Empowering Teenagers Through
Built Environment Education While
Experimenting (In)The Public Space
Oana Paval, Muresanu Monica,
and Mina Sava
Abstract
Teenagers may not be the most obvious
left-out category of people, but in the design
and use of public spaces they are often left
out. Public space belongs to everyone, yet
teenagers seem not to have the means to make
their voices heard when it comes to demand-
ing their own space, which represents their
identities and offers a creative and comfortable
environment in which they can socialise and
evolve. De-a Arhitectura Association began to
develop the Urban Up educational program in
2016, as a starting point in diversifying its
portfolio with another age group, that of
teenagers, aiming to be inclusive of all
categories and backgrounds. Throughout the
past years, Urban Up tried to come before
their need to be more involved and heard,
regarding their wishes and expectations from
the built environment and the public spaces
they use, through different hands-on activities
(extracurricular) and with a design thinking
methodology for improving their schools.
Trying to constantly find better communica-
O. Paval (&)
M. Monica
De-A Arhitectura Association, U.A.U.I.M,
Bucharest, Romania
e-mail: sooana.paval@gmail.com
M. Sava
De-A Arhitectura, Bucharest, Romania
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
M. Mostafa et al. (eds.), Design for Inclusivity, Sustainable Development Goals Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36302-3_34
34
tion channels and to reduce the generational
distances, we started a fellowship program for
students in different study fields connected to
the built environment (multidisciplinary
teams), in order to bring teenagers and young
adults together. The students became mentors
for the high school students, in workshops
they co-designed, aiming to engage them in
better understanding and using public spaces.
It is our belief that the more aware and
involved teenagers are today, the more active
and responsible citizens they will be
tomorrow.
Keywords


Teenagers Built Environment
Education



Public Space Inclusivity
34.1 Intro—Urban Up in De-a
Arhitectura’s Portfolio—The
Beginning
Through its activity, De-a Arhitectura Associa-
tion aims to introduce architecture and built
environment education for children and teenagers
in the school curricula, as well as to encourage
and guide teachers to use the built environment
and architecture as learning resources for other
subjects. It promotes architecture and built
environment education for children, teenagers
469
470
and teachers in schools, and it involves profes-
sionals of the built environment in all these
processes. The idea of the quality of the built
environment as a civic responsibility is a core
value of the organisation. De-a Arhitectura has a
large network of built environment professionals
who enjoy sharing knowledge with children and
teenagers involved in our programs regarding
elementary notions of architecture and urbanism,
through direct observation and analysis of the
built environment we live in and also apply these
notions in a common creative process, to benefit
from the results of their work and communicate
them. The teaching and learning methods are
experiential and rely on creativity, curiosity,
communication skills and team spirit.
Another purpose of De-a Arhitectura is to
increase the visibility of the architects' profession
in society, starting with the school environment
and also by continuously training architecture
and built environment professionals to better
communicate with a broader audience.
De-a Arhitectura Association started as a
working group in 2011, when the six founding
members wrote the “De-a Arhitectura [Playing
architecture] in my city” course, for children in
the 3rd and 4th grades. The NGO was legally
formed in 2013, and it had the optional class
“De-a Arhitectura [Playing architecture] in my
city” approved, after the pilot year, 2012. In the
following years, the portfolio of De-a Arhitectura
Association diversified with a new course for
first years of school—De-a Arhitectura Mini,
many club activities, more cities, schools and
professionals involved in the programs, but
mainly targeting children between 6 and 12 years
old. Before the Urban Up program, over 3600
school children, 135 volunteer architects and 140
teachers were reached.
Reducing discrepancies between the way
professionals understand the built environment
and the way the broad public does is the key to a
better built environment. After the first years of
activity, it became more and more obvious that
there is a particular category of users we can
address, the most present ones in the public
space, the teenagers. They are specific users that
are still passionate, curious and willing to learn
O. Paval et al.
new things though not yet corrupted by the
monotony and responsibilities of adult life that
tends to make us become idle to problems that
we don’t perceive as our own. As adults, we
seem to lose the awareness regarding the impact
the built environment has upon us, we take
everything as a given and we only focus on our
day-to-day routines. We also become less intro-
spective than teenagers and easily ignore how
our own behaviours impact the built environ-
ment, public spaces, nature and other people.
For teens, “there are simply more things
happening than at any other time—a teenager is
neither a child nor an adult, but a complex
mixture of both. These years are not a gap—
rather they are a wonderfully exciting collision
when all the different strands of our life get
tangled together in a way that will never happen
again.” (Bainbridge 2010). This amazing com-
bination of emotions and experiences leads to a
perspective that can contribute to improving the
environment and space in an inspired and con-
structive way, in understanding things in a cre-
ative way.
