Three months after their graduation from the short diploma “Urban Management: Good Governance in Complex Contemporary Cities”, IHS alumni Mohamed Magdi Hagras and Atefeh Soleimani Roudi were selected to participate in the international Young Planning
Professionals’ workshop YPP, organized by the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP), in Kocaeli, Turkey, from 19 to 25 March 2022.
Mohamed, Atefeh and 23 other urban planners from all over the world, successfully spent an intensive and productive week in Kocaeli, working on creative urban planning and design ideas in conformity with the workshop theme ‘Change for Resilience, Resilience for
Change’, and exploring the concept of resilience through the transformation of a vacant lot to a dynamic urban public space, which can in future become a critical tool for a resilient city and society. The workshop project was organized in collaboration with the Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality, Marmara Municipalities Union, and the ISOCARP Institute, Centre for Urban Excellence.
The workshop was also a good opportunity for different planning and architecture specializations to come together, exchange ideas, work with experts and the community and collaborate on planning and designing a space that transcends the one aspectual
expectations of one actor and that is also able to withstand, recover and thrive when faced with various stressors and shocks, as resilience in an urban setting requires.
It is also worth mentioning that Professor Zeynep Gunay, ISOCARP Board and The Director of Young Planning Professionals’ Program is an IHS alumnus as well, she got a diploma in Inner City Development and Housing in Transitional Economies from IHS in 2003.
The workshop’s theme was defined as Change for Resilience, Resilience for Change – with a call to present future imperatives for a resilient city that meets the current needs of the city, improves the quality of life, protects, and develops ecological values, and contributes to the transformation of the environment of the project areas with holistic approaches. The workshop results were presented during the annual International Kartepe Summit organized in Kocaeli, March 2022.
Mohamed and Atefeh worked with their other team members, Sohini Maiti, Omer Melikoglu and Elif Uyar, and proposed ‘The Fair Healing’ (demonstrated in poster 1 and 2). ‘The Fair
Healing’ Urban planning and design proposal aimed at transforming the old International Fair Area in Kocaeli to a well-connected public space that plays a transformative and healing role in its community, offering eco-system and emergency services to its inhabitants
in an economically viable manner.
Atefeh Soleimani Roudi IHS 2021, Mohamed Hagras IHS 2021 - Change for Resilience, Resilience for Change, ISOCARP international workshop, Turkey, March 2022
Arial photo for the case study area, which had been used as an International Fair Area until 2020, Located next to the Izmit Gulf and a wetland, Kocaeli, Turkey
ISOCARP YPP teams during the site visits, ISOCARP international workshop, Turkey, March 2022
Presenting the planning process to the Kocaeli Mayor, Tahir Büyükakın. Atefeh Soleimani Roudi IHS 2021, Mohamed Hagras IHS 2021 and other YPPs - Change for Resilience, Resilience for Change, ISOCARP international workshop, Turkey March 2022
Poster 1: The Fair Healing
Poster 2: The Fair Healing
ISOCARP YPP team and coordinators, in Change for Resilience, Resilience for Change, ISOCARP international workshop, Turkey March 2022
Author: Mohamed Hagras