Co-Design Table - Romania

On 10-11 March the Romanian Cluster organised two Co-design Tables in Timisoara, Romania. The first event on 10 March took place onsight and was hosted by the local venue – Faber – Plai Cultural Centre. It brought together representatives of Timisoara NGOs working with urban regeneration, community issues, socio-cultural revitalization, as well as representatives of the local public administration and a representative of the Faculty of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Timisoara. Members of the project team were also actively involved in the discussions.

The event on 11 March happened online and was attended by representatives from different fields of interest, from major Romanian cities (Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi, Craiova, Oradea), such as: urban planners, architects, university professors, local public administration employees (chief architect, advisor to the mayor, director of the local urban planning department etc.), city managers, members of NGOs, students.

Both events discussed how urban innovators can be better trained and what is missing in the current education. As a result, these discussions highlighted obvious weak points in the current Romanian training of urban planners: lack of cooperation between academia and practitioners (NGOs, policy-makers, etc.). The participants pointed out that training should be more action-based, focusing on conflict management, interaction with different stakeholders, placemaking and project management. Everyone has agreed that a new mutidisciplinary and innovative training is necessary and very welcome in Romania.