event was organized by Borsos Melinda and Dimitrijevic Tijana in Budapest, 11/2019.
Read the Book of Abstracts on Issuu here.
You can find more information and event photos of the Community Planning Conference at the host Facebook page here.
Photos and cover picture credits: Borsos Melinda, Dimitrijevic Tijana and Képkocka.

CAT-ference – Belgrade

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CAT-ference 2019: 8th International Urban Geographies of Post-communist States Conference Belgrade, September 25-29, 2019.

From the UFLab research team Bálint Balázs, Dániel Balizs Phd and Olívia Kurucz performed at the CAT-ference 2019 conference with the presentation title:  The future of shrinking Hungarian cities – From architecture view.

It is well known that the world’s population is growing and more and more people want to live in cities. But some towns, cities or urban region, despite of the ever growing urbanization, are in the period of population and economic decline. Although it has been analysed quite a lot in western countries, in Hungary the decision makers and urban planners still think of this urban downturns as a stage in the history of the city’s ups and downs. Thus these key actors still didn’t recognise how the shrinking phenomenon effect on their cities. Using the example of three Hungarian cities as a case-study, called Mezőtúr, Salgótarján, Sátoraljaújhely, we are trying to show why is it really important to deal shrinkage as a must-solve world issue in its complex way.

Since 1989, from the collapse of the socialist regime in Hungary, these three cities have been struggling. It has led to suffering from population loss, abandoned buildings, social problems, low level of human innovation, lack of entrepreneurship and economic downturn.

Within the limits of a research project at Urban Future Laboratory, we tried to analyse the history and the structure of the cities, the social disorders, and the possibilities that can help to re-develop; with the strong belief all the architects who are working on a declining city should consider other viewpoints besides constructions and new developments. We have already examined three more post-socialist cities (Leipzig, Katowice, Ostrava), and from those experiences we tried to draw the limits of the Hungarian shrinking phenomenon.

During our presentation we would like to showcase what kind of possibilities can help the Hungarian cities to renew and what characteristics do cities have in the topic of shrinkage.

keywords: shrinking cities; Hungary; Salgótarján; Mezőtúr; Sátoraljaújhely

Mastercard Tech Show 2.0

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Mastercard Tech Show 2.0 2019

UFLab was one of the exhibitors at the MasterCard Tech Show 2.0 hosted in Budapest, Akvárium Club. At Tech Show Conference majority of exhibitors – like Vodafone, MOL, etc. – appeared with futuristic technical solutions, but the aim of UFLab was to represent methods for assessing the needs of society. The Laboratory appeared with five digital platforms at the event. Three of the digital surfaces displayed videos and summary studies about UFLab’s public participation projects and two interactive tablets applied gamified questions to facilitate the dialogue about future cities. Prof. György Alföldi attended the Tech Show 2.0 roundtable discussion.

SALGÓTARJÁN – KARANCS FIESTA

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Karancs Fiesta, Salgótarján.

As a result of the Urban Planning and Design 2 public participation event, UFLab were contacted by a local high school research team [Demolab / Kísérletváros] who asked the Laboratory to present the student’s plans to the residents and to promote the public participation method at their city event. The so called Karancs Fiesta event aroused great interest with approximately 700 guests in the main square of Salgótarján, where UFLab appeared with three digital platform and one manual tool. On the digital surfaces people could get acquainted with the future plans of Salgótarján’s main square, the public participation events and the tools of gamification we used so far. The manual tool is called Mapping, where participants could share their visions about the location.

The event was organized by Demolab / Kísérletváros in Salgótarján, 07/2019.
Video credit: Máté Nagy.
You can read more about Karancs Fiesta event and the art pedagogical experiment of Kísérletváros research team here [Artportal] and here [index].