.
,
I declare that this master thesis is written independently. Works, standing points of other authors as well as all the associative facts have been referred to properly.
Author: Ave Kongo
…………………………………. (Signature)
…………………………………. (Date)
My first more thorough contact with a typical post-socialist large-scale residential area started on the Landscape Theory course on the first year of my Master studies. The aim of the course was to create an attitude towards a certain landscape by using different discourses. My group and I looked at the residential area named Annelinn in Estonian city Tartu next to Sõpruse Street (strip) using the theory of “common” landscapes. We perceived this residential landscape as a system containing layers of everyday trajectories, homes, car routes, shortcuts, play that has a rhythm given by the time of human life and the time of the day. As we noticed in various phases in life people have different expectations to places that can be met by superimposing contemporary layers to the old, dodging regulations and adding new values. Since the theoretical analysis of this post-socialist residential environment fascinated me I decided to work on with the practical side of this particular area – Annelinn – on the Design Project course that followed next year. In my project I focused on creating a future vision and scenario that is based on the statistics showing a significant shrinkage of population in that district. I discovered that negatively perceived processes like shrinking can be turned into a design tool that guides the change and benefits from it. The outcome of this recognition is a phased development of a strip through the whole district that forms the spine for the changes. As a solution to the emptying apartments I suggested the demolition of a number of panel apartments along the strip and the reuse of those panels to create new public places within the district. I recognised that as changes in landscape are inevitable then the best that I can do as a landscape architect is to examine the driving forces behind them and invent new potentials from them. This thesis is related with my former approaches towards this kind of residential areas as I am trying to start a whole discourse on the topic. One more simple reason for writing about the activism in post-socialist residential areas is that I have been living in Annelinn basically my whole life. Therefore I feel personal attachment and interest in the future development directions of the outdoor space in this area and the residents’ role in this place and perception of it. From this aspect comes the very aim of this thesis to create a discourse that searches for ways how to provoke urban
and community activism in Annelinn, the most significant post-soviet large-scale residential area of Tartu. I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor Friedrich Kuhlmann and Anna-Liisa Unt for sharing their innovative ideas and supporting the whole process. The writing of this thesis would not have been possible without all the people who agreed to give interviews. Especially thankful am I to the lady from the back of Annelinn who by being active and responsive made my work much easier. Finally my sincere gratitude goes to my friends and family for always being there!
Current thesis seeks for innovative approaches how to provoke urban and community activism in a characteristic post-socialist large-scale residential area. It is a shortterm research that is aiming to start a new kind of discourse with practical value when talking about post-socialist large-scale residential areas. This work uses the terms from urban studies and sociology that sometimes has the wording of its own to best describe the aims of the new discourse. The background information is kept broad to set a wide contextual framework. Urban residential areas with multi-storey apartment buildings and high concentration of people are characteristic to most of the cities in the world; Europe and Estonia are no different (Kabisch, Grossmann 2013). The reasons for constructing large-scale residential areas were the same for socialist as well as Western countries: to reduce the housing shortage that emerged after World War II. The difference lied in the fact that in socialist states the housing programmes served a political objective to build homogenous housing for people in different social classes while in the West the target group of mass housing was middle or low income groups (Kabisch, Grossmann 2013). These types of areas are most often in Estonian context referred to as free plan areas, panel cities, dormitory districts, high rise housing, new cities, new suburbs and in architectural terms of Socialist countries microdistricts (Heinloo, 2009); in global context also large housing estates, social housing estates (Kabisch, Grossmann 2013). These names reflect more or less the structure and (often negative) characteristics of such areas.
As these types of residential areas accommodate a vast number of dwellers the quality of life and environment is under consistent research and discussion all over the world. The issues depend on location and local demographics but certain processes and problematic points are common to all or several of such districts. One major process that occurs in post socialist large-scale housing areas of former East Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan (Rieniets s.a) where a large amount of houses has become empty, is shrinking. Ageing and degrading of housing as well as the abandonment of 6
outdoor environment accompany shrinking. These processes, although not in the same extent, are visible also in Estonia and in the target area of research, Annelinn in Tartu. This situation offers a great challenge to find solutions that would especially have a practical value for the future and raise the resilience of the district.
All the bigger cities and towns in Estonia have a large-scale residential housing area. The most extensive ones are Lasnamäe, Mustamäe and Õismäe in the capital city Tallinn and in Tartu, Annelinn that is the characteristic example of this thesis. They consist of microdistricts that are districts bordered with main traffic routes where residential houses situated freely in greenery are interchanged with public service buildings (Bruns 2002). In the past 10 years the future of them has become under an extensive discussion in Estonia. The main threats to free plan areas are decline and the danger to become slums, degradation of housing and continuously poor outdoor environment, and the low activity of the community in these types of areas. The very last aspects have been in the focus of several workshops, architectural competitions and exhibitions like the Forum of Panel Cities (in Tartu, Narva and Ahtme (Linnafoorumid, Eesti Arhitektuurikeskus) as well as the year 2012 exhibition of the Union of Estonian Architects called LASN (Tooming 2012). All the events have aimed at finding solutions for the outdoor space. Yet there is no or very little substantial outcome on structural level that is not just another “cosmetic surgery” made to some courtyards (Tammik 2013). It is important to analyse to whom and why are the changes necessary. Even if the reports of the city forums about panel cities reflect a high amount of interesting and unique ideas there is no actual implementations or worked out long-term strategies. Also quite little work is actually being done on discovering residents’ perceptions of the surrounding outdoor space and defining activity groups.
The debate about future strategies for large-scale housing estates has been going on for longer time in the western countries of Europe like Germany and Sweden. There are interesting strategies worked out like a special Minecraft version started by Swedish Building Centre where people can change their neighbourhood (Manneh 2011).
7
Similarly, a long-term survey was started parallel to the construction of a housing estate of GrĂźnau, in Leipzig, Germany and has been going on for 30 years by now (Kabisch, Grossmann 2013). Several other countries of former Soviet Union and Russia show also signs of similar discussions in the cities. But the main difference between current western countries and post-socialist countries is that in the latter most of the property is privately owned and that renders the planning processes slow.
Tartu, where the residential district is located, is the second Estonia.
biggest
town
According
in to
statistics the population in Tartu is 98 522 people (Tartu arvudes 2012). Annelinn is the
largest
post-socialist
large-scale residential area in Tartu with the population of 29 423 including students according to statistics of 2012 that makes approximately 1/3 of city’s population (Ainsaar 2002). Tartu as a university town and southern centre of Estonia has proceeded quite well with the changes of public space and public outdoor life in recent years. The focal area has mostly been the city centre but the theoretical discussions and wishes of urban activists have larger extents. In terms of the traffic in the city the local administration is making a lot of effort to promote and develop pedestrian and bicycle traffic opportunities. The rise of bike usage is visible within the community. Overall quality of the public open space planning has risen as design of these places is more creative and conscious. In old districts like Karlova and Supilinn have formed strong communities that actively participate in the development of the everyday life in the districts and organise annual
8
district festivals. Urban activism in different fields has proceeded quickly in recent years. Popularisation of urban farming begun with the Organic Garden (Maheaed) project near the northeast border of Tartu couple of years ago. They offer allotment garden plots for anybody who wants to grow their fresh food (Rekand 2011). It is also the most street art friendly city in Estonia with excellent examples of stencil pieces in different public spaces as well as other kinds of more or less temporary installations. The identity of the city can also be described by several festivals of different fields taking place every year. Inspired by such an image of the city the idea for this research evolved to study how is Annelinn as the largest post-socialist residential area situated in this context. Therefore in this study the interests related to the district are divided into three broad groups - residents, activists and city – based on the interests that they have related to the area. Then the interest groups are faced with 8 actual topics – community, infrastructure, light traffic, outdoor space, recreation, urban farming, art, cooperation with the aim of finding methods on how to refresh the identity of the district and increase the activity of the community.
Home as the centre of our spatial world is, in one hand a subjectively perceived safe territory and on the other hand an objective spatial composition, which altogether means a territory of action that can cover a variety of surroundings (Jürgenson s.a). The Estonians’ perception of home and property, including the surrounding outdoor space, has changed quite a lot during the 20th and 21st century due to recurrent occupation. During the first independence of Estonia people had private property and estate. Concept of one’s home and territory was quite strongly defined. Housing in cities was then in human scale – that favoured the development of communities in different districts. The idea of Soviet regime was to build a collective society that was represented by homogenous residential areas and having collective property. At first people were happy to get more spacious apartments and the dull outdoor environment was of little trepidation. But the illusions did not last long: soon the structure of houses and surroundings started to limit and harrow its occupants (Kallas, 1985). Many Estonian
9
authors have expressively described the oppressive atmosphere of panel cities in their work. Relationships with immigrants at soviet time were fine due to the demagogy of friendship of all the nations. Everything changed after Estonia regained independence in 1991. Sudden feeling of freedom was accompanied by fear of robbery and violence in high-rise housing areas. A tiny indicative sign to that was the disappearance of benches from the courtyards to reduce the meetings of gangs. Many people had a possibility to buy their apartments and it was in fashion to renovate them in modern ways that was soon noticeable in several balconies. Undoubtedly the residents’ perception of home in free plan areas has a stamp of previous times even if they are more aware of their outdoor living environment. Still the private ownership has strong influence to all the topics in these areas. Strangers and activists are often seen as invaders. As residents have differing interest in arranging their collective space, the organisation and redevelopment of courtyards in free plan areas is complicated. Therefore a stronger emphasis has to be put on the studies of resident interests.
