All schools converted to Climate Shelters during the UIA project practically act as “Living Labs” as they are open innovation ecosystems in real-life environments using iterative feedback processes to create sustainable impact. They expose blue-green-grey solutions on adaptation to climate change (Image 5) and focus on co-creation, rapid prototyping and scaling-up innovations. In this context, they do not act simply as demonstration sites, but they operate as intermediaries among the educational community, citizens, local government agencies and research organizations as well as demonstration sites.
The final countdown of Barcelona's Climate Shelters project - final journal
After four years of hard work, the GBG_AS2C project (also referred as Climate Shelters) had its closing event early October 2022.
The project that started with a plan to convert eleven schools to Climate Shelters (“cool islands” within the city web) for heat waves, was eventually integrated to a city-wide plan for transforming school yards and has finally rolled out as one of the main components of the overall policy of the City of Barcelona for adaptation to climate change.
Executive Summary
The Climate Shelters project implemented an innovative adaptation plan to climate change through the conversion of schoolyards to “cool islands” (termed as Climate Shelters) primarily with a mix of blue (water points), green (greenery in the courtyards), grey (interventions on the buildings, more shadow spaces and use of permeable materials) measures. Through the project, eleven schools were converted into Climate Shelters; as a result, 4.500 kids benefited from the pilot investments in their school, 3.213 m2 of schoolyards were transformed, 74 trees were added, and 26 new water points were installed.
During the entire duration of the Climate Shelters project, a wide communication program was deployed to inform the public on the potential and objectives of the project and raise awareness to climate change and its impacts. Under the leadership of the City of Barcelona, all partners (Image 1) delivered valuable tools and products (https://www.uia-initiative.eu/en/uia-cities/barcelona-call3) in support of the implementation of the project.
Image 1. The Climate Shelters project partners.
Project’s progress
The project organized its final event on October 6, 2022 (Image 2). During the event the main achievements were discussed, and the evaluation results were presented to the educators from the participating schools.
Image 2. Final event of the project at the Villa Olimpica (October 6,2022).
The project in its concluding phase has focused on the assessment of the evaluation findings at the participating schools:
- what is the new state of the local environmental conditions (temperature, indoor and outdoor air quality),
- the health and well-being of the education community and
- the dynamics and life experiences of students and teachers (are the schools more inclusive; do the new playgrounds promote the equality of children in the school yards).
Educational activities were continued at all participating schools (Image 3). More than ten schools are converted every year to Climate Shelters through the legacy city project named “Let’s transform the school yards” (see next section on Long-term sustainability), while the project has been connected to the Open Schools Yards and the Sustainable Schools projects of the City of Barcelona, a fact which facilitated its integration to the overall policy of the City of Barcelona.
Image 3. Educational activities within the Climate Shelters project.
Long-term sustainability
A critical parameter for the long-term sustainability of the Climate Shelters project has been the solid political commitment of the City of Barcelona towards the upscaling of the project. Considering the success of the project from all of its aspects (climatic, environmental, educational, pedagogic, social), a target objective has been added to the city’s Climate Plan, namely the provision of a Climate Shelter at a 10-minute walking distance by 2030.
Annual funding has been earmarked for the upscaling of the project, by means of its integration to the “Let’s transform the school yards” program (Image 4). This program transforms a minimum of 10 schoolyards each year to reach three distinct, yet strongly interrelated, targets:
(a) the physical spaces to become Climate Shelters and therefore greener, naturalized, shaded and with improved thermal comfort both in the inner and outer school environment;
(b) the dynamics and life experiences of children in the school yard to bring them closer to nature and to promote more equal relationships through the diversification of education, sport and play possibilities and activities; and
(c) the school yards to open to the neighbourhoods so that everybody can make use of them for activities.