Dr Sarah Scheiber and Dr Wendy Jo Mifsud, through their organisation Dawra Madwarna have teamed up with EcoStack Innovations to develop the project ReCreate (NatuRE-based Co-CREATion in SenglEa - Beauty in Diversity), a community project being led by Ecostack Innovations in collaboration with Dawra Madwarna, Senglea Local Council and the University of Malta. ReCreate seeks to engage with the community to rethink streetscapes and public spaces as greener places, and foster a better relationship with nature for residents while improving the urban environment through nature-based placemaking. ReCreate has successfully achieved funding through the EIT Community New European Bauhaus.
The ReCreate project will be supported through the community and public space planning expertise available through Wendy and Sarah within the Department for Spatial Planning & Infrastructure at the Faculty for the Built Environment. Building a repertoire of nature-based placemaking projects is central to the team’s work, as they strive to understand how residents of Maltese localities can be motivated to participate in bettering the urban environment within which they live, and to ultimately foster a sense of pride in the spaces they make use of.
To achieve this, a placemaking toolkit developed by Placemaking Europe is adapted, applied and analysed within the Maltese context, consisting of a series of events to build a relationship with local communities that allows us to tailor the toolkit to their specific needs and desires for their locality.
In Senglea, a relationship was formed with members of the community throughout the early Summer, which was followed by a first workshop on the 27 July 2022. This was organised by Dawra Madwarna and Senglea Community Gardens with the support of the Senglea local Council and Ecostack Innovations. The DM working group was led by Wendy and Perit Faye Sciberras.
Special thanks go to the working group members Suzie Sammut Tagliaferro, Elena Demarco, Matthew Tanto and Isaac Ohana, as well as Isabel Warrington who set up the Senglea Community Gardens initiative. Thanks also go to Beta Paints for sponsoring the paints need on the day. The activities carried out are documented in more detail on the Dawra Madwarna events page.
Following this very successful first workshop, a Placemaking Festival will be held on 22 October 2022 through the ReCreate project, to celebrate European Local Democracy Week. The series of events held then will set the stage for yet another stage of the project, whereby the team will be undertaking a tactical urbanism intervention in December.
As the intervention is to be inspired by the residents who take part in the placemaking activities, it is not yet known what shall be designed in the squares of Senglea but it is sure to be something that Sengleans themselves have envisioned and created… Exciting times ahead!
EIT Community New European Bauhaus ReCreate is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union.