Post-socialist large-scale residential areas are not been studied in this way before in Estonian context. There are some academic works that have focused on the theoretical analysis of post-socialist large-scale residential districts in Estonia. One of the works made in Estonian Academy of Arts has explored how has the physical structure and spatial character of Lasnamäe, that are the result of Soviet planning principles and overall ideology, influenced the everyday life of its residents. If looking at the research on global scale the large-scale residential areas and their past and current development is of permanent interest for researchers from different disciplines. There has been written numerous amounts of papers on the formation of large-scale residential areas in modernist and socialist countries; about the development of them through the 20th century until now and about the current problem. But very few of those papers actually deal with analysing possible solutions. One study that has a practical approach is a research project is conducted in Russia and Georgia by a team of social engineers named Partizan Publik (s.a). They made an
10
inventory of the user strategies in two typical microdistricts from Russia and Georgia and compared the outcome.
This thesis tries to start a discourse on defining activity groups and their interests in the largest post-socialist large-scale residential area of Tartu. It is important because these types of areas have a high risk of becoming slums. In order to minimise that it is necessary to study how these groups perceive this environment and what are their expectations to other residents, groups or administrative forces. The study has a practical aim to compose an action program based on the results that would use the main expressions of urban and community activism in Tartu to find innovative and resident dependant strategies for outdoor space development. The application of such a program could help to cope more easily with sudden demographic or economical changes and attach people more with the place. A discourse will be created by analysing by the preset topics how the representatives of three broad interest groups perceive open space of the characteristic post-socialist largescale residential area in Tartu. The data will be analysed together with the structural and spatial study of the characteristic post-socialist large-scale residential area in Tartu. The goal is to locate the interests and find the hotspots of different areas where the action program could be launched. In short, the main research questions are as follows: -
Who are the main actors that are and could be involved in the topical discussion?
-
What are the main topics that concern different interest groups in Annelinn?
-
Are the residents willing to cooperate and volunteer to improve their outdoor environment?
-
What are the reasonable actions that could be applied to deal with the raised issues?
-
What could be the realistic roles of the different interest groups in these actions?
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The first independence of Estonia was ended with Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1939 and Baltic States were forced into the Soviet Union. Occupation in its totality took place in 1940. In 1941 Germany started a war towards Soviet Union by occupying Estonia with the aim to break through to Russia. German troops were tangled in Estonia and bloody battles were held between two great powers with utilization of the Estonian army on one or the other side. The German occupation ended when in 1944 the Red Army broke through their blockage and quickly captured Estonian territory again for following 47 years. Sovietisation started with the confiscation of real estate and the nationalisation of industries. The aim of the new authority was to represent Soviet Union as a workers’ state and therefore build new housing for common people (Kalm 2001). During the early years of occupation the focus of planning and architecture was to rebuild city centres and important public buildings. When Soviet forces crossed the borders of the country many Estonians, including a large number of architects went to exile – this resulted in a lack of workforce in architecture and planning. This shortage ended in the 1950s when a new generation graduated, forming the bulk of Estonian architects until the 1970s (Kalm 2001). By the end of the 1950s the planning of new housing of any type had been centred under the exposure of six large state-run architectural firms. The major one where most of the public and residential buildings, planning schemes and standards were planned was Eesti Projekt (Kalm 2001). The construction of new large-scale residential areas alias free plan residential areas started at the beginning of the 1960s (Bruns 2002), at first intensely in the capital, then spreading over the rest of Estonia. To the area that is discussed in this thesis it was reached 10 years later.
Free plan residential areas were divided into microdistricts. Microdistrict, or microraion in short, was the primary unit of Soviet residential area construction. The Soviet Union
12
Construction Rules determined that one microraion covers approximately 10-60 hectares and consists of residential housing and public service buildings. One unit was supposed to accommodate 6000-8000 inhabitants. Major motorways, a surrounding green belt and natural barriers formed the division between microdistricts: this arrangement served the purpose of reducing road construction and promoting public transport. Within the unit there were residential buildings and public service buildings like secondary schools, kindergartens, libraries, cafeterias, shops and mostly only pedestrian streets (Bruns 2002). The principal aim of building residential areas with a micro district concept was to create partly self-sufficient suburbs where all the daily needed services are in walking distance, keeping the more infrequent ones in the city centre. By that the officials expected to reduce the load on public transport (Lehmann & Ruble 1997). The very first new type of housing in Soviet Union and Estonia was constructed either from bricks or concrete panels casted in situ. Soon the authorities understood that the speed of construction was not fast enough. In the 1950s the saving solution came by the reorganisation of Soviet construction industry that started to produce prefabricated panel blocks. Hereafter the construction of mass housing reached its full capacity as panel blocks were just transported to the site where they were mounted into apartments. This resulted in fast and low-cost but often as well low quality construction. Seemingly, for the Western countries concrete was a socialist construction material and the metaphor for the “iron curtain�. Concrete was put into mass production by Nikita Khrushchev who stated that it would eliminate the workforce without education (Forty 2005). Yet in the 1960s the material was dominant in the architecture of the West as well. Concrete, from what the panels were made of, became the representative material of the Cold War time.
The invention of the microdistrict in Soviet Union wasn’t actually anything original. The ideas of standardised planning evolved already in 1920 when the Western society took a new course towards equality (Ojari 2000). The International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) that dealt with questions of rational city planning and minimum dwelling emphasised the importance of mass housing construction. Things 13
were not meant to be in private possession or use anymore and these ideas were carried to interior and exterior (Heynen 2005). At that time modern and functional architecture movement with Swiss architect Le Corbusier ahead introduced the idea of free planning in France. The free plan principle suggests that buildings are put freely into the landscape to let in as much light and air as possible and allow a view into the greenery (Curtis 2001). Similar tendencies in planning were inevitable as the whole Europe was recovering from the World War I while at the same time the industrialisation process took place. This whole situation caused a quick population growth in cities and a rapid need for new housing.
Housing construction was boosted in Tartu in 1960 when the first standard houses (type 1-317) were built to the areas that were destroyed during World War II around Pepleri Street, Tiigi Street and Kalevi quarter. In 1963 corrections were drafted into the master plan of Tartu and a year later in 1964 a detailed plan for housing in Pärna Street area followed. At the same time the standard housing was built on the territories around Betooni and Vaksali Street as well as in Võru and Tähe Street quarter. Amongst all the standard projects single projects for cooperative housing stood out (Kotšenovski 1999). In the 1970s the residential housing construction was directed to the area on the left side of the river Emajõgi, future Annelinn. At the same time new corrections were made in the master plan and a sharp focus was on the city centre. The problem of the renewal of old housing areas was raised in 1980, which culminated with drawing Kalevi microraion in Karlova district, which would have been partly demolished and reconstructed, but this project wasn’t started. Instead, Veeriku district was expanded. Since 1973 5- and 9-storey houses were put together from panel blocks made in Tartu construction combine. The state-led housing construction stopped in 1990 (Kotšenovski, 1999).
The architects of Eesti Projekt Mart Port and Malle Meelak finalised the planning project of Annelinn between 1969 and 1973. The technical projects of microrayons were made by Ines Jaagus and Helmi Sakkov. The basis for the planning project was the
14
winning entry for a public competition in 1969. Annelinn with its population of 50 000 was the biggest new residential district at that time. It is built on a drumlin with rising relief on the left bank of river Emajõgi that is running through Tartu. The oblong district with a characteristic curved shape is bordered by Kalda Street that is running along the flood plain next to Emajõgi and with Räpina road on the other side of the district (Kotšenovski 1999). The proposal divided the territory by a radial system into four rayons, out of which just
two have been constructed (figure 2). The streets and pedestrian alleys that separate microrayons into smaller sections converge as imaginary radiuses into one point on the Anne flood plain. There were grandiose plans to build a park with a big curvilinear water body and a rowing canal. The whole district is bisected by a major pedestrian route Anne Street into a lower part with mostly 5-storey buildings and a higher part with 9-storey buildings. Blockhouses form groups with mostly closed space in between. This compactness is amplified by territories for schools and kindergartens that are placed in a set of two. Bordering pedestrian arrays were designed to form small squares in front of the houses. Brick houses with offset sections in a long ground plan border the residential district along Kalda Street and emphasise the structure of this area. Besides schools and kindergartens a shopping centre “Anne” was built in 1973 and also smaller shops throughout the area. The buildings offering services for the whole area and
15
having a citywide importance were planned next to the park on Anne floodplain but those ideas were not realised alike the plans mentioned earlier (Kotšenovski 1999). The development of outdoor areas proceeded unfortunately prevalently only on paper – some nice courtyard drawings indeed exist. When the open space of the 1st Anne microdistrict is divided in a way that there is reasonable green space with fully grown trees in between buildings, then the end of the 2nd Anne microdistrict was constructed in a hurry with minimum space between houses and greenery planted several years later.
