Maincode

European cities are increasingly affected by the impact of climate change, particularly heat waves and related effects. MAINCODE project, co-financed by DUT – Driving Urban Transition – Programme is committed to finding solutions to integrate nature to promote mitigation and adaptation actions to cope with climate hazards, fostering urban regeneration and generating co-benefits for communities and ecosystems. MAINCODE frames Urban Climate Shelters (UCS) as cooling demonstration projects to transform schoolyards into refuges for urban populations, using Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) and co-designing processes with children, local community, policymakers and practitioners.

Providing a tested and validated methodology in pilot schoolyards in Turin (Italy) and Halandri (Greece), MAINCODE promotes the co-designed transformation of schoolyards into UCS, expanding theoretical knowledge, enhancing community consciousness, and facilitating the upscaling and the replication to other European cities.

Urban Lab will take charge as “mediators” in applying strategic urban research, involving stakeholders in the co-designing process to implement UCS in schoolyards. In MAINCODE, Urban Lab will lead the WP2 Co-design future workshop that revolves around the development of six Future Workshops based on the involvement of key stakeholders in Turin and Halandri that will be engaged in co-designing UCS in the pilot schoolyards. Urban Lab wil also co-lead WP3 Implementing UCS in Turin and Halandri Pilot Schoolyards that will implement UCS in pilot schoolyards in Turin and Halandri. In WP3 the selected school communities will assume the role of critical hubs for climate change adaptation, bridging the gap between existing and emerging knowledge about UCS and putting them into practical use. Urban Lab will also co-lead WP5 Support for the DUT Knowledge Hub that will be dedicated to the communication, dissemination and exploitation of the MAINCODE approach and results to identify MAINCODE as one of the DUT solutions that can contribute to regenerative urbanism, planning and designing schoolyards as UCS using NbS.