Within an IGOP’s project, and the collaboration of publicspace.org, elementary school students have conducted an investigation on public space in their neighborhood, based on interviews and surveys.

Framed within the IGOP’s (Institute of Government and Public Policies) project "Crisis and Neighbourhoods", twelve-year-old students of school Mestre Morera, “Els Imparables” (the unstoppable), have been investigators of this action-research during the whole course. The school had also been part of this project last year, which focused on the neighborly cooperation to combat the crisis in the neighborhood. This year, the topic to be discussed was the public space, its quality and ways to improve.

Thus, students, with the help of IGOP researchers, students of Masters and PhD at UAB, in addition to the collaboration of the CCCB (Contemporaneous Culture Center of Barcelona), have used various methodologies and research tools, which have given them knowledge about their environment and neighborhood and awareness of the different interpretations of public space. The investigation focused in the suburban Barcelonan neighborhood “Ciutat Meridiana”, located in the northern edge of the city, which has been deeply affected by the economical crisis.

The investigation had questions as: How is Ciutat Meridiana’s public space and how is it used? What is good in the public space? What do we not like? What would we like to improve and how? In order to discover it, they had to interact both with other children and adults, whether close - family, friends - and strangers (as agents or actors of the neighborhood). After the search, students have discovered new terms, from methodological (hypothesis, research question, conclusions) to theoretical: The common good and public goods are key players in the research results.

On Wednesday June 17 the young researchers themselves showed the project results. The school gym was the scenery where the students presented what they had discovered. For example that the vision of public space was different in the eyes of adults or children, also that the neighborhood needed more public equipments, the importance of elements such as cleaning to facilitate coexistence or which are the central public spaces in their neighborhood. Both the conclusions and the procedures of the project will be presented at the CCCB from 29 June in the framework of the exhibition Piso Piloto.

Guillem Pujadas Jané.