Residents’ attachment to their surrounding environment is amongst other aspects strongly affected by the political situation in their local society and also in the rest of the world. When Estonia first gained independence the already grown self-concept braced more. The development of national culture in the cities at that time was quite fast. Even though this period did not last long the homes and public space of Estonians started to have a certain identity. Quite many people had or started to have their own property and Estonians could feel for the first time more free in their actions in public. Homes of Estonians and cultural space including public open space concept started to develop. Estonian cultural researcher Anu Kannike (2005) states that privacy is one of the most important aspects that Estonians value in their homes. The success of their social communication depends on the possibility to create privacy in their home environment. She also underlines the creation of home as ever changing and not a static process. Creation of Estonian home concept was cut off abruptly by Soviet and German occupations. Yet home or what was left from it became even more important as it was a place where one could be most free and even revolt the authorities by secretly celebrating traditional Estonian Christmas and other national holidays. Due to the recession into homes public space attained the meaning of uncertainty and surmise. In outdoor public space one was in front of everybody’s eyes. When being in collective space the person was forced to behave in a way that was ‘right’ and appropriate for a Soviet citizen. Several writers have referred in their works to struggles with soviet social norms in peoples’ minds that lead to uncertain behaviour in public space. Uku, the character of Teet Kallas (1985) has an inner fight with a fear of being
16
caught stealing when his wife Maia asks him to bring some soil for a planting box in their bright new panel apartment in one of the soviet high rise residential areas in Tallinn. At first Uku does not even know where he could get the soil from in the neighbourhood, because the surroundings are either asphalt or lawn. But one day a mass of soil is brought in front of their house and he gives it another try. He is nevertheless able to complete it as he is kept by the feeling that everyone is looking at him from the windows with scorn. Moreover he completely flies off the handle when he sees a militiaman walking near there. Finally they go together with his wife in the middle of the night, to discover the militiaman who is also after some soil. This novel clearly reveals residents’ untrustworthiness towards the surrounding public space. A more humorous approach to the environment is produced by Mosfilm – a movie called The Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath. It is laughing at the life in this repetitive and identical environment, where, no matter what, there is still chance for some happiness. The everyday environment nevertheless affects the values and behaviour of residents, as seen in the Estonian movie Autumn Ball (director Veiko Õunpuu) based on a book by Mati Unt, where the monotonous anonymous environment makes people feel empty and reckless. The public areas that were said to be in collective use and ownership were indeed in some use but to the contrary totally anonymous and in collective irresponsibility. New socialist everyday life was promised to be with all the comforts and recreation possibilities nearby, but it never happened. The best results were courtyards with trees and some standard play equipment. Therefore the identity of public space in free plan residential areas had practically no possibility to arise, not to mention residents’ nonexistent willingness to create it. In fact there was no such term like public space in Soviet planning as there was in Western, because in socialist ideology there was no private space, everything was public (collective) (Engel 2006). Engel (2006) writes that no differentiation existed in a socialist city between private and public outdoor space. In soviet concept urban open space was a stage for rallies and demonstrations and it didn’t belong to the habitants of city. Such situation minimized the freely chosen activities and spontaneous actions as
17
urban open space was under permanent control. In case of large-scale residential areas by neighbours who one could not trust (Zelhnina 2012). The need for having a change from the monotonous large-scale residential environment was satisfied with spending time in dachas or garages. Time, finances and communication of people were divided between these three units (Figure 3). Apartment was a place for everyday routinous life while in dacha family and often more women spend their time, as garage was
.
more the domain of men (Kivilinnafoorum 2011). Estonia gained its independence again in 1991 and became the Estonian Republic. Privatization and returning of properties began right away. The authorities at the time took a course towards capitalization. In the case of panel cities nothing much changed on the surface, but the apartments went through extensive transformation. Most people wanted to catch up with Western European countries as quickly as possible and the reflection of this in the panel homes was massive renovation, popularly called the ‘eurorepair’. When Apartment Ownership Act came into force in 1994 the mass privatisation of apartments started. In 1995 was launched the Housing Association act that declared the terms of forming an association between apartment owners (Krass 2011). Conjointly it was possible to privatize the land surrounding the housing association (hereafter HA). A shift in people’s minds was caused, as now there were terms private - as one’s apartment and semi-public/public - as corridors and courtyards. Differentiation between residents grew and people went into transformation phase in order to adapt with totally different life arrangements. Since the 90s free plan areas acquired even more the dormitory function as city centres gained strength with the entertainment gathered there. Those who could afford it moved to private houses that was a new West-like living ideal. Additional life accrued not until with the construction of first supermarkets and shopping centres as well as with the fast growth of car owners.
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Space, and consequently everything that encloses it, is much more central to all of us in our everyday lives than purely technical, aesthetic or even semiotic interpretation would suggest. Space is both something that brings us together and simultaneously something that separates us from each other (Lawson 2001). It is what constructs our reality and gives constraints to our everyday actions. A clear sign of the failure of modernism and Soviet collectivism is that common and collective ideologies do not work for contemporary cities (Jauhiainen 2003). It is important to seek for different future strategies and diverse urban planning solutions as Jauhiainen (2003) states. Large-scale housing estates and the environment of such areas in both Western and Eastern Europe have been and continuously are the objects for research. The reason is the concern about the decreasing life quality in these areas. It is important the more so because an influential amount of people usually live in these districts. The main aspect of concern is the degradation of these areas, especially the farther parts because jobs, services and entertainment are concentrated into city centres and shopping centres. The low construction quality of apartments as well as the poor and lifeless outdoor environment causes the moving of well-off people that raises the impoverishment of the district. As the residents’ ability to contribute financially diminishes, the administrations of local governments have also less interest in dealing with these areas. Urban planners, architects, landscape architects, sociologists and other specialists all over the world are looking for ways to generate multiple identities in large-scale residential areas in order to enliven local community and public life. It is quite a task as the dwellers are with different backgrounds, preferences and lifestyles, but they could form groups of people with similar interests or hobbies. The actual meetings and formation of these groups in their neighbourhood forms the basis for community activities. Activities in space give us experiences. The point in space turns into a place when someone has a continuous experience in it. Frequent activities at a place are therefore a precondition for place attachment and the creation of the identity. The question is what should generate the activism and what makes it last? It is not only the question of Estonia and other post-socialist countries; it is a global concern about the
19
quality of life in large-scale housing areas and the continuous search for ways to create a vibrant life in residential landscapes.
The on-going economic and societal problems are clearly pointing on the fact that the current systems are not working anymore. There are many societal, economical, cultural and environmental risks and changes that urban planning today has to adapt to. A new strong course has been taken towards the reinvention of urbanity. According to a recent Dutch manifesto the term for this reinvention should be ‘spontaneous city’. It says that the residents and locals in collaboration with urban planners should make the organisation of the city. The principles of the manifesto state that it is important to define local needs and relevant players of the district that is renewed and the obstacles that they face. Urban space must be inspirational for broad range of participants and it is relevant to define what the shared ambition is. The organisation of space would be a continuously changing process with the reorganisation and reuse of the space over time In order to realise these goals manifesto states that innovative approaches have to be used to engage as many project initiators and cooperation parties as possible (Urhahn 2011). Clear examples of these approaches are the examples in the following paragraph. Several interesting
projects have been launched across the world on community and local activism indicating the fact that society today is searching for arrangements of space that is not necessarily a place set in stone for following centuries but rather an inspiring stage opened to various actions and do-it-yourself practices. One example is a street art project called “iwishthiswas”. Candy Chang initiated it in 2010 in New Orleans by her own frustration as her neighbourhood did not have a grocery store, but had many vacant lots and buildings (Phelps 2012). As an action, bright red and white vinyl stickers were created, with words “I wish this was” written on the top of the sticker and underneath an empty space for writing your wish (Figure 4). The stickers were offered without a fee through various businesses in different parts of the city and the citizens were encouraged to use them in their neighbourhood to express their wishes about what they want in their community. There were examples like “I wish this was.... a community garden, a bakery, a bike rack.... “. It is an easy tool that has low costs and easily crosses barriers to collect information about residents’ wishes and dreams of their neighbourhood onsite. This example illustrates the power that residents actually have to
20
change their environment, but it is often underestimated by them and not always recognized by planners and architects.
Still,
even
information
if is
sufficient gathered
and
adequate
about
residents’
perceptions, it is always a question how to
4
make these wishes come true in reality. One inspiring example is an online project named Neighborland, made by a design studio in the same city New Orleans (Phelps 2012), but it is in use all over the U.S. It is a similar sticker campaign that
asks
participants
“I want
________ in
_________
(neighbourhood)�. The online site of the project provides an opportunity to vote and comment on the ideas that are divided into categories by neighbourhood, popularity and topicality. The comments under the posts on the website show that the ideas are actually put into practise and that neighbours can support the ideas and connect through interests (Figure 5).
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Similar to the previous ones is an open innovation platform named OpenIDEO that seeks for innovative solutions to “big challenges” through the process where ideas are created, evaluated and finally the best concepts are selected (OpenIDEO). Unfortunately, despite these nice examples all the ideas are not realised because they still depend on inspiring others with resources to implement the ideas (Phelps 2012).
The cases mentioned above are only some examples of urban and community activism projects that are put into practice in the world. It is quite hard to sort that kind of projects under a sole divisor in terms of landscape architecture. Many actions that have been braced by these campaigns carry in themselves the ideals of landscape urbanism. Yet often the result will be achieved through the co-operation of specialists from different disciplines like architecture, arts, design, and technology. As this paper searches for methods that will enliven the neighbourhood of a post-socialist large-scale residential area, I would like to put the research field under the term ‘neighbourhood urbanism’ because it expresses the relationship between urban and community activism, landscape and space in the city, without excluding the need for interdisciplinary methods. One of the most popular community development strategies currently is the development of community gardens or allotment gardens that more widely is part of the urban farming phenomenon. Robinson (2009) sees community gardening as one way to disperse the uncertainty of the development of post-socialist large-scale areas that are facing the crisis. The goals of it will be to increase community integration and make use of informal social capital, as she says. In addition to gardening and cultivation, the strategies of open space renewal could be connected with other user-dependant activities like owning, socialising, trading and performing. The main aim of supporting the user-dependant activities is to create an immediate contact between resident and the outdoor space. Cultivation could be the use of neighbourhood space to produce goods for private or community use. It would create opportunities for socialising and informal education. Owning could mean having a part of community space as one’s own or having a responsibility over some resource. The
22
space in residential area should be as a community living room that will foster socialising and join people with similar interests. But it is also important have a ground for conflicts to rise in order to reveal the important issues. Trading could be defined as changing, lending or selling things and goods, before all within the community on the common ground. Performing activities would give residents a chance to share one’s skills with the community for recreational and socialising purposes.