Considering all of the above and based on our
previous experiences and conclusions, in the fifth
year of activity, 2017, the De-a Arhitectura
Association launched a new project, Urban Up!
Built Environment for High-School Students.
Through this new project, the activities portfolio
gained another age group, that of high-school
students. The idea of the project that led to the
birth of the Urban Up program arose because of
the little knowledge teenagers have about the way
the environment we live in is altered.
34.2 Urban Up! Built Environment
for High-School Students—
Outcomes
The intention of the project was to bring knowl-
edge and shape attitudes about the values of the
built environment, sustainable development and
the role of young people in the processes of
transformation that affect their cities. The curric-
ula and workshop activities were designed to help
the high school students acquire skills to learn
34 Empowering Teenagers Through Built Environment Education While Experimenting …
how to learn, to communicate and to be part of a
team, meanwhile becoming citizens aware of the
built environment, as well as promoters of posi-
tive changes in their cities. The project was
implemented between April and December 2017.
The 54 workshops took place in 7 cities in
Romania—Bucharest, Braşov, Sibiu, Cluj-
Napoca, Timişoara, Iaşi and Constanţa, and they
reached 1025 high school students. A total of 26
built environment professionals (architects, city
planners, engineers, anthropologists) were train-
ers of the 4 workshops briefly described below.
Workshop A: Monument, who are you? & Anti-
boredom map
Through interactive exercises, the participants
better understood how cities are transformed,
why they should care about the quality of the
built environment, why heritage matters, which
are the relevant and exciting places to spend time
together with other citizens who have similar
Fig 34.1 Anti-boredom map exercise in Bucharest at Galateca Gallery, November 2017
471
interests, how to design, imagine and present
those places, how accessible certain areas are, in
their city, etc. (Fig 34.1).
Workshop B—A project for my city & City tour
The main idea that the participants synthesised
after this workshop was that the space of the city
is something concrete that influences each of
them, just as they can also influence the city,
even though not as much as they get to have an
impact on their own space at home. The first part
of the workshop was a role-playing game where
some of the characters were those who decide
how to spend public money for new projects in
the city. They found out how our cities transform
and how decisions are made on projects regard-
ing the city. The second part of the workshop
was wrapped as a challenge to brand their city
and explain it to others as such, through a guided
tour for anyone who would like to better know
the places they like best.
472
Workshop C—Not in the mood today & The
claimed city
One topic of this workshop was to identify the
links between the built environment and the
physical and emotional state of those who use it.
The participants presented their own personal
opinions and observations regarding the aspects
that influence the quality of life in their cities.
They analysed the existing facilities in some
areas of their cities and determined if they are
sufficient for the inhabitants. They got to com-
pare and contrast places they like and places they
don’t and to find arguments why some places are
appreciated by others, but not by them, using a
space analysis criterion that the built environ-
ment professionals use. Also, besides objective
criteria, the participants had to pay attention to
the way that perception influences us differently,
based on each person’s sensitivity and personal
experience, learning to be more empathic with
those that don’t share their perceptions and
opinions.
Workshop D—Wheeled access & Defendant city
After this workshop, the participants might have
become more interested in influencing the deci-
sions made for the harmonious and inclusive
development of the city, because they better
understood how the city influences our everyday
life, even if we are not typical users. First, the
city was either accused by a prosecutor’s team of
diminishing the quality of life of its inhabitants
or defended by a team of lawyers. The best
argued side was decided by a jury which gave the
verdict in the end. During the second part of the
workshop, the students followed an itinerary
through an urban area nearby either pushing a
stroller, in a wheelchair or pulling luggage. So,
the participants got to experience a certain area in
terms of accessibility and gained more experi-
ence in analysing the city.
O. Paval et al.
34.3 Follow-Up—The City and The
Professions of the Built
Environment
The purpose of the city and the professions of the
built environment project was to raise interest
and attract the attention of high school students
towards the city, and also to offer teaching and
learning methods, already tested in 2017. The
methods could also be used by teachers, NGOs
and public local authorities, since the built
environment can really be a fruitful research and
reflection topic. This follow-up project was also a
means to reiterate the intention of our approach
towards projects for teenagers and young adults.
It was a way to raise awareness that the teen-
agers' perspective on the built environment
should matter. The project was carried out by the
De-a Arhitectura Association in 2018, under the
Urban Up! umbrella, in partnership with
Bucharest City Hall through the Center for
Educational and Sports Projects (PROEDUS)
and “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and
Urban Planning (UAUIM).
Why another project for high school students?
