Urbanar[t]: a learning experience to bring the city and urbanism to children

Abstract

In Peru, since the first major waves of rural-urban migration in the 1930s, an informal and community-based “model” of urban expan-sion has dominated the country’s cities. This self-built style has re-sulted in an unstable, crude, and unfinished built environment that puts city dwellers, including children, at risk. This difficult reality has served as the backdrop and justification for a series of work-shops for children on urbanism under the project name Urbanar[t]. The aim of the initiative is to introduce concepts of urbanism using a creative methodology, in which children identify the characteris-tics of their environment and learn to evaluate and take care of the city they live in.