With tools of landscape architecture the stage or framework of the space can be set that mediates and accommodates the activities. By emphasising the right places in the space the activities in the community can be provoked. Landscape architecture and urban planning will create the spatial constraints to the community activities and provide the help of specialists to organise and combine the spatial needs in order to create a multifunctional system.
In order to understand what are the options for provoking new kinds of dynamics in the neighbourhood of post-socialist large-scale housing area in Estonia it is important to understand the status of the space at the current moment. When talking about the overall substance of urban planning in Estonia, one has to consider the complicated entwined processes that influence it. Being in a post-socialist state means on one hand trying to catch up with the capitalist Western world and Scandinavia, in terms of economics and trends in planning and open space design; on the other hand, the endeavour to stand out and take our own direction, create our own discourses about open space, while considering the needs of local communities. It is important to emphasise that it is actually impossible to take the Scandinavian planning practices into post-socialist largescale residential neighbourhood. The mentality related to the space is very different even if the principal structure of large-scale residential areas here and there is similar.
All the post-socialist large-scale residential areas have similar problems that are the direct cause of soviet planning practices. Firstly due to the poor construction quality of the housing there are often problems with the thermal resistance. As the soviet norms
23
didn’t foresee a massive growth of car owners one of the main problems currently is parking. Due to very-large scales the management of outdoor areas is labour and finance intensive. Therefore the kind of infrastructure like light traffic paths, play and sports equipment, benches, lighting is renewed very slowly. In many courtyards between the residential housing proper greenery is missing as it was not planted together with the construction of the housing. Problems are related also with the community. Due to high concentration of people in this type of areas the anonymity rate is high as already mentioned earlier. Anonymity is a direct reason for high number of passive members within the community. As there is lack of activities in the close environment people spend most of the time outside the district and therefore it has dormitory function. Spontaneous communication between neighbours is not easy as the borders between private and public space are very strict. Apartments are very private spaces, the corridors of houses could be considered as semi-private and the courtyards of residential housing are in most cases
6
public. There is no overlapping of different spaces. When at soviet times residents had dachas and garages as places for socialising then now this circulation shown earlier does not exist anymore. The question is what could be the complementary places to apartment today (Kivilinnafoorum 2011) (Figure 6)? There are many old dogmas and attitudes towards public open space planning and design that still persist. Many residents are used to be thinking that orders and actions are put into practice from somewhere higher. As some of the land belongs to the city administration, it is taken as a must that planning initiative should come from there. Residents’ eyes are not opened to the full power that they have for creating their own initiatives.
Nevertheless there are processes that refer to the change in the character of open space, like the expansive renovation of facades. The funding has been provided by Estonian
24
finance company KredEx that has sold CO2 emission quotas to Luxembourg (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications 2010). In a way, the activity is forced by the need to raise the lifespan of houses, but the concurrent phenomenon that has no less
importance, is the embellishment of the visual surroundings. It is becoming more and more popular in addition to plain renovation to choose a design that is painted on the side facade of the houses. Currently, it seems that housing associations consider it as the easiest option to stand out among other houses and be original like the Anne 55 house in Annelinn and some others (Figure 7). Whether the whole housing of the district should be covered with different shapes is questionable as well as the style of decorations and the harmony between them. There are also signs of innovative user dependant strategies here and there, like community gardening, but until now these cases are often the result of the interest of one person, and the potential of gathering interest groups has not been realised. Quite recently an allotment garden project called Maheaed (The Organic Garden) has been started in Tartu. The aim of the project so far has been to offer urban farming possibilities for interested people in the whole city, therefore it is not tightly bonded with a district specific community although the location is the best for residents of Annelinn (Kohler 2012). Terje Ong (2012) in her thesis is looking at the topic of food urbanism and uses Tartu for mapping the potentials of growing food in the city In that research large-scale residential area Annelinn, is seen as one of the possible sites for urban farming in different scales.
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The main obstacle of finding user-dependant strategies is tracking down the residents with similar interests or the interest groups that already exist. There is a need to develop a set of tools to overcome this problem, in order to construct development strategies.
One major method has been used to study and document the interests and problematic issues of large-scale residential areas in Estonia. This method is the Forum of Panel Cities (Linnafoorum) – a series of workshops in different locations with representatives from all the interest groups like residents, other citizens, local authorities and experts. In 2011 such workshop took place in Tartu with a goal to increase the activity of the local community in local large-scale residential areas with the help of specialists. Community activity is the lowest in this type of areas in comparison with other residential districts (Estonian Centre of Architecture). The four workgroups that were formed during this workshop elaborated numeral ideas and several overall strategies that also support the aims of this thesis and could be put into practice: -
to support the formation of interest groups by the activities/topics rather than creating a single local community organisation;
-
to create a connective tissue by bigger public areas;
-
to bring art into the areas by providing support for artists;
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to support spontaneous activities and performances;
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to include underused spaces like rooftops of buildings for community use;
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to improve community infrastructure by adding jogging routes;
-
to implement the institution of “the house buddy” – the person who is voluntarily willing to communicate and organise the community life in terms of activities (Tartu Kivilinnafoorum 2011). s
To conclude I will underline the importance of creating a new discourse that will reimagine the space and place of post-socialist large-scale residential areas. The aim of the discourse would be to use contemporary theories and practices to create tools for self-dependant community development in these types of areas.
Hopefully,
26
participatory practices will bind people with space and through that places with meaning will be born.
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The aim of this thesis is to work out a practical action program for a characteristic postsocialist large-scale residential area with a focus on finding out how to provoke urban and community activism in such an area. The mentioned course has been taken because the author believes that a visible and strong community is the most influential factor for creating the places with identity. The research question has risen from the current problems of these areas approached in Chapter 1.
The research of this thesis is carried out by using mixed qualitative research methodology. The aim of qualitative research is to better understand social realities and how they influence different processes, meaning patterns, and structural features (Flick, von Kardoff, Steinke 2004). According to Flick, von Kardoff and Steinke (2004) it aims to describe a situation from the point of view of people who are part of a process. Qualitative research is characterised by flexibility, merging different levels of research and returning to the former levels (Laherand 2008). The weakest aspect of qualitative research is the interpretation of results, as it is hard to define since when are the conclusions objective and genuine or based on the right data (Laherand 2008). C The work in itself is a process of creating a discourse on the example of a typical postsocialist large-scale residential area. The kind of research strategy is chosen due to the absence of previous holistic discourses in Estonian context about how to study postsocialist large-scale residential areas. The chosen place is the most extensive post-socialist large-scale residential area located in Tartu. The district borders define the border of the area that is analysed. The typical microdistrict structure with multi-storey apartment blocks is intertwined with private housing on the border areas of the district – the latter are excluded from the research. All the other areas that have at least a partial public function within and at the border areas of the district are all taken into consideration in the work. Annelinn is chosen because it represents a clear structure and concurrent problems characteristic to all the other areas built during the soviet period. Therefore similar research methods can, in 28
case of successful results, be applied to other similar areas or the research itself put into wider context. Additionally it is extensive enough to study a good amount of areaspecific issues, but it is not too complex to discuss within the limits of a Master thesis. The choice of methods was already a part of the discourse creation. Firstly, the most actual topics that the action program and the organisation of the work are based on were formed. The topics were based on the most actual problems occurring in the studied district, on the background analysis of similar issues around the world and on the fields of urban and community activism that are most intensely discussed by local community activists and public institutions in Tartu (see Chapter 1). The topics are: COMMUNITY, INFRASTRUCTURE, LIGHT TRAFFIC, OUTDOOR SPACE, RECREATION, URBAN FARMING, ART and COOPERATION. Then the most significant interest groups that are related with these topics are chosen for interviews based on former groundwork about the background of different groups. The interest groups are divided under three categories based on the specifics of their interests: RESIDENTS, CITY, and ACTIVISTS (Figure 8). Residents as the representatives of housing associations (HA) have a local interest. The different departments of Tartu city government have mainly administrative and planning interests and the representatives of the activist groups are mostly citizens from other districts who are related with some
.
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public activity in Annelinn. The 8 above mentioned topics were discussed with interest groups in open interviews that set basic questions, but the interviewer was open to additional issues, if these were related to the research question. The interviews were conducted in such order that the interviews done could give information for forming the questions for the next interviews. Parallel to the conduction of the interviews the analysis of maps as well as interview results were done. The maps were analysed by forming layers of the spatial structure of the area relevant in the light of the analysed topics. These layers are: land division, social and cultural institutions, business and services, recreation and public areas, and infrastructure. Interviews were analysed by gathering the important keywords mentioned by all the interest groups into a comparative table. The keywords will be divided under the 8 topics mentioned above. The action program was formed from the important keywords and connections between them. Map that illustrates the connection between keywords and changes that could be made accompanies the action program. The action program is an overall manual that suggests strategies for dealing with the problematic issues of the topics that were studied during the research.