Because we considered that it was important to
continue to cultivate their knowledge about how
our living environment is changing, it was an
opportunity to create contexts for teenagers to
meet active and passionate professionals of the
built environment who are examples of social
engagement. It was meant to be a framework for
them to practice and develop their social and
civic skills, and critical analysis, while demon-
strating social integration behaviours. One
objective was to empower teenagers to have a
proactive attitude and take their own educational
path into their own hands.
The participants, over 100 high school stu-
dents from 20 high schools in Bucharest, expe-
rienced one or more workshops and were very
34 Empowering Teenagers Through Built Environment Education While Experimenting …
enthusiastic to interact with the students from
“Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and
Urban Planning, on their grounds, in the uni-
versity studios. For the teaching staff of the
university and the architects who took part in the
project, meeting the high school students was a
chance to ``feel'' the pulse of the young genera-
tion, soon to be active in the fields of the built
environment, either as future professionals or as
beneficiaries or users of urban spaces.
34.4 The Need for Urban Up
to Grow Up (With a Fellowship
for University Students)
“Teenagers have a language of their own” as De
Bruce J. Gevirtzman says, and this language and
their preferences make them into these exuberant
personas that have the energy to change and
colour the world with fantabulous ideas. More
so, when teenagers become involved in a
movement or project, they engage both younger
and older people in their lives in the immersive
story they create, often surprised by their fresh
angle or perspective on things.
Since 2018, Royal Institute of British Archi-
tects (RIBA) has started an extensive national
program to educate children about the built
environment in British schools, something that
the De-a Arhitectura Association has been doing,
with the support of architects, for quite some
time. Any educational program and project about
the city and the built environment is a plus in the
education of young people, regardless of the
profession they will choose in the future, because
they will be either our colleagues or the benefi-
ciaries of the proposed projects by us and in both
situations, they must be able to make informed
decisions.
The excitement of the 2017 project and the
feedback we received from over 1000 high
school students that took part in the workshops,
as well as the energy we received from them and
their creative and honest outcomes, made it clear
that Urban Up! has to become an umbrella for
diverse projects dedicated to teenagers and
youths. In 2019, we had some attempts to
473
continue in Sibiu, after winning a competition on
the Social Agenda of the Sibiu City Hall and
being shortlisted in another competition, but the
formal request they both had did not align with
our objectives enough, so we decided to put
things on hold. Meanwhile, focusing towards a
new target age group, that of young adults,
became an objective on the agenda of De-a
Arhitectura Association and after a general
assembly in 2020 a dedicated work group was
formed. We already had a strong identity and the
Urban Up! platform, so it became obvious that
Urban Up! needed to grow up, bringing youths
side by side with teenagers in our educational
projects.
The first priority was to upgrade the age
group, so we decided to also address students.
They are closer in age with teenagers who usu-
ally look up to them, and their knowledge and
interest in the city can be a relevant means to
share knowledge. The idea of a fellowship was
the one through which to best bring together
teenagers and students, and it was also the best
approach to empower the students into taking
action. The aim of this particular fellowship was
to engage the students in a co-design process of
new urban pedagogy educational scenarios for
high school students’ workshops. The call for
participants was launched in April 2022. It was
not only dedicated to students from fields related
to built environment and urban studies but also
connected study fields, aiming for a diverse,
interdisciplinary group of fellows. 30 students
with different backgrounds applied (urban plan-
ning, architecture, psychology, educational sci-
ences, anthropology) and following a selection
process, 26 fellows were selected. Some of our
selection criteria were their motivation regarding
interdisciplinary and participatory processes,
their interest in the life of the city, their civic
involvement or the potential to do so and their
willingness to pass on the concept of active cit-
izenship to high school students.
The Urban Up Fellowship was structured in
three modules: module 1—Inspiration and
forming teams based on common interests,
module 2—Co-creation of the educational sce-
narios, and module 3: test and pilot in workshops
474
with high school students. The first and second
modules took place in May 2022, at the begin-
ning and at the end of the month, so that the third
module that meant to test and pilot the co-
designed workshops could take place during the
summer.
