Schools are important spaces in the city and often a second home for children. In Barcelona, Spain, and Milan, Italy, K1 (Kids First) is working on improving the safety of children’s access to school by introducing traffic calming, more green spaces, and installation of benches using a tactical urban approach. The cities selected envision school zones as safe, comfortable, and healthy public spaces and meeting places for children, and along with the families and neighbours, have a clear strategy to achieve this vision. 

In Barcelona, the project complements the City Council’s strategy, Protegim les escoles, to provide safer school zones. Meanwhile, the tactical urbanism programmes Piazze Aperte and Strade Aperte, are being expanded to school spaces in Milan, in a bid to achieve the “15-minute-city” that prioritises accessibility of high-quality and safe public spaces. 

Today, Europe’s major railway stations are mobility hubs that support several transport users, not just rail commuters. Planners are required to revise design criteria and standards to keep up with the increased demand on services. To this end, the project aims at defining upgraded criteria for designing railway stations as multiservice hubs. To help planners deliver seamless connections between multiple users, the RAISE_UB project will conduct experiments and initiate interventions to gauge responses to various scenarios and find out what works best.  

Commuters that frequent two railway stations – Milano Rogoredo and Madrid Chamartin – will be asked to participate in the project. An online platform to collect data on users’ perceptions of the changes will be created and will also engage people in the test beds. Additionally, an intervention roadmap and design principles that include recommendations on how to improve the intermodality of different transport types will be a key output.  

Cities are envisioning a change in the use of public space. Urban areas previously occupied or used by private cars are being transformed into public spaces, a welcome change for kids. Yet children are generally excluded from the design and planning phases of these projects. Hence, the FURNISH-KIDS initiative aims to redesign urban spaces that will be tailored to children’s needs. Using a collaborative process to gain insights from local communities in Milan and Barcelona, FURNISH-KIDS will create prototypes in public spaces to be tested by children, as well as an urban living lab experience.