Before the process of map analysis and interviews, the documents and results of the Forum of Panel Cities (Linnafoorumid), the information about the related issues of the research topics in the media, and the visions about the district in the comprehensive plan of Tartu and all the related thematic plans were studied. This information was taken as a basis to define what aspects are most important to study about each research topic – the issues are listed below. COMMUNITY: district related events, activities or projects; local initiatives; community relations with the public institutions in the district INFRASTRUCTURE: sitting places; access to public areas; playgrounds and sport fields; parking
30
LIGHT TRAFFIC: bicycle and pedestrian traffic; need for supporting infrastructure; access to important places OUTDOOR SPACE: courtyards of residential housing and public institutions; occurring problems and possible solutions RECREATION: current areas; topical activities; combination of activities; potential areas URBAN FARMING: allotment and community gardening; interactions and initiatives ART: use of art in the district; artistic solutions in façade renovations; temporary installations COOPERATION: influence of cooperation between interest groups; interest groups’ initiatives
Interviews with interest groups Interviews were conducted with the representatives of the interest groups at the location that they preferred and in most of the cases it was the natural environment of the interviewee. The duration of the interviews varied from half an hour to an hour maximum. A clear principle was set to interview the active representatives of the interest groups and not a large amount of residents as it was the most effective way to raise discussions. 10 interviews were conducted altogether, with the following interest group representatives: I
Municipality of Tartu Department of Architecture and Building representatives (2) and representative of Union of Housing Associations (TARKÜL)
II
Curator of local district festivals
III
Representative of street artists from Tartu Meemiloome Instituut and individual artist
IV
Representatives (5) of Anne Youth Centre 31
V
Landscape architect and food urbanism activist
VI
Representative of Kalda Daily Centre
VII
Representative of administrative company of housing associations Kaldatare
VIII
Representatives (6) of three housing associations
IX
Municipality of Tartu Public Parks and City Cleaning Service representative
X
Municipality of Tartu representatives
Department of Architecture and Building representative (1)
Department of Urban Planning, Land Survey and Use representative (1)
Department of Communal Services representative (1)
The questions asked in the interviews were kept broad in order to advance the topics brought out by the interviewees.
The structure of the district was analysed by map layers. The information about different institutions and functions and planning perspectives within the area was collected from the maps of Tartu municipality. The information about land division and land use was collected from the geoportal of Estonian Land Board (Maa-ameti Geoportaal). In order to locate the current situation of play- and sports grounds and other places for public activities, Google Street View tools were used. The information gathered from the online maps was controlled by several site visits. The layers of analysis were drawn on the AutoCAD maps of Tartu city.
To help the reader and explain the situation better thematic diagrams and photographs from the district are added to the text.
The text of the interviews was analysed by bringing out the important keywords and gathering them into a comparative table (see Chapter 3). Keywords in the table were
32
vertically divided into three columns by the broad interest groups – city, activists and residents. Horizontally are the keywords divided under 8 research topics - community, infrastructure, light traffic, outdoor space, recreation, urban farming, art, cooperation. Keywords with close or overlapping meaning are merged. The topics in the table are divided into three blocks - current situation, refinement, new situation – to give overall directions for the action plan. The current situation block contains topics like community and infrastructure, because the keywords under these topics reflect clearly the issues that are dependent on the structure of the area and in what situation is the district at the moment. Light traffic and recreation are drawn under the refinement block, because the keywords reflect issues that are nothing new, but would improve a lot if additional development would be carried out. The third block named new situation includes urban farming, art and cooperation topics. This division gathers keywords that cover the more recent and innovative issues that could nevertheless be more strongly related with the district. The comparative table with the results of the interviews is presented under the Results chapter (Table 1). The action program is a list of actions that could be realised in shorter or longer time periods. Choice of actions is based on the discussions with interest groups. Every action is marked with an icon in the program form. The action program is accompanied with an illustrative map that shows with icons where the actions could be launched. Action program and map are presented under the Discussion chapter because this is the combination of the results and interpretations of possible solutions made by the researcher.
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In order to understand the issues that are present in the community of Annelinn the structural analysis of the district was undertaken. Paju Street, Jaama Street, town border, extension of N천lvaku Street, Ihaste road and river Emaj천gi border the territory of the district (Figure 9). Another significant water body in addition to the river is the Anne canal. It is divided into two parts by S천pruse Bridge that is one of the main vehicle connections across the river. The densely built part of the district is divided vertically into three parts by main motorways. S천pruse Street separates Upper-Annelinn from
34
Central-Annelinn and M천isavahe Street separates Central-Annelinn from LowerAnnelinn. Pikk and Kalda Street divide the area horizontally into two contrasting parts. The upper part is the area with most of the housing and the lower part is an extensive green area with seasonally wet river plain and business areas by Kalda Street.
Land division mapping was done to see how the district is divided between residential and other functions. It is important for understanding what opportunities and limitations land division sets to the community activities. Homogenous soviet large-scale housing dominates the morphology of Annelinn. Houses are set in different ways. In the Upper-Annelinn, that is the oldest part of the district, the buildings stand either behind each other or form sequential courtyards with four surrounding houses. In the central area there are courtyards of 3, 4 or even more houses as well as rows of houses standing behind each other. Lower-Annelinn is the part that was constructed in the 1990s and has a chaotic and complicated structure of housing that is placed zigzagging or in a maze-like pattern. In the border areas of Annelinn block housing is mixed with residential housing. The result of privatization reforms in the 90s is a current confusing land division between housing associations, where associations have land in very different sizes and shapes (Figure 10). Land division analysis shows that often the territory of the courtyard is divided between 3 or more owners. The land that has not been privatized by any association either belongs to the municipality or is in an unreformed state.
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Social and cultural institutions are spread all over Annelinn (Figure 11). Schools and kindergartens are, in most cases, in separate buildings from other facilities. There are 5 educational facilities in the district that offer basic and secondary education. These are Descartes Lyceum, Kivilinna Gymnasium, Secondary School of Business, Annelinna Gymnasium and Russian Lyceum. The study language in the last two is Russian. Annelinn accommodates also 2 higher education institutions that are Beauticians International Private School and Tartu Theological Seminary.
There are 7 kindergartens within the district: P채채supesa, Kr천ll, Poku, Sipsik, Triinu ja Taavi, M천mmik and Kelluke. In the last one the everyday language is Russian. In addition to municipality-owned kindergartens, several private childcare facilities have emerged due to a lack of vacant places in kindergartens. The childcare facilities are
37
located in the apartment buildings where usually one apartment is adapted to the needs of looking after children. There is one official hobby school for children and youth – Tartu Secondary Music School. Another institution where young people can attend different hobby groups is Anne Youth Centre. The centre offers a wide variety of activities for children and accommodates several independent NGO-s and hobby groups. Therefore it is one of the significant social and cultural facilities in Annelinn. Another cultural institution with a wide scope is Annelinna branch library of Tartu Public Library. In addition to its main function it organises several hobby groups and public night talks on different topics. The Jehovah Congregation and Risttee Congregation are two institutions with religious orientation. There is a facility in Kaunase Avenue 22 that accommodates three social care institutions. Firstly, the Kalda Daily Centre, that organises home care service for elderly all over Tartu, but it also offers activities and organises several hobby groups for the elderly. The Anne Daily Care Centre is a facility where the elderly with mental health problems can be brought for daily monitoring. The third institution is the NGO Öökull with a target group between the ages of 7 and 17 that organises daily activities for youth from less insured families.
The relevance of mapping the business facilities within the district lies in the fact that if the residents of Annelinn would look for free-time activities within the district then shopping centres are quite strong magnets. The amount of businesses and services in Annelinn is quite extensive as it is the biggest district in Tartu. Big shopping centres that are complexes of major food stores and other smaller shops
also
include
different
free-time
spending
opportunities. Such examples include shopping centre Eeden (which is the one with most opportunities in the district), shopping centre Kivilinna and shopping centre Annemõisa. The latter two are located by the Central Annelinn. Two business facilities orientated to the residents
38
in Lower Annelinn are Annelinna shopping centre and Prisma shopping centre (Figure 12). The second type of business facilities are smaller supermarkets of single commodity chains. The third group is formed by single small businesses. Large amounts of those are using the first floor apartments of the residential housing along Kalda Street which gives the street a different character.
39
Opportunities for recreation in the district are either between residential housing or in the open space that runs along the river (Figure 14).
The main recreation area in the whole district that has clear function and concept is Anne canal and its surroundings. The upper part of the canal has a sandy beach on the left side and the place is very popular in the summertime. The other district that runs between the river and canal has recently developed a wide light traffic path that connects the centre of the city with the district. It has become a popular track for sports enthusiasts. The remaining extensive areas on the river plain are natural green areas without any development. The appearance of these areas is formed by quite dense brushwood and paths of which are utilised by dog-walkers and people doing sports.
40
Lower Annelinn has two larger nearby green areas. The one up in the north is the territory where located Anne support manor. There are no buildings left but the manor landscape clearly stands out from the soviet residential housing area with a majestic alley of old poplars and an opened green area with single old trees (Figure 15).
Unfortunately the area is very littered and not taken care of by the community. Between the housing blocks are situated pocket park size opened spaces that tend to be underused lawn areas. By the more distant location from housing and easily planned size these places could serve recreation purposes near home. Play opportunities are divided quite evenly throughout the area. There couple of modern playgrounds in all the parts of Annelinn that serves the needs of more than one house. Rest of the play equipment consists of old soviet play elements that are still in most of the courtyards. The planning of soviet times provided small-scale sports grounds for groups of houses most of what are currently collapsed and out of use. There are 2 stadiums with football field and basketball courts next to Secondary School of Business (Figure 16) and Kivilinna Gymnasium that are in very poor conditions. Publicly usable basketball courts in good condition are all located in Lower Annelinn, one next to the second building of Annelinna Gymnasium and others in the courtyards of residential housing.
