Young people from Fuenlabrada improve their city with the help of the URJC

Raul Garcia Hemonnet

Soon, the Fuenlabrada squares of Poniente and Huerto del Cura will never be the same again.

Students from the José Luis Aranguren Secondary School, members of the Fuenlabrada Youth Council and participants in the Must a Lab integration initiative have collaborated with the Rey Juan Carlos University and the Fuenlabrada City Council to renovate the street furniture in two squares in the Madrid municipality.

The 'PlaYinn' (Plazas for Youth Innovation) project is led at the URJC by the professor of Fundamentals of Architecture, Fermina Garrido. The professor of the degree, Lucila Urda, also participates in it.

The aim of the project is, as Urda explains, “to involve the population of Fuenlabrada in the transformation of their city. The municipality has an important history of associationism and has gone from being a dormitory city to a city to live in. But the majority of people who participate in the neighbourhood associations are older, with the project we wanted to involve the young people of Fuenlabrada”. 'PlaYinn', adds the URJC teacher, “has gone from the co-diagnosis phase to co-creation. Now we are in the phase of defining the urban furniture installations with the Basurama collective of architecture students”.

The prototypes are being defined based on two proposals obtained after the synthesis of different elements extracted from a total of 10 designs developed by students of Fundamentals of Architecture during the summer course on 'PlaYinn' held at the URJC last June.

After the proposals have been finalised, the José Luis Aranguren Institute will manufacture some of the furniture pieces as a curricular subject of their training. “Here at the university we will complement this work with our model laboratory,” says Lucila Urda, who points out that the collaboration of the professor of the degree in Design and Image Management, Victor Armas, will also be counted on.

Participation throughout the process

The youth of Fuenlabrada are participating in the project during all its phases, through the Youth Council of Fuenlabrada, the Institute, the participants of the Must A Lab project, the Youth Centre, Animajoven and Actívate. Within the framework of the project, activities have been developed such as the Summer Course last June, an urban walk “in which we obtained a critical view of the squares”, says Lucila Urda; and activities with teenagers from the municipality.

For the URJC teacher, “it is essential that young people know that spaces can be improved. They have little urban planning culture and the proposals are quite simple although some were noteworthy, such as stages, benches to meet, spaces for skating, photocalls, etc. What they do have clear is “what things work and what don’t, but they lack concrete and innovative ideas, so contact with our students is very enriching,” adds the teacher.

Through 'PlaYinn', the URJC and society work together to improve people's living conditions, actively involving young people.