Urban Projects: From Ideas to Implementation

This summer, the HSE Perm Faculty of Management organized its first international summer schoolon urban projects. The summer school 'Urban Projects: From Ideas to Implementation' focused on designing a campus park. Irina Shafranskaya, Deputy Dean of the HSE Perm Faculty of Management, shared her impressions of the summer school.

This summer, the HSE Perm Faculty of Management organized its first international summer schoolon urban projects. The summer school 'Urban Projects: From Ideas to Implementation' focused on designing a campus park. Irina Shafranskaya, Deputy Dean of the HSE Perm Faculty of Management, shared her impressions of the summer school.

—  What criteria did you use to select a site for urban development, and who was involved?

— A park outside one of the HSE's buildings caught our attention. It was in poor condition, but once redesigned, it could become the crown jewel of our city. So the summer school participants worked on the park's new design under the guidance of highly experienced tutors, lecturers, and experts.

The lecturers — Kasper Pobloski, professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan; Sergey Khromov-Borisov, partner at SenseCraft; and architect Maciej Czeredys—explained the essential theory underlying this type of urban development project. Each lecturer contributed his relevant expertise in urban planning, architecture, management, and marketing.

The tutors were an international team of young people, trained in urban development, from Singapore, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland, and the U.K., as well as HSE graduates. They helped the participating teams develop their projects.

And finally, experts Sergey Malenko and Dmitry Lapshin, representing the city and regional governments, explained how new urban projects may be supported by the state and municipal authorities.

— Who attended the summer school and what were their impressions?

— We were quite happy with the kinds of participants we had. They included our bachelor’s students and alumni, students from other of our city’s universities (eg from the Urals Branch of the Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture), and also students from Moscow State University, the HSE in Moscow, and international guests from Sweden and Bulgaria. The entire course was delivered in English. Our initial concern was that it might be a barrier to communication and collaboration, but, in fact, the participants spoke English throughout the seven days, only occasionally switching to Russian, and I find the language practice to be a valuable by-product of our course. Later, the students shared about their experience in social networks, and it was my impression that everyone felt happy and inspired. We are now thinking of holding another summer school in 2014.