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There are also public areas that are not actually publicly usable (Figure 17). These are all but one kindergartens that are fenced and signed with notifications that prohibit the staying on the area. These publicly inaccessible territories are located in the best spots of public access in this district. Through the Central Annelinn run 3 main light traffic arrays. Two vertical ones connect Jaama Street with Kalda street and N천lvaku street with Kalda Street. One horizontal path extends from Anne Street and makes a curve through Central Annelinn to M천isavahe Street. Other main light traffic routes run around the district, the main one goes from Lower Annelinn along Kalda Street and Pikk Street across the Turu Bridge to the city centre. This one has separated path for pedestrians and cyclists. The overall condition of bicycle paths in the district is poor. The paths are there and connections are quick but the pavement is uneven or even missing in some places. Situation is the worst on the section from Jaama Street to Kalda Street.
Interviews with the representatives of three broad interest groups on the preset topics revealed many issues that are complex and intertwined. In order to understand how the 42
opinions of representatives of differing interest groups relate to each other a comparative table was drawn (Table 1). An aspect revealed from the interviewing process about the structure of the community that the researcher did not have information about earlier. During the interviews it became clear that housing associations in Annelinn can mostly be divided into 3 categories: HA-s who are members of Tartu Union of Housing Associations (TARKĂœL), HA-s who are managed by administrative companies and independent HA-s that are not related to any union or company. Still it is unclear how many exactly belong to each of the group and how are they situated except the HA-s that are administrated by the company Kaldatare as their information is publicly available. The TARKĂœL representative had no rights to reveal information about their members and therefore it was impossible to extract the independent HA-s from other groups. Below, the results of all the conducted interviews are presented theme by theme, following the 8 topics defined in the primary introductive research: community, infrastructure, light traffic, outdoor space, recreation, urban farming, art and cooperation. Each topic falls under a category, depending on its essence: either belonging to the current situation, needing some refinement or representing a new and more alternative new situation. The topical discussions are presented category by category.
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
The topics of community and infrastructure are brought together under the division “current situation�, as these topics are related with the basic character and structure of Annelinn (Table 1). These are topics where changes are possible, but to a certain extent.
The main aspect mentioned about the community of Annelinn is that it is inactive and barely anyone is willing to take initiatives. It was mentioned several times by all the representatives of the interest groups. The most obvious proof to a low interest of local community is the fact that it was very hard to find active representatives of the residents for the interviews. E-mails were sent repeatedly to half of the housing associations but only one positive answer was received from an independent housing association (HA),
51
one from the member association of Tartu Union of Housing Associations and one from the administration company. The rest of the HA-s simply did not answer or gave reasons such as “there is no time for it”, “I don’t care”, “who will pay us for it?” etc. Residents by themselves recognise the fact that therefore it is difficult to start and complete mutual undertakings in their associations not to mention ideas to do something together in community of Annelinn. City representatives and activists point to the fact that community genesis is something that comes from grass-root and therefore artificially forced community activities would not work. There seems to be little, unenthusiastic interest towards the formation of Annelinn community union. Both activists and residents say that it requires leaders. A large number of housing associations are using the services of special property administration companies that organise the necessary everyday services like lawn-mowing, snowclearing, bookkeeping etc for the residents. These associations often have no active leader or direct contact with the arrangement of their everyday outdoor environment. The representative of administrative community admits that most of the residents in their HA-s seem to think that community projects are top-down strategies. But he also recognises that discussion about community activities or recreation possibilities is not their field of interest. Therefore the situation is quite natural that no one cares about problems and is not willing to think about possible solutions for a more pleasant outdoor environment or contributing in creating a discussion. City representatives mention that there is even a resistance towards the developments and new activities in the courtyards. Such attitude in turn lowers the motivation of the municipality. Yet it is important to mention that not all the residents are passive, but according to the representatives who participated in the conversations a large amount of residents were. On the other hand only one of the interviewed activists happened to be a resident of Annelinn and therefore there is quite little sense of missioning towards local interests. The circumstances that public centres like Anne Youth centre and Kalda Daily centre are directed to all the residents of Tartu reduces their interest to be attached to the local community. Leaders of centres admit that the overview of the amount of locals among their visitors is missing.
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Inactiveness depends on the fact that a large amount of residents are from the older generation who are used to top-down development strategies. They have not acknowledged that the well being of the community starts from the cooperation between community members, but this attitude cannot be applied to everyone from the older generation. According to the residents another influencing factor is that a large number of young people living in Annelinn are students. They do not stay in the district for a very long time and spend most of their days outside Annelinn. Therefore their attachment with the community is weak. The group of residents who probably have the most interest in the outdoor space and developments in Annelinn are families who have chosen Annelinn as their home. Both the municipality and the activists concede that people from two different ethnic groups – Russians and Estonians – cannot form a functioning community. The residents feel that Russian youngsters are disturbing with loud gatherings, although Estonian youngsters could be seen gathering as well in the district. Youngsters in general are seen as undesirables in the district, especially teenagers who are too old for typical playgrounds. Both city and activists recognize that the community in Annelinn is highly anonymous. Anonymity is a result of high density, large scales and strict borders between private and collective space. It could be said that a significant group of residents in Annelinn consists of people to whom this district is just a dormitory area. They spend their free time and vacations in other (more pleasant?) environments of the city or at countryside homes. Therefore the issues of the local environment become secondary and the anonymity rate grows, as residents do not often get familiar with each other through free-time activities. The question is how will this phenomenon influence the future of this district? Residents admit that they would probably like to participate in the activities of a possible Annelinn community union, but the biggest obstacle is to find leaders for any kind of community activity. Their experience is that it is already hard to find active people in their HA-s to do small improvements that are needed around their house. They would like to have joint community events like cleaning the courtyards altogether. School representative mentioned that they have an annual event where they clean
53
together with pupils in public areas in Annelinn. This is a community directed cooperation project with Tartu city.
The issue of infrastructure is approached here as the systemic framework that influences the organisation of outdoor space. Under discussion came parking problems and equipment for free time activities. Solving the parking problem is currently a primary need. In order to find solutions new methods need to be used in Annelinn. City representatives are of the opinion that parking should be expanded further from housing. They find it is also possible to stop expanding, as it is quite realistic to construct parking houses. This solution would create safer courtyards. According to administration company residents do not seem to want parking arrangements far from houses. Other infrastructure-related issues mentioned were about playgrounds, sports grounds and benches. Residents mentioned a lack of playgrounds multiple times. There is a need for playgrounds for different age groups. Residents see that playgrounds should serve more than one house in order to cover the needs. The city is familiar with the need for playgrounds and a thematic plan is worked out for constructing one playground in the city every year. Both city and residents point to the soviet playground equipment that is problematic. The problem that is related with the whole spatial structure of the district is orientation. Residents feel that it is hard to orientate between the buildings even for them, not to mention the visitors. They feel the need for orientation nodes and some central point within the district. Representatives of the public centres were concerned that the location of their facilities is complicated to explain and thus they do not stand out. Representatives of the youth centre considered the location of the building to be good in terms of being on the crossing of everyday routes of residents. As they think current location increases the opportunities that people would happen to visit the centre.
Topics, that are not anything new, when talking about the issues of Annelinn, are placed under the category of refinement. Nevertheless, with a few improvements in this field, 54
the district could get a quite different feeling and the outdoor space would function better.
The residents feel the need for a proper light traffic network and this is also something that the city wants to focus on. City administration has an idea to emphasize current main light traffic corridors of the district as public spaces or linear public parks. The residents also mention the matter that such corridors should be green. Additionally, it is important to take into account how the public institutions are situated in connection with the light traffic networks. The public institutions of Annelinn that serve the whole or part of the community like the library, Kalda Daily centre and Anne Youth Centre, are often visited by residents who mostly come by foot, therefore it is important to keep the pedestrian connections when reorganising the space. This is an important aspect in making the community feel better in their environment. A planning solution that favours pedestrians and cyclists over car-drivers is an endeavour towards establishing necessary contacts and meetings between community members. Better bicycle connections have been under discussion for a long time in Tartu and the municipality constructs them bit-by-bit. The residents feel that the light traffic paths surrounding the district are good, but the ones inside the district are in an insufficient condition. This can be confirmed by the site visits. Even though the representatives of residents say that there seems not to be very many bicycle users they suppose that people would use this means of traffic more if there would be better conditions for bike use. Their concerns are especially related to the safety of bike parking as the bikes of several interviewed residents have been stolen. The city representative confirms the risen issue of bicycle parking. The city has been trying to cooperate with Tartu Art College students and get finances for building parking house prototypes for bikes, but it has not been funded so far. Standards and suggestions for bicycle parking have recently been compiled by the city that should be followed in detailed plans and projects. These determine that exact description and construction plans should be presented together with other plans. In addition the solutions have to be comfortable to use, safe and economically projected. The most important aspect for the community of Annelinn is
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the notion to have one storage room per apartment and option for temporary bike parking. Schools have a high interest towards bicycle parking solutions, but the representative of the school admits that it could be promoted more.
