Placemaking for Physical Activity Toolbox

Background The project is a responsive measure to the need to create a liaison between two policymaking areas (grassroots sports and placemaking) to, on the one hand, complement EU Physical Activity Guidelines in a way that it incorporates physical activity into everyday life, and, on the other, to support the EU Urban Agenda to strengthen the urban dimension in EU policies through creating more inclusive public spaces. Objectives The project’s overall objective has been to link placemakers (grassroots urban designers) and grassroots sports organizations to create a transferable methodology to design public spaces for physical activity through several key elements: researching the existing guides, building a new toolbox, developing placemaking for physical activity process, advocating the new concept, and building capacity of the stakeholders on using the instruments. Implementation The partnership was created based on the organisations’ experience in grassroots sport and placemaking. The three partners (BG Be Active, Placemaking Europe, and International Sport and Culture Association) were leading the framework of the resources and dissemination activities. AJSPT Suceava, MOVE Malta, Power Jump, and DES were actively contributing to the development of the resources and conducting the pilot placemaking for physical activity interventions in their national contexts. Achievements The project has created a conceptualized framework of physical activity in public spaces and urban settings. Apart from combining best practices of using placemaking for physical activity promotion, the framework also focuses on the needs of the cities and community sport and placemaking stakeholders and has a strong link with real-life city challenges and barriers due to the pilot practical tests. It also accentuates the role of the city environments in determining our physical activity habits.