Reframing urban spaces
for physical activity

#MOVEmentSpaces #InspiredByISCA
#MovingPeople

The Project

To many citizens, today’s cities can feel like hostile environments where high-rise buildings, cars, concrete and fences stand as barriers to exercising outdoors and feeling safe when doing so.

Addressing the needs of the growing urban population and relying on the EU Physical activity guidelines International Sport and Culture Association (ISCA) started a new project called MOVEment Spaces to promote and enhance facilities for physical activity in urban spaces. The two-year project brings together five European cities (Barcelona, Birmingham, Paris, Wroclaw and Plovdiv), five NGOs and experts to collect, share and implement good practices that encourage participation in physical activity in urban setting. Encouraging partnership between cities and grassroots sport organisations is the key to developing sustainable physical activity programmes.

Partners

The project partners will draw on their experiences to show how active spaces can be created – even in busy and densely populated cities like Paris and Birmingham. During the project, they will build the knowledge base, develop online platforms so that other cities and organisations working in this area can learn from each other and take action together. One of the platforms will be an Open Source Innovation Lab to unite interested stakeholders, provide them resources they can use, a platform where they can share their own successes and challenges, and a space where they can build a pan-European network of like-minded partners.

The project will focus on three focus areas: active parks, public squares and open water facilities, but the overarching objective is to build the capacities of stakeholders to carry out urban space physical activity initiatives.

Target Group

The direct target groups are cities and grassroots sport organisations who are each providing opportunities for physical activity at the local level. By bringing stakeholders from different sectors together to share their experience and best practices, we aim to create dialogue and inspire other local communities to do the same. The local population, especially the less active citizens, will experience higher quality sport programmes in the urban areas they live in as a result.

The Erasmus+ Sport Collaborative Partnerships-co-funded project will run for two years and we will keep you up-to-date with the developments and publicly accessible tools as it unfolds.

The Collection

Have you ever wondered if there exists a webpage dedicated entirely to physical activity and healthy lifestyle in the urban setting – a source of inspiration for civil society organisations and municipalities to follow the best international and national examples in this field?

You’re in the right place! Welcome to the first international knowledge platform for civil society organisations and municipalities to promote physical activity and healthy lifestyle in urban spaces.

We have gathered 43 examples from more than 20 countries that demonstrate tried-and-tested ways of incorporating physical activity and healthy lifestyle to urban design and city planning.

We selected these examples according to the type of the example:
  • Public Square
  • Active Parks
  • Open Water Facilities
And more precisely the overlying theme that the example highlights:
  • Partnerships between municipalities and civic organisations/sport clubs
  • Inclusivity as targeting the hard-to-reach populations
  • Stakeholder involvement and democratisation of public space

Examples we present here are innovative examples of urban design. They offer inspiration, knowledge and practical experience other organisations can learn from and they can be adapted to new settings. You can search through the good example PDFs by type or theme of the good example. In each PDF, we have a summary of the example, description why it’s a good example and contact of the owner of the example. You can download and print all the PDFs or share them online.

If you are really inspired by a good example, you can contact us or the owner of the example directly. This platform is also interactive and you can contribute your own good example by sending it to us at info@isca-web.org with the Title: Movement Spaces Good example. Be part of the urban revolution for movement and sent to us the good examples you know about! We will review them regularly according to the criteria and keep building the collection with your help.

#MOVEmentSpaces Partners