The main issue connected with the outdoor space in Annelinn is the heterogeneity of it. The residents have a generally low interest in outdoor space in the district, but courtyards seem to be the topic that they do not care about at all, except for parking and waste arrangements. The city representative suggests that residents do not see the courtyards as theirs. The municipality also does not see many improvements that could be made in the courtyards to encourage the community to be more active. There was however one suggestion to allow extra front doorways for houses to bring entrances into one central courtyard. Currently the situation is that the front yard of one house is the backyard of other. Residents would like to have pleasant courtyards, but they have worries about the disturbance of loud community members. The planning of the housing creates shelleffect in the courtyards and therefore the creation of meeting and sitting places are not much favoured in the courtyards. Nevertheless they don’t deny the wish for nearby places where one can spend time. The courtyards of public institutions are often strictly fenced areas that theoretically should be public – accessible for everyone, but in most cases they are not. Kindergarten fences, for instance, are locked in the evenings, so that the courtyard cannot be passed or used. The planning of the outdoor space of different public facilities has been done separately, resulting in strict borders with a high contrast between the developed and undeveloped areas. One of the examples can be seen in the case of Sipsiku kindergarten and Kalda Daily Centre. The kindergarten is planned blindfolded, as expressed by the representative of the daily centre, as there is no pedestrian access from Kaunase Avenue to the daily centre. The centre itself has no courtyard for being outdoors, while right next to it is a big courtyard for children with lots of equipment but it is not allowed to stay there for other people. The centre, on the other hand, has a parking lot in front of
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the house that is also used by people entering the kindergarten. This functions as an immediate brake between people and the use of outdoor environment. Representatives of public institutions mentioned several actions and ideas considering outdoor space. Activists from the youth centre would like to develop a park like territory around the centre with opportunities for several activities outdoors. They also hope that if the community would get a pleasant area for being outdoors then the chance that they would take care of the place would grow. If the community takes care of the place the undesirables are pushed out. Head of interest of the school regarded pupils’ idea to create open study class important.
Residents of lower-Annelinn feel the need for a recreation area as the green space by Anne canal is too far for them (figure 13). They would like to gain better access to the river and suggest that there could be a publicly usable corridor by the river. A representative of the city claims that there is a pleasant recreation area by Anne canal for residents in Upper-Annelinn and people in Lower-Annelinn have good access to the nearby forests. Another city representative as well as other activists believess that green areas are in danger because of housing developments. Residents feel that the development of eastern roundabout route will negatively influence the access to potential recreation areas by the river. The city does not have many options for recreation area developments, as some protected plant species grow on the green flood plain. Therefore the areas will remain either natural or the areas with restrictions will be developed into forest parks/park forests with simple recreation opportunities. Residents prioritize the importance of access to recreation areas nearby Annelinn. It has been mentioned by several representatives that Kabina quarry is a popular location for spending summer days. They feel that the new developments like eastern roundabout route will worsen the access to the green areas next to the river and between Annelinn and Ihaste.
The following topics are approached here, because they are something that would provide alternative activities in the community of large-scale residential areas (Table 1). The success of the ideas that are considered below depends highly on the initiative of 57
the community, but the awareness of the community can be raised and the new topics introduced.
The most important issue that all the interest groups mention considering urban farming in Annelinn is the safety of harvest. The most of the city representatives found allotment gardening on city land between residential housing a realistic activity. Still there is a precondition that residents would have to want it. One representative tends to think that activity like this is not aesthetical in the courtyards and it is important to consider that not all the residents might want it in their courtyard. Safety issues according to all three interest groups determine most the probable locations where allotment gardening could take place in Annelinn. Therefore residents don’t find the areas on the floodplain near ABC building store suitable for urban farming as people pass it frequently and there is no overview from the windows to the area. They suggest that much better area for this type of activity would be at the end of the district where are located last high-rise residential houses. Residents by themselves suggest that instead of establishing allotment gardens there could be planted a pleasance garden as a mutual community project on the mentioned floodplain area. Representatives of the city do not think that this initiative should come from city as the administration do not have finances and speciality for these kind of projects. In addition there are nature protection restrictions on the riverside and therefore it is not suitable area for community garden. Representative claims that there is a recently established Taara oak-forest that probably is meant for community plantings. In overall the city has tight conditions for plantings, according to the words of the representative very few trees can be planted in the city during the year. The city has a clear standing point that urban farming has to be led by some kind of organisation. It could be The Organic Garden or some other public institution. A food urbanism activist states that urban farming could be an educational tool in schools and a helping tool to offer activities for the elderly in the community. The youth centre would like to be a promoter of using roofs for small gardens in the community as they want to plant their own rooftop garden and with this project also attract locals. The city and urban farming activist share the opinion that allotment gardening needs regulations. As suggested by the activist urban farming could even be one layer within a comprehensive
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plan to avoid situations where land that is persistently used for farming would lose its function due to other developments. The city representative thinks that as allotment gardening is an activity of temporary nature there is no need for it as they would give land for urban farming anyway. Still he admits that if one consistently cultivates and grows food in one place then the person will have place attachment. An activist of urban farming mentions that in Annelinn the food could mostly be grown for private use but there are many surplus values that can be created together with this activity like for example mutual cooking evenings or festivals of celebrating the harvest. City representatives see urban farming as an alternative free-time activity that is perhaps more therapy than a beneficial undertaking considering the harvest.
The artists see one major opportunity to bring art into the environment of Annelinn by painting the sides of the facades of residential housing. The district could be like an extensive outdoor gallery. The residents and the city consider it a good idea, but representatives of residents immediately point to the problem of finances. Art projects would be expensive and they are not willing or able to contribute to it if there are urgent household problems to solve. But there are continuous renovations to facades and it would be a good opportunity to cooperate with artists for aesthetically pleasing solutions after which Annelinn could be indentified for later. Besides painting the artists suggest an option to use plants on walls as well. It would be accepted by the city in case it functions but the city representatives bring out the danger that Annelinn could look like an amusement park if too many different solutions are side-by-side. The artists also emphasize the aspect that a changed building has an impact to its surroundings and residents and this influence might not always be positive. On the other hand they recognise that there is lot of scepticism within the community of Annelinn as there are no actual positive examples of facade art on this scale in Estonia. Therefore it is very important to cooperate with the local community about the choice of solutions. The artists as well as the representatives of the city consider it important to create a database of artists who are capable of carrying out facade painting works. This database would be useful to all three parties as the city would know where to find the performers
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of this job; residents would know the same and be able to choose the style or solution that they like; artists can present their solutions and contribute to the community. All the interest groups find the old maps of microdistricts on four walls interesting and functional when moving in space (Figure 18). City representatives think that these should be renewed and upgraded with current important nodes in Annelinn.
Lack of cooperation can be considered as the main obstacle for realising the ideas within the community of Annelinn as the keywords from interviews indicate (Table 1). Representatives of HA-s have different experiences. Some HA-s have successfully cooperated with the city while some have not. All in all they feel the need for cooperation with city. Cooperation with activists is not mentioned. It seems that the community considers the public institutions something separately standing from the community of Annelinn. According to the curator of the district festivals people tend to have the mentality of cultural consumption. This means that a small part of the community produces and carries out ideas while the large part passively participates by enjoying the final results. The residents are not aware of the fact that the activists are actually opened to the community and willing to cooperate but they wait for the initiative of the community. The activists also mention the city as an inactive party when contributing to the development of public institutions as important places in the community of Annelinn. Public institutions are on the other hand often strictly bordered islands in between the dwelling areas. They function as important places for some residents, but often the function is unclear to broader publicity or community. As locations or destinations these
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places are, in most cases (Kalda Daily Centre, Anne Youth Centre), hidden or complicated to access. The representative of the city emphasises that cooperation is often about communication and HA-s tend to claim for solutions but are not willing to offer own input. The activists find that the errors in communication between the city and the residents may come from the fact that these parties communicate differently. The activist of urban agriculture mentions that perhaps sometimes the initiative for cooperation should come from outside the community from the city or some activist to have objective and fresh approach towards some issue. The residents feel that there is not enough information sharing about the developments of the district.
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As a discussion around possible solutions for provoking activity in the community of Annelinn an action program is drawn. It is a synthesis based on the ideas and standing points of the three interest groups that were analysed in the previous chapter. It is a simple form (Figure 19, 20, 21) and map (Figure 22) that could be launched by city administration as an agenda. Action program has the same division as the comparative table gathering the results of the discussions (Table 1)
One hypothetical conclusion that could be drawn from the results of the research is that the passivity of the community of post-socialist large scale residential areas cannot remarkably diminish. The density of residents and their different backgrounds as well as lifestyle would always keep the anonymity level high in these types of areas. Still the possibility of the meetings between residents could be increased. For dealing with the issues of anonymity and lack of initiatives the action program suggests reoccurring short-term activities like holding of the district days. This could be an event where the leaders in the local community could be found. Based on a clear necessity that reflects from the study, this thesis suggests creating an online platform where residents can become members and make suggestions for public and community space development. The system could be based on similar, already functioning innovative systems in the world like the examples that were brought in the background information of this thesis. As large amount of communication between people nowadays depends on the social media the local contemporary planning practices of Tartu could make more use of these ideas. The overall principle could be that members of local community could suggest their ideas for projects or actions. The projects would become publicly accessible and other members would have a possibility to support their favourite ideas and carry them out in teams. Information shared within community would be useful for city and administration to see where their input is needed. This virtual community would change the current situation where some leaders of the HA-s are not sharing the relevant information with the members of their HA.