The first module took place at
ExpoHUB OARB (headquarters of the Bucharest
Territorial Branch of the Romanian Order of
Architects) and was meant to inspire the fellows
and to expose them to diverse intertwined con-
texts and initiators with interdisciplinary
approaches in their fields of work. The 14 guests
from different organisations presented some of
their initiatives that changed the life of the city
for the better. The main topics our fellows got in
touch with were inclusive design, empathy and
vulnerable users (AMAis, Active Watch), quality
of the built environment and good design (the
Order of Romanian Architects, Dizainăr),
bottom-up initiatives (the Cișmigiu Civic Initia-
tive Group, the Legacy Bucharest community
centre), documenting urban experiences (Vira
Association) and sustainable mobility (Bate
Șaua, Hai cu Bicla). After their presentations, our
guests were divided in three, covering the fol-
lowing large sustainable development topics:
social, economic and environmental. The fellows
got to have informal conversations regarding
their own interests on these topics in a world cafe
format. The world cafe format, in which the
participants have the opportunity to visit each
table, ensures an informal, dynamic and interac-
tive relationship, a two-way exchange of ideas
and a networking opportunity.
The team-forming process was also a partici-
patory result meant to create an organic option
for the fellows, based on their areas of interest
aligned with the 5 previously defined subtopics:
heritage conservation, ecology, sustainable
mobility, inclusivity and good governance.
Between the first and second modules, the
fellows, guided by each team’s mentors, turned
their ideas into workshop scenario drafts, as a
work base for the second module. During the
second module, the fellows presented their ideas
and received feedback both from the mentors of
all 5 teams and their peers. Following the
O. Paval et al.
feedback sessions, the students translated the
presented ideas into clearly structured workshop
scenarios which were afterwards tested through
role-play and each team got to facilitate parts of
their scenarios, while the other teams got to
impersonate high school students. The fellows
and mentors went through the rights and obli-
gations of citizenship, imagined that they had
their own political party and took it upon them-
selves to solve some problems in the city, dis-
cussed mobility by wearing the hats of different
stakeholders, looked for social and spatial land-
marks as starting points for conversations about
heritage and walked around the area and felt the
city at their feet looking for subjective details that
bring it to life. The simulations were followed by
another feedback session, so that the workshop
scenarios could be finalised while integrating the
useful feedback.
The third module took place during the sum-
mer. It started in June, with a workshop led by
the Sustainable Mobility Team in a city centre
park, in Bucharest, where 12 high school stu-
dents from 3 different schools participated. In
August, all 5 teams of fellows got the chance to
test their workshop scenarios in Năvodari, a
small town by the Black Sea, in a high school
students' summer camp. Representatives from all
the teams were there to pilot their scenarios, and
they had the chance to receive constant feedback
from the same group of 20 teenagers of different
ages and from different places in Romania. The 5
workshops were the people of the city—aiming
to create a frame for understanding how the city
influences the quality of life of its inhabitants; the
heritage of the city—aiming to encourage teen-
agers to appropriate the concept of heritage by
understanding it in a personal key; the nature in
the city—aiming to overlay the sensorial per-
ception of the urban space on the presence or
absence of nature and how this impacts each of
us; city governance—aiming to contribute to the
civic involvement of young people, with the
concept of common interest at its core, being a
very relatable concept in relation to the built
environment; sustainable mobility in the city—
developed around the importance of inclusive
design and a city for all.
34 Empowering Teenagers Through Built Environment Education While Experimenting …
Some of the opinions voiced by the high
school students through the anonymous feedback
form they filled are “I gained a different image
regarding the city and its buildings, the green
spaces, etc”, another student said: “I'm glad that I
managed to better observe the things that sur-
round me. Although some notions were repeated
more, this helped us to better understand them”
(targeting the content). A student commented
about the activities: “They put us in motion, and
it wasn't something boring where it only included
theory. It's easier to learn through practice.” One
of their colleagues mentioned: “We managed to
get out of the visual sphere and differently per-
ceive the world we live in.” On the collaboration
with the fellows, the teenagers said: “It was a
pleasure to meet them and exchange knowledge.
One of the coolest parts of the camp” as well as
“Super nice. I love their enthusiasm and dedi-
cation to what they study.”
34.5 Still Growing Up—Recent
Projects
The fellows that facilitated the workshops during
the Năvodari summer camp manifested their
interest and availability for continuing to facili-
tate their workshops from now on and also to be
a part of other Urban Up! projects we have on the
agenda. All 5 student-developed scenario pro-
posals are creative and have the potential to grow
into lasting programs, not just single workshops.
The 5 teams will have the opportunity to coor-
dinate the workshops in different contexts: in
high schools, at cultural events, at local com-
munity events, etc. We also want to implement
the educational scenarios during the Different
School Week program, starting with the 2022-
2023 school year.
Another growing direction for Urban Up is
through an international Erasmus+ project—
Palimpsest Cities, in which 2 fellows that already
have a bachelor's degree joined our team. Some
of the project objectives are to raise awareness
about local cultural values at a higher education
level by focusing on future architects, conserva-
tors and interior architects, to increase the
475
interaction of children and young people with
cultural heritage and archaeological sites and to
enrich architectural education with informal
practices.
