Rethinking a Police Station as Civic Space

“How can a civic, flexible, and creative space belonging to the city be created in a participatory way with its reparative culture?” The space transformed by focusing on the question is being made public in a participatory, inclusive and creative way.

The municipality’s 350 square meter Police Department building and its surroundings are creatively adaptive reusing for the inhabitants of Nilüfer, Bursa, with the meaningful participation of over +500 citizens, city council volunteers, professional organizations, non-governmental organizations, academics, and high school and university students.

Our primary objective is to make the culture of reparation and participation a part of daily life through space by taking what belongs to the public together with the locals. Diversifying people’s sense of belonging to the place where they live and their participation practices; increase citizens’ participation motivation and propose creative and meaningful participatory processes to local governments are crucial for our project.

We design enjoyable processes enabling everyone to contribute creatively by using social design practices as a grassroots movement. It strengthens and encourages the participation of people in decision-making mechanisms with human-oriented design practices in the process. In this way, creative, inclusive, and meaningful participation processes that focus on design for people are created outside of the traditional participation bureaucracy.

This session is part of the “Living Better Together” block, which runs from 15:45-16:30 CET. The sessions in this block will appear in the following order:

·      Nutritious Music to Combat Childhood Obesity

·      Empowering Low-Income Families as Agents of Change

·      “Call Frida“ to Save Women from Feminicide and Gender Violence

·      Tackling Gender and Racial Inequality in Urban Spaces

·      Rethinking a Police Station as Civic Space