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In order to foster the spreading of information within the district and to reach the members who are not using the modern means of communication a possible solution would be to implement information boards that would display the important events in the district. It wouldn’t certainly raise the activeness of the community but the average awareness of residents about the life in the district would rise. What residents could do more by themselves is to find neighbours who would want to cooperate to carry out different small-scale cleaning, building and planting initiatives. This would be the way how residents by themselves can establish more permanent contacts with neighbours by achieving mutual goals in their neighbourhood space. Examples of these initiatives could be cleaning of courtyards in spring together with neighbours or renewal of sandboxes. It would be helpful if residents would recognise more the public institutions in the district. As Anne Youth centre, for example, is opened to the community projects and willing to share outdoor space, then locals could use this opportunity of cooperation.
Improvement of infrastructure in the district would have very obvious positive impact to the community. As the main problem, that reflected from all the discussions with interest group representatives, is parking, then the effective solutions are needed. Action program suggest use of parking houses, as the solution would leave more room for comfortable outdoor space between the houses. The complicate structure of the outdoor space and large scales makes the people feel uncomfortable in the space. Action program suggest that for better orientation in the district it would be good to implement orientation graphics. The significant microdistrict maps that are already there should be renewed with the help of artists. In terms of binding different parts of the district one central public area should be formed within the district where the most important paths would meet. The planning of meeting places with sitting places, new playgrounds and sports grounds would again create better chances that the members of the community will meet and
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socialise. The biggest obstacle of infrastructure development is lack of finances and it would be hard to fill the needs of the whole district evenly. Therefore community should by themselves contribute to the renewal of the existing equipment.
The actions that are proposed under “light traffic� topic regarding the improvement of bicycle and pedestrian network require long-term planning. According to the research the network renewal and development within the area should be prioritised. If the connections within the district are good then people would more likely consider the alternative ways of moving to use of car. Pedestrian access to public places should be developed equally with access by car, as a significant proportion of the community (elderly, parents with babies) is moving by foot. A planning solution that favours pedestrians and cyclists over car-drivers is an endeavour towards establishing necessary contacts and meetings between community members. One of the obstacles for frequent bicycle use is the absence of safe bike storing places. The construction of bike parking houses in the courtyards of residential housing and implementation of bike racks next to public institutions is necessary. These should be first of all mutual projects with neighbours.
The most important keyword, when considering the development of outdoor space, is merging of spaces. Currently the outdoor space functions as buffer between different elements. There is either no tension or very much tension between different places. According to the reflections of both parties - city and housing associations - the cooperation for management of the residential courtyards is highly important. The obstacle is the carelessness of many residents.
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In such dense neighbourhood the recreation areas play very important role as escapes to different space. Therefore the residents’ wish for better connections with riversides should be met. Another solution to the need for different recreational places would be the use of roofs of the block houses as rooftop gardens. These would provide more semiprivate places for residents and also be visual teasers on the eyelevel of the other community members when being indoors.
Urban farming could be one possibility for creating new kind of communication in the community. It would be an alternative activity to the typical outdoor activities in this neighbourhood. Action program proposes establishment of community gardens and allotment gardens by the residents with the support of other parties. A possibility to plant your own tree would create a bond with the certain place in the space. The interaction between “someone’s objects” like trees and public space would create interest to take care of this place. Moreover there would be a shared interest between the people who participated to contribute to this place together. Allotment gardening could be a connection between different generations and nations within the community. It would certainly make the meetings between community members more frequent and create a connection between the residents indoors and the ones outdoors. As the gardens would always be changing the place would be in continuous transition. It would provide the residents exchange of routine daily activities and an opportunity to stay outdoors. Urban farming could also be used in local public institutions like schools and activity centres as an educational tool for visitors and surrounding community members.
Use of the works of the artists’ on the renovated facades of the buildings would definitely bring more playfulness into the monotonous environment and soften the influence of literally speaking ugly residential houses. In comparison with the current
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trend to make quite random shapes as decorations it would be a location-specific work that can’t be reproduced. The cooperation between artists and residents needs to have a clear organisation and the local community should not feel that they are forced to use certain solutions. Therefore the need for a database of available artists that is accessible by local community and city is justified. Besides the big and permanent projects should not be forgotten the importance of arranging temporary installations and performances that would enliven the routine outdoor space.
Cooperation is the most important binding element in all the actions mentioned above. One of the concerns when trying to activate the community in areas like Annelinn is how to keep the discussion between city, activists and residents alive.
It can be said that in post-socialist large-scale residential areas, the residents have a different relationship with outdoor space than they did at Soviet time. It is frequently asked what to do with large-scale residential environments similar to Annelinn, and many say that nothing can be done unless the community begins to ask for something. Active community indeed is a grass-root phenomenon but this research has proven that there could be ways and directions where to go. The main obstacle for more activity in community seems to be a low awareness and a lack of teasers outdoors. Therefore the promotion of urban farming and other innovative alternative projects could be one way to raise the awareness and draw people outdoors more. The success of these projects depends on the cooperation
The method of qualitative interviewing was suitable for finding answers for the research question because the representatives of interest groups usually had a broad overview of the issues related with their field and specifics of interest. The set of topics brought enough important aspects to draw the action program.
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The topics of the research proved to be actual as in most cases the interviewed representatives had an opinion and knowledge about the topic. The most productive discussions were the ones with several participants from the same or different interest group. The topics were discussed more widely in the group interviews and more ideas and opinions revealed than from the ones with single representative. This indicates the importance of creating more discussions within the community. This research has proven the already known confusing situation of Annelinn and the property and ownership statuses caused by privatization in these types of areas in the 1990s. But additionally, the research has revealed how different are the people who form the power groups there. The current situation and conclusions that are made in this thesis could definitely be clarified more, but due to the goal and also the volume of this work it is kept inside strict boundaries. It is also important to mention that the interpretations of the results are made according to what is relevant to landscape architecture and the field of spatial planning
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Current thesis looks for innovative ways how to provoke urban and community activism in a characteristic post-socialist large-scale residential area Annelinn in Tartu, Estonia. The research is conducted with an aim to start a discourse with practical value when talking about post-socialist large-scale residential areas. It is driven from the latest public discussions in Estonia and other post-socialist countries that express the concern about the sustainability of these areas. Research on this topic is relevant because areas of this type have a dense population and high risk to become slums. The basis of the thesis forms from 8 topics based on the most actual problems that occur in the district, on the background analysis of the innovative solutions of neighbourhood development in the world and on the fields of urban and community activism that are most actual currently in Tartu where the district is located. The topics are community, infrastructure, light traffic, outdoor space, recreation, urban farming, art, cooperation. Representatives of the interest groups that divide under three categories - city, activists, and residents are interviewed to find out what are their role, future vision and wishes about the cooperation in relation to Annelinn. Concurrently the most important layers of the spatial structure were marked on the map of the area to understand the context of the problems and to see where the action program could be launched. The most important keywords of every topic were gathered into a comparative table. The most important result of the research is the action program (Figure 19, 20, 21) that is synthesised from the important keywords of the interviews. It could be used in the future development of the area and the study itself as a discourse on how to approach the problems of post-socialist large-scale residential areas. The activism in the community of the post-socialist large-scale residential area could be provoked by the proposed actions in case all the interest groups are actively participating. The result of the thesis is important from the aspect of implementing more innovative tools and approaches into current planning of Annelinn and other similar areas. An option for future research would be to use the same research method on the same kind of areas in different locations/countries to see if the results would be similar or different.
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To conclude the seeking for innovation in planning and redefining the principles of community life is a way for creating communities that can attach with their neighbourhood better.
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Magistritöö maastikuarhitektuuri erialal Ave Kongo
Antud magistritöö uurib, kuidas leida ja rakendada innovatiivseid meetodeid, et kutsuda esile linna- ja kogukonnaaktiivsust Annelinnas, kui tüüpilises postsotsialistlikus vabaplaneeringuga elamupiirkonnas. Antud teema uurimine on oluline, kuna kodanikuaktiivsus selles piirkonnas on väga madal ning piirkonda üldiselt võib tulevikus ohustada degradeerumine. Töö eesmärgiks on tekitada arutelu, mis uuriks praktilisi lähenemisviise, kuidas tõsta kogukonnaelu aktiivsust taolises piirkonnas. Tulemuste saamiseks loodi 8 teemagruppi, mis baseeruvad antud elamupiirkonna kogukonna ja väliruumiga seotud probleemidel ning linna- ja kogukonnaaktivismi suundadel, mis on hetkel Tartus aktuaalsed. Käsitletavad teemad on kogukond, infrastruktuur, kergliiklus, väliruum, rekreatsioon, linnapõllundus, kunst ja koostöö. Antud teemadel uuriti Annelinnaga seonduva kolme suure huvigrupi – linna, aktivistide ja elanike seisukohti ning rolli antud teemades. Intervjuude tulemustest koostati tabel, mis võrdleb erinevate huvigruppide seisukohti antud teemadel. Töö tulemuseks on huvigruppide seisukohtade omavahelisel võrdlusel saadud olulisematest ettepanekutest lähtuv tegevuskava, mis on mõeldud rakendamiseks Annelinnas. Tegevuskava pakub lahendusi kolmel suunal: aktsioonid, mis on seotud Annelinna kogukonna ning ruumilise keskkonna olemusega; aktsioonid ja planeeringud nagu näiteks kergliiklusvõrgustiku arendamine piirkonnas, mis aitavad oluliselt parandada kogukonna enesetunnet antud piirkonnas; aktsiooonid, mis pakuvad alternatiivseid lahendusi nagu kogukonnaaia rajamine elanike ühise ettevõtmisena. Saadud tulemus näitas, et diskusioon valitud teemadel annab ulatusliku hulga praktiliselt teostatavaid ided. Nende rakendamiseks on ennekõike vaja kogukonna initsiatiivi ja kõigi huvigruppide omavahelist koostööd. 80