Urban Intervention #2

On July 22, 2016 from 16:00 to 19:00 Aldara Park in Sarkandaugava hosted the second „urban intervention” of the City laboratory which included building the stage a variety of workshops.

Aldaris Park, surrounded by 28. secondary school of Riga, Latvian Culture Museum “Dauderi», Aldaris beer museum, railway tracks and residential houses, is a cultural monument of local significance of Sarkandaugava. Today the park is in disrepair, there are the artificial ruins of the former brewer villa park “Waldschlosschen” and a pool that remind of the time in the past, when the park was a well-maintained territory. In the next few years the park will be done up and will once again become a place of recreation for residents and visitors of Sarkandaugava. But while the design contest is still taking place and the urban planners are working, the park territory improvement is taken over by the local young people. They, together with the historian and passive construction practitioner Krišjānis Lange, built a stage on july 22. 22 July, the park consisted of a stage. Using a variety of left-over materials – wooden pallets, board ends, cuttings – the young people built a platform which will serve as a good place for creative activities in the next years.

Krišjānis: “There are places where the improvement does not necessarily need huge resources, solutions can be relatively simple. You can combine ideas, work and „waste” materials in setting a bench in the park, building a stage for outdoor events or arranging a street gymnastics. People have been successfully using the practices of recycling in their cabbage-patches for several decades, thereby providing a large economic relief. It is both wiser and more creative than throwing everything out.”

While young people built the stage, the other visitors could participate in musical instrument and stage decoration workshops, organized by “homo ecos:”. The musical instruments and ornaments were also made of recycled materials and the constructions were simple enough to be made by anyone.

homo ecos: project manager Antra Pētersone: “Visitors will be able to make sure that the lifecycle of things can and should be extended – it is expedient to use them to make unique things for your house or the park. We hope that some of the musical instruments and ornaments could be used at the „City laboratory” Sarkandaugava neighbourhood event in Aldara Park in September, which will be joined by Finnish and Belarusian youth organizations. “

Urban intervention is a part of a wider neighbourhood planning project, which will actively engage young people of Sarkandaugava in exploring their school, its immediate environment and neighbourhood this year. During the project, Sarkandaugava will turn into a city laboratory, which will be initiated by the young people themselves.

The project «Green manual for youth space” activities are co-financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers Office.

URBAN INTERVENTION #2. ALDARIS PARK IN PHOTO