Joint ISOCARP-ITACUS Young Professionals Workshop – Gdansk, Poland, 2023: Bridging the Divide – Connecting the Young City and the Polish Hook Areas in Gdansk

Introduction

ISOCARP is proud to announce the upcoming Young Professionals’ workshop in Gdansk between 16 and 21 April 2023. ISOCARP in partnership with ITACUS (International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association’s Committee on Underground Space) have recently made an agreement with the City of Gdansk – which entails a Young Planning Professionals (YPP) – Young Professionals Think Deep Program (YPTDP) Workshop. The Young Planning Professionals Programme is a crucial component of ISOCARP’s dedication to promote and enhance the planning profession and commitment to facilitate knowledge for better cities with the young generations. The Programme facilitates a unique creative spirit within the Society, and it has become a source of new ideas, innovation and rejuvenation not only for the Society but also for our partners; and has made a huge impact on participants’ professional lives, in the name of the universal vision of promoting and enhancing the planning profession. YPTDP sets on the principle of how to actively involve ITA young members and make them part of a cross-disciplinary cooperation with ISOCARP. The core idea is to combine the proven methodology of ISOCARP’s YPP on underground urbanism. According to this tradition, the Gdansk YPP// YPTDP workshop on ‘Bridging the Divide – Connecting the Young City and the Polish Hook Areas’ will be offered this year again between 16-21 April, in Gdansk, Poland. At the same time, this event is intended to become a continuation of the previously organized series of workshops, which took place in 2016 and 2017 and were focusing on the Glasgow Waterfront and Wroclaw West End.

Theme of the Workshop

The workshop is a joint initiative of the ISOCARP and ITACUS together with the City of Gdansk as the host, and is intended to become a platform for Young Professionals both from Poland and other countries, representing professions associated with both urban design and planning and civil engineering allowing joint work on a selected urban development problem. In this particular case, the topic of the workshop is associated with the redevelopment of the northern part of Gdansk City Centre – a major Polish town, located on the coast of the Baltic Sea and on the Motlawa and Vistula waterfronts. The workshop revolves around shaping the on-ground and underground public spaces, developed on the occasion of the tunneling project being part of the extension of the Popieluszki street, providing a transport connection between two parts of the area divided by the Motlawa river.

Gdansk is one of the major Polish cities, which roots are getting to the early medieval ages. The collapse of the communist system marks the beginning of a new chapter in the reconstruction of the city center. Redevelopment of the urban fabric of the Granary Island (Wyspa Spichrzów) has become one of the most prominent projects of the process of Gdansk waterfront regeneration. This process took place within different development frameworks — the majority of urban fabric has been produced by private developers, sometimes built anew, sometimes as retrofitting projects. The most important development areas in the city center are located in the northern part of the district. The place has been previously used by the Gdansk Shipyard and adjacent industrial companies. This place has become the birthplace of „Solidarity” — a movement that led at the end to the destruction of the communist system. Gdansk Shipyard having tried several restructuring plans, finally went into bankruptcy in 1997. Transformation of the area of the shipyard has begun as early as in 1999. Different visions for the future development have been produced and discussed. A number of new investments, especially the European Solidarity Centre completed in 2014, contributed to the new perception of the place among the residents and guests. The same applies to the World War II museum, which opened in 2016. The most significant investment, however, that truly initiated the development processes was a new transportation link, Popieluszki Street, opening the accessibility to the southern part of the former shipyard. As a result, a number of housing projects have already been completed and many of the landowners are preparing additional investment projects. In order to spur this process and – at the same time – to extend the redevelopment process to the other side of the Motlawa river.

Workshop intents to define the outlines of the city development strategy with respect to shaping public spaces associated with the planned tunneling project. The main idea is to define outlines regarding both on-ground and underground spaces that can present guiding principles for design and engineering companies, dealing with the final design of the entire complex. This approach is also embedded in the outcomes of the participatory process, which was developed for both the entire Young City area and for the extension of Popieluszki street. Aside from the local context, the workshop is intended to promote in Poland and in other countries an integrated approach to the process of delivering infrastructure projects and combining engineering solutions with urban design approaches.

Application deadline
10 March 2023 (11.59 pm UTC). Please read the Calls for Coordinators and Participants before applying!

If you have any question regarding your application, please contact Zeynep Gunay, ISOCARP Board, Director YPP via gunay@isocarp.org

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