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Short abstract:

Using Futures Thinking to reimagine and revitalize Wesoła district, which is a complex of historic post-hospital buildings in the center of Krakow, Poland. How to use past and future to design present civic participatory engagement – field study.

Long abstract:

Wesoła is a space in the heart of Kraków consisting of 10 hectares of green land and 14 buildings that used to serve as the municipal hospitals. It is a dead place at the moment - no nearby inhabitants, no public representation, with psychiatric wards patients and dog walkers as primary stakeholders. And the city that really struggles to justify the amount of money spent to buy this area.

Wesoła was bought back in 2019 and only now is Krakow looking for options and purpose for this area. Here is the past, present and future in the making – as we deal with the buildings from the 19th Century in the middle of a modern city, whose ambition is to create a district that will be both future proof, yet engaging citizens today.

In my research I try to reveal - if and how FST can encourage the residents to design the future of the district, how it can be implemented. How do the residents imagine Wesoła’s functioning and shaping in 10 to 15 years, or maybe in 50? I will show the results of participatory workshops carried out as part of the designed FST process, in which participants in 7 different age and competence groups (children, teenagers, adults, seniors, artists/designers, expats, non-human personas), design a future for this district.

Based on the research by design results and autoetnography, I will illustrate the process and results after the first round of research.