The project is focused on interdisciplinary educational approach that deals with the potentials of demilitarized and abandoned areas of island of Logorun. During project activities,local community with the experts will define cultural,urban, environmental,and sustainable policies to create development strategy for the renewal of the abandoned infrastructure and donkey reserve, allowing the island area to be a new recreational and cultural area for local community and wider.

The island of Logorun, Municipality of Tribunj, County of Šibenik - Knin, Croatia

The priority goal is to make citizens aware of being active agents of change in their environment through participation in tailoring sustainable spatial and cultural policies, under the guidance of experts in the field of participatory design. The project is a basic step towards the implementation and popularization of an inclusive method of strategic planning and sustainable management of public space with special emphasis on demilitarized and abandoned facilities on the islands of Croatia. By networking and exchanging positive practices and through intensive workshops, a platform of active citizenship will be created and will serve as a guide in adopting strategic and spatial plans and enriches the cultural national landscape by elevating the spatial planning process to civic sphere.

Local community – by participation they become an active creator and not only a user of this public space
Students – they create content and acquire knowledge and skills they can implement in their further academic development
Young Professionals – they provide knowledge, and with the experience gained they become more competitive within the field of community based sustainable design
Academic community - gets broader reach for communicating knowledge and develops new methods of knowledge transfer
Decisionmakers – through project activities they can translate knowledge and form legislative frameworks which will be implemented to other locations and professions
Local authorities – by participation they can develop new participatory methods of public space management

The project deals with the organization of the 4 interdisciplinary inclusive seminars including workshop and accompanying lectures with mentoring experts from different fields of activity such as ecology, architecture, design, sociology, urbanism.

During preparation period we will define one main tackling theme for each seminar.

Each 7-day seminar will consist of activities: on-site tour, inclusive workshop, mentoring lectures, public presentation of the group work, final public panels, and public discussions.

After each seminar we will promote the results regionally to reach wider public.

The intention of the seminars through the method of participatory planning and design with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity is to get various unexpected detections of spatial potentials of the island of Logorun and proposals for the future public management it, including reusage of current abandoned infrastructure and renewal of donkey reserve.

Methods to create equitable community are education with experts support, capacity and relationship building, community action and experience and knowledge sharing.

Through various activities project primarily aims to bring the idea of active involvement in the process of planning and programming of public space closer to citizens and students by teaching them to have active role in their community.

The expected result of the project is development of tools and prototypes to create public space at the island of Logorun and similar contexts in the following period. We will derive conclusions for development on the topic of inclusive and participatory sustainable planning of the immediate living environment with an emphasis on abandoned demilitarized spaces and donkey reserve.
The conclusions and tools produced will be materialized in the form of a printed manual, and will be published on digital platforms, which will establish contact with a wide range of interested public. This will also work as a springboard for continuous development of Logorun and wider area and for continuous collaboration on the subjects among professionals and interested public.

The goal of the project is to encourage the public to accept the challenge of their own role in the process of participatory sustainable spatial planning, as well as management of unused spaces that have the potential to incubate public content, through cooperative engagement of local actors and cultural workers, universities, and professional associations.
Also, the goal of this project is to create a stimulating environment of a culture of participatory and interdisciplinary engagement aimed at sustainable spatial planning. The proposed project involves the local authorities, experts and citizens and raises their awareness of the importance of engagement and active participation in the community making them equally important in the decision-making process.

The case study area is approximately 15 hectares of abandoned surfaces on the island of Logorun. Some participants of local action group that started the fight for the island in the 2014. are today members of partner organizations. These people have grown up in the Municipality are strongly connected to the project idea.
During years, they have become experts in their field of work (Luka Cvitan - architecture, Marko Grubelić – economy and political sciences) and along with their new teams are still working on the subject each one within its own field of work. Besides them, the lead team members are four professionals with experience in island and regional development and strong experience on project management and seminar organisation.

TOTAL EXPENSES
Personnel - 18,000 EUR
Travel and accommodation - 9,000 EUR
Project management and administration: 4,000€
Office expenses: 3,000€
Communication and dissemination: 5,500€
Seminars (logistics): 10,000€
Publication costs: 2,500€

We would be happy to receive comments on our idea and advice and suggestions on different methods and approaches to interdisciplinary participatory design and activities to empower local community and how to use and how to share tools to be an active citizen.