Representatives of the four cities of the European research project, coordinated by the University of Cordoba, visited to Cordoba to learn about the project activities in Las Palmeras and the courtyards, and to replicate actions that promote the health and well-being of inhabitants.

At the halfway point of the H2020 European research project IN-HABIT, coordinated by the University of Cordoba (UCO), visits are being made to the four cities where the project is being implemented. The first visit of the year was to Lucca, now it’s Cordoba’s turn and soon visits will also be held in Riga and Nitra.

On this occasion, more than 30 international participants met in Las Palmeras to familiarise themselves with the neighbourhood, the inhabitants participating in the project, and the actions being developed by the UCO team, and to exchange points of view to create synergies and replicate actions between the cities.

The visit began at the La Foggara social services centre, where the Deputy Mayor, Eva Contador, the Rector of the University of Cordoba, Manuel Torralbo, the Delegate for Urban Planning, Salvador Fuentes, and the project coordinator, María del Mar Delgado, welcomed the IN-HABIT partners to the city.

At this point, the project’s other local partners – the City Council of Cordoba, the Neighbourhood Association Unión y Esperanza, and PAX-Patios de la Axerquía – as well as collaborating associations from the neighbourhood – Red XXI, Estrella Azahara, the Brotherhood of La Piedad, the U.D. Las Palmeras football club, and the CEIP Pedagogo García Navarro and CEIP Duque de Rivas schools – showcased their activities.

During the day, the partners visited the neighbourhood, paying special attention to the Cantarranas picnic area – built by IN-HABIT – and participating in a team dynamic where they shared the objectives being achieved in each of the cities involved in the project. The intention of this exchange of ideas was to be able to replicate the actions from one city to another, in order to promote well-being and health across these small and medium-sized cities connected by the research project.

A tour of the courtyards
On the second day, the partners visited different courtyards to learn about the role courtyards play in Cordoba both on an ecological level and as spaces for socialisation, and also to understand IN-HABIT’s objective in Las Palmeras to renaturalise the neighbourhood’s courtyards to create green environments and promote these spaces for neighbourhood interaction.

One of the main axes of the project in Cordoba is to analyse the role of courtyards as green cells and spaces for social interaction in the city. For this reason, the trip included visits to different courtyards, both public and private, to show the different functions courtyards can have. One courtyard that IN-HABIT has already sensorised with the help of another project partner, Wellness TechGroup, was also visited. The project aims to sensorise 24 courtyards to model the contributions of courtyards to the health and well-being of the city.

In Cordoba, IN-HABIT aims to connect the neighbourhoods of Las Palmeras and Axarquia through the courtyards, investigating how the courtyards of the historic centre can be co-created and replicated in the courtyards of Las Palmeras. The visit allowed Las Palmeras residents involved in the project to integrate and share with the international research team, and allowed the actions being carried out to be disseminated and replicated in other countries.