Also, in 2021 two of the members of the De-a
Arhitectura team (authors of the current essay)
submitted a project to ARCUB (a public cultural
institution in Bucharest) through which they
proposed to initiate a participatory planning
process for public spaces, with and for teenagers.
In 2022, it was selected to be funded and it was
implemented in November and December. The
call addressed Bucharest high school students
and 15 spots were available, but in the end, we
had the pleasure to meet 19 participants. The
project brought teenagers, students and profes-
sionals together for 3 days of hackathon, where
both high school and university students assisted
to presentations of the guests on topics such as
urban acupuncture and micro interventions in the
public space, inclusive design, recovered places
and spaces through versatile design proposals,
democracy of the public space, social vulnera-
bility, the 15 minutes neighbourhood and cities
for happy people.
The TU_act project involved 10 Urban Up
fellows in different stages: 8 as mentors and
``translators'' of the high school participants’
ideas in concrete proposals, 1 in the team of
authors for the contest brief and 1 in the jury
team.
The nineteen students were organized in five
different teams. In the week that followed the
hackathon they submitted a proposal that illus-
trated their vision on the urban acupuncture
intervention for a public space, of their choice.
The main focus of the proposal was on the needs
of their specific group and the needs of their
peers, in relation to the chosen urban space.
Teenagers like to use the urban space as a vessel
for their creative ideas, and they should be
encouraged to explore and shape the space as they
see fit for their use and different types of activi-
ties. The five proposals were team 1—Urban
Glade, team 2—modulOM, team 3—Hangout,
team 4—Take a Break Here and team 5—Our
Spot. The 3 projects awarded by the jury were as
follows: 1st prize was won by team 5 (Fig. 34.2),
476
Fig 34.2 Extract from the contest proposal of theme 5—our spot (Spotu' nostru)
2nd prize was won by team 1 and 3rd prize was
won by team 2.
The teenagers in team 5 described their
approach as follows: “Once we found our chosen
spot, we started to interact with it and we dis-
covered its potential to be valued. We aimed to
bring the invisible layers forward, the ones that
not every person passing by notices. The wall
(there since the 70’s when there was a building
site here) is both a limit and a link between two
O. Paval et al.
spaces, separate together. Our proposal amplifies
many perspectives gathered in the same place.
We felt like bringing a direct path to a gate
unopened yet, to link to existing trails. Through
the created portal we turn a simple crossing over
from one side to another to an event. We felt that
this place is intimate but open. There, you feel
surrounded by people but alone, with yourself.
Through modular urban furniture (adaptable and
multifunctional) we preserve this character. The
34 Empowering Teenagers Through Built Environment Education While Experimenting …
modules can be moved around considering the
activities there, and so we create a diversity of
experiences. (...) This is how we ended up with a
simple result, but complex at the same time, with
many hidden messages and interpretable
symbols.”
The jury, formed of 3 built environment pro-
fessionals and an urbanism student and Urban Up
fellow, considered that Our Spot proposal con-
vinces primarily through the choice of place: a
non-place, located next to the traffic flow of the
area, a space neither public, nor private or part of
the park, enhanced with multipliable, flexible and
relatively readily available means.
All five proposals were very brave and cre-
ative and all 8 mentors, students in architecture,
interior architecture and urbanism, considered
that they also had a lot to learn from the teams of
teenagers they guided and supported throughout
a week of developing ideas. Some of the mentors
said that they were really impressed by their
initiative and determination and also by their
awareness regarding important themes of today’s
society, like social justice and equity, climate
change, gender studies, and even politics and
civic engagement, and they do not remember to
have been so aware as teenagers.
The scenario of the Teens Urban Acupuncture
project that consists of a hackathon followed by
an ideas contest is designed to be repeated in the
years to come and even in other cities in
Romania perhaps, in other countries.
34.6 Conclusions
All in all, teenagers are part of the local com-
munity, and communities shape and adapt space
to their own needs. By understanding how local
development happens, youths will become more
aware of what they can do in the future and will
be able to have an impact on improving their
cities, according to their creative demands and
expectations. In the future, we aim to contribute
to engaging high school students in the decision-
making processes related to urban development
477
in their cities. They are not simple users of the
urban layout and have their own vision and
benefits out of the interactions in (with) the urban
space, individualised to the various activities
they carry out in the city.
Throughout our projects in the Urban Up
program, we aim to continue to bring teenagers,
students and professionals together and to offer
high school and university students a platform to
express their needs and ideas with regard to their
inclusion in public space and in society while
they are young and not necessarily yet taxpayers
or voters.
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