News
Plant containers guiding to school
On their way to school, many children have to cross numerous streets every morning. All too often parking cars, hoardings etc. are blocking their view so that they have to step on the street to see if they can cross it. In a residents' meeting for children in the district Isarvorstadt, the safety of school routes was a big issue. Supported by the politics, the local environment organisation 'Green City' has launched a project to provide safer routes to school. Together with the children they build containers with plants, painted them and put them up to create a colourful zebra crossing.
Play me, I'm yours
Under the slogan “Play me, I'm yours” 17 pianos could be found at public spaces all over Munich. The idea behind is simple but effective: Music touches people and joins nations and generations. From the 31th of August until the 17th of September 2017 everyone was invited to take a seat and make music. Each piano had its individual character. Artists, architects, students, kindergartens, youth facilities and other creative minds were asked to submit their ideas for the design and the best were put into practice.
Walking for cleaner air
Every morning, the large amount of cars leads to a lot of traffic and a big chaos on the streets of Munich. Instead of waiting for the politicians to change something about that, the primary school in the district Ramersdorf took action to improve the situation: on the initiative of the parents' council, the school started a class competition. From the end of June until the end of July 2017, the children collected balls for each time they were not brought or picked up by car. The class who moved in the most eco-friendly manner has won the first place.
Margerl-Grätzelfest
On a sunny sunday, the Grätzelinitiative Margaretenbad celebrated their tenth birthday, an event for
young and old. A temporary street closure transformed the area into an attractive space which
was framed by an interesting culinary, cultural and active mobility supporting programm.
Besides a wide range out of children's programme you also could find a coffebike, a mobile kitchen on a cargobike or a repair service for your bicycle.
Playstreet in front of school
On the 22 of September in front of the Klex-Klusemann School and Kindergarten a
temporary playstreet was implemented in Graz for one day. In the context of the Car-free day
children got the chance to use the street for play. The organisation Fratz Graz accompanied the measure.
The conclusion of this intervention is that the street in front of the school can be used for a wide range of
activities. Children can enjoy the space for fun activities and thus public space can be used for something else that for parking cars.
Who owns the public space
A public space is a dynamic system and changes every day, so it should be a space to make live worth living.
In the 70is and 80is there was a liberal handling of using the public space but today things are differently.
Nowadays many times the usage of public space is not free anymore and house rules predominate our everyday lives.
You will find alterations, like privatization of public space, for example Shopping Centers are privat but still open.
Instead of exluding human beings we should find a right way to share our space.
First 'School Street' in Graz
With the beginning of the school year 2017/18, the first school street was introduced in Graz.
The model from Bolzano/IT has served as inspiration for this implementation. In this scheme
children will walk to school instead of being a passenger in their parents’ car.
The transport councillor, Elke Kahr, is already willing to an extension of the model at other schools in the city.