Placemaking for Coexistence: Child and Community Friendly Space. HOUCH YGAMAANA Project, New Damietta, Egypt

Abstract

HOUCH YGAMA’NA[1] is a participatory ‘design and build’ project piloted in 2014 that aims to create age and gender inclusive child-friendly spaces that foster children’s imagination and enhance their physical, cognitive, emotional and social development. This paper focuses on the narrative of the project implemented in the Central Public Park of New Damietta, Egypt. The project entailed applying a set of urban and design practices centred around a socially engaging mobile installation all aiming to bring the users of the park from the Egyptian community and newly settled Syrian community together to collaborate in reshaping and developing their outdoor environment with the overarching aim of Integrating the local Syrian population in their host society and linking them to one of the active local associations in the area :Terre Des Hommes . The project is a manifestation of the socio-spatial dimension to placemaking where the produced public space is ‘’both a product and producer of change’’(Gottdiener M., Hutchison R., 2011); as the created space is not only a collaborative effort by the local community, but also a tool within the overall process to achieve the project’s overarching goal. [1] HOUCH YGAMA’NA : Figurative translates from Arabic as ‘ A schoolyard for all’