YOUR FORUM FOR PLAY, SPORTS UND LEISURE AREAS
The instrumental anchoring of the promotion of movement using the City of Mülheim an der Ruhr as an example.
Children move everywhere and all the time. Movement is a central part of the culture of young people. Adults need movement to compensate for their everyday working life. Enabling play and movement is a central requirement for the development and design of our cities. This applies to all the open spaces in a city: roads, paths, squares, pedestrian areas, green areas, forests, wasteland, playgrounds and football fields. All open spaces – both green and the urban – are a fundamental prerequisite for children and young people to grow up healthy. The safeguarding and creation of conditions for a healthy childhood are thus the responsibility of integrated urban development. However, this important task is often disregarded. Important areas for play and movement are destroyed to make car parks, housing development plans are targeted at achieving top yields on the market and only include the essential public open areas, the trendy sports that are carried out by young people in public are banned. Usage conflicts and bans limit the opportunities for people, primarily children and young people, to play and move around. It is precisely these target groups that often only have specially zoned play areas where they can move safely.
Encouraging and demanding movement
In order to counteract these developments it is necessary to integrate everyday movement as a mark of quality in the development, planning and design of a city. It is not only the target group of children and young people that is our focus, but rather a view of the city taking into account the movement of all generations. Our objective should not be to build playgrounds for senior citizens next to the children’s playgrounds to attempt to satisfy the aspect of movement for older people. Rather our focus should be on levels of safeguarding and creating open spaces, the qualification of existing areas for play and sports and the integration of play and movement as marks of design and art in public areas. Play and movement do not always need to be recognisable as movement on apparatus or clearly marked categories of area. Rather the aim is to encourage and demand the everyday, natural incentives to move that we hardly register as such. The reclamation of open spaces for play and movement demands not only high-quality structural intervention but can also be achieved through the temporary provision of roads as areas for play and movement or tolerating youth-culture activities in city squares.
The masterplan for play and movement
The reclamation of the city as a space for play and movement can only succeed if this demand is based on a strong space-planning instrument. The masterplan for play and movement in the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr is just such an instrument, developed by the city together with the planning office STADTKINDER. Based on ‘play planning’, this masterplan realises play and movement as the central spatial interest of children, young people and adults in a logical manner. It systematically links the participation of all generations with the three stages of spatial planning: analysis, planning and realisation. New formats of dialogue between the generations bring young and old together and turn them into the partners of the urban development and town planning professionals. This participation helps to identify the existing qualities of the open spaces and to develop programmes of measures that satisfy requirements.
The masterplan includes statements on the safeguarding of areas for space-intensive activities and for the networking of free spaces. The recommendations for action can be realised easily in the short term but also allow long-term planning. Basic, strategic recommendations on certain categories of area or topic are also a central element. It defines further qualities for the design of both green areas that are suitable for play and movement and for urban open spaces.
The quality objectives also relate to usable town planning or the design of residential environments. The masterplan defines initial starter projects that develop highly motivating signal effects. These have already been realised during the process.
Policy-makers and experts from all the relevant, municipal divisions accompany the masterplan in the steering and project groups and thus map out the cross-sectional task and claim of this plan. The strategic strength and the effectiveness of the safeguarding and creation of place for intensive play and movement are the central arguments of the masterplan for play and movement, which is why it will be used in the future as the most important strategic planning plan for urban development in Mülheim an der Ruhr.
This kind of instrument and its systematic linking of participation with spatial planning makes the active city specific and realizable and is therefore future-oriented.
The creation of the masterplan in Mülheim an der Ruhr
The story of the development of the masterplan for play and movement in Mülheim an der Ruhr goes back a long way and already had its beginnings in the creation of the 2002 land use plan when the importance of a conceptual planning and development of play areas was expressed. The starting point was the consideration that play areas were safeguarded until 2015. This followed on from the establishment of the education play service in the 1980s and reference was made to participation through the sponsorship of playgrounds, children’s participation in the planning of playgrounds and the holding of playground parties. At this time the content was targeted mainly towards children and young people or towards families. An overall concept for the further development of safeguarded areas was demanded by politicians as early as 2002 and the administration held out the prospect of realisation.
In 2008, the youth welfare committee and the seniors advisory board looked at the question of ‘multi-generational playgrounds’, for which a comprehensive report identified ‘meeting places for generations’ and described leisure opportunities for young and old on maps. The creation of a play area concept was then promoted specifically by the district representatives in 2010 and this was expressly supported as an important element by the administration in a report. However, realisation had to be postponed because of a lack of funds.
In 2011, the topic of ‘playgrounds for handicapped persons’ was included on the agenda of the equality committee and the youth welfare committee with reference to the ‘UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ and the ‘European Charter for the Protection of Human Rights in Cities’. As a result of these discussions the youth welfare committee agreed the ‘Development of a Play Plan for Mülheim an der Ruhr’. As there were no funds in the budget for planning, third-party funds were sourced and provided by the Leonhard-Stinnes-Stiftung. An initial addition was made to the contents at this point with the inclusion not only of play areas but of all open spaces. The Institute for Town Planning and Construction (ISS) at the University of Duisburg-Essen was integrated as a partner and this institute accompanied the scientific aspects of the project at the beginning. A conference was also initiated with peb e.V. (platform for nutrition and movement) from Berlin and ISS.
In the course of the discussion the viewing angle expanded regarding the topics of inclusion and demographic change and the title ‘Masterplan for play and movement’ was chosen. Existing plans and town planning aspects were included together with the future tasks of mobility, climate change and health.
Municipal departments are constantly supplying data and expert knowledge for the process. However, there was insufficient municipal staff to steer this kind of overall project and to create the plan itself. The task had to be transferred to an experienced specialist company and this was resolved in an excellent, targeted manner with the commissioning of STADTKINDER.
Photo: Planungsbüro STADTKINDER, Dortmund
For further information contact:
Dipl.-Ing. Christina Peterburs
Town Planner AKNW
Team Leader of ‘Family-friendly town planning’
Planungsbüro STADTKINDER
Huckarder Straße 10-12
44147 Dortmund
Tel.: +49 (0) 231/524031
christina.peterburs@stadt-kinder.de
&
Klaus Beisiegel
Head of Division
Stadt Mülheim an der Ruhr
Division VI Environment, Planning and Construction
Hans-Böckler-Platz 5
45468 Mülheim an der Ruhr
Tel.: +49 (0)208/455-6002
Klaus.beisiegel@muelheim-ruhr.de
http://www.muelheim-ruhr.de/cms/masterplan_spielen_und_bewegen_fuer_muelheim_gestartet.html
