International Conference
June 2019, Athens
At the PREHealth International conference at the Athen’s Culture Center participants could learn more about the project and what is happening in the 4 partner cities. Academics, planners, local government officials, citizens, NGOs and other civil society organisations were invited to share their views and good practices on encouraging physical exercise and well being in public open urban spaces.
Health Day
June 2019, Győr
On 12 June 2019 a “Health Day” was organised in cooperation with the City of Győr and Széchenyi István University. After short presentations, participants formed smaller groups (one senior group and four student groups). With the help of group-leaders they played along two selected routes of the location-based-game called “Győr Health Itinerary”.
Impressions from the Multiplier in Germany
May 2019, Darmstadt
How can health and physical activity be integrated into urban planning?
How can citizens be encouraged to actively use green urban open spaces?
The PREHealth research group is dedicated to these and other questions that explore the importance of green and blue infrastructures for urban health.
At the public event on 9 May, citizens and experts from urban planning and the health sector discussed this topic. Among other things, architecture students presented self-developed urban game apps (location-based games) that promote physical activity on public green spaces and at the same time integrate the built environment into the games. Adults and children had the opportunity to test the games.
After international examples of urban interventions and an insight into the work of a local outdoor game designer, the results of the PREHealth project were presented at the city model. At the concluding panel discussion, experts from sport, health and planning discussed the possibilities that a health and fitness itinerary creates for the population as well as for planners of the City Darmstadt.
Multiplier Event at Week of the Game
May 2019, Utrecht
The PREHealth multiplier event at Utrecht took place on 13 May 2019. It was part of the Utrecht University “Week of the Game”, organised by the Utrecht Center for Game Research.
Invitation – Launch of the Fitness Itinerary for Darmstadt’s East
May 2019, Darmstadt
The health and fitness itinerary will be presented on 9 May 2019 in Darmstadt as part of an all-day event on the topics of health and movement in urban open spaces and can be experienced on site.
Starting at 10 am, the GameLab participants (students of the Technical University of Darmstadt) will present their self-developed context-sensitive games. In addition to that PREHealth Darmstadt has the following items on the agenda:
- Location-based-games for adults and children
- Guided walk on current status and future measures in East-Darmstadt
- Open talks with citizens, students, the city planning office and experts from architecture, sports & health
- Local games developer presents the outdoor game “Waldsterben”, a detective story
- Urban interventions in public spaces of Győr
- Panel discussion “Movement in the city – a challenge for city planners”
- Full agenda below
Thu, 9 May 2019
10-18.30h
Theater im Pädagog
Pädagogstr. 5, 64283 Darmstadt
Registration until 7 May 2019 via prehealth[at]stadt.tu-darmstadt.de
PREHealth International Workshop
February 2019, Győr
The International Workshop in Győr in the frame of the PREHealth project has been organised on 25 February 2019. The event took place at the City Hall, with the main goal to promote the activities of the PREHealth project, and get a feedback from the participants. The morning session was held by four presenters and focused on the health issues and sport developments in the city. The afternoon session put a higher emphasis on the PREHealth pilot phases, introducing all the on-going processes in the four cities. After the presentations, there was enough time for discussions, and participants raised questions and shared ideas. After lunch, participants had a chance to walk along the health itinerary on a guided tour.
GameLab
January 2019, Darmstadt
Architecture students at TU Darmstadt creating interactive narratives with Remco Veltkamp and Bram Agterberg from University of Utrecht in order to define activities and challenges along the PREHealth – Health and Fitness Itinerary.
Photos: Camilo Pfeffer
Read more about Darmstadt
Hackathon at the Department of Architecture, Technical University Darmstadt
December 2018, Darmstadt
As part of a seminar called “GameLab” offered to the students of the Department of Architecture at TU Darmstadt, a hackathon took place on 13 December 2018 with support of the project partner University of Győr. The objective of the event was to test a location-based-game (LBG) on the campus, to learn how to design and create a LBG on an available platform, and to start designing an own game.
Multiplier Event in Greece
September 2018, Athens
The City of Athens, in cooperation with PRISMA, organised the Multiplier Event in Greece which was held on 26 September 2018 in the City Council Athens. The objective of the event was to disseminate the results of the different outputs of the project PREHealth to the different stakeholders: NGOs, city representatives and the public in general. After the event, on 27 and 28 September, the Steering Committee took place.
Meet-up on Healthy Living Environment
June 2018, Utrecht
UCREATE and RUIMTEVOLK organised a meet-up on Healthy Living Environment. PREHealth researcher Monique Simons co-hosted this meet-up.
Watch the video here
More ideas for the health itinerary in Győr
June 2018, Győr
The task force members walked along the designated health itinerary in the inner City of Győr. The partners collected ideas on how to improve the itinerary, what kind of small developments would be needed in order to make the itinerary more attractive and more accessible to a wider audience. Task force members agreed to collect their game ideas during the summer, and meet again in early September.
Photos: Csobay Dániel.
Public participation: students and citizens meet
June 2018, Darmstadt
On the 13 June 2018, the City of Darmstadt organised an event about public participation in urban redevelopment. Prof. Martin Knöll and the students of the Faculty of Architercture of TU Darmstadt had the opportunity to present their results and impressions of the temporary installations made in the urban space on 7, 8, and 9 June in the frame of the PREHealth project. At the end of the event the audience (around 100 citizens) could interact with the students.
Photos: Steffen Diemer
Download the presentation and slideshow here:
PREHealth, Stimulate, Bürgerversammlung
PREHealth, Backstage Park, Moods
“Altstadtwiesen”
June 2018, Darmstadt
Picnic blankets ready to use on the green areas, an art gallery next to an old wall, sitting opportunities in urban areas and a fitness route: a great oppotunity to rest, relax, , be fit and enjoy the open spaces in Darmstadt between the lake and the city center. The 7, 8 and 9 June, the students of the Faculty of Architecture presented their project “Altstadtwiesen” (Old town meadows) with the objective to increase the active use and to connect the green open spaces in Darmstadt. The project ist part of PREHealth’s “Action plan” (Improvements on the open space).
Photos: Nina Kaußen
Read more
City Backstage Park
May 2018, Darmstadt
As part of the PREHealth “Action Plan”, a joint project is currently underway between the Technical University of Darmstadt and the City Planning Office of Darmtadt. As a result, students of the Department of Architecture have the opportunity not only to develop their ideas for active public spaces as a concept, but also to implement them. The focus of the work is the green and open spaces, whose use and design should be brought more into the consciousness of the population.
From 7 to 9 June, the old town complex will be transformed into the “Altstadtwiesen” (Old town meadow) – a field of experimentation in the area of active use of open spaces through sport, fitness and recreation.
Start of workshop about improvements on urban open spaces
April 2018, Darmstadt
As part of the Intellectual Output 4 (Action Plan), TU Darmstadt designed and organised a two week course for architecture students. The objectives of the course were: 1. to include them as part of the PREHealth task force and 2. to propose creative and outstanding ideas on how to improve, stimulate and activate a part of the city of Darmstadt. On 12 April, the first meeting was held at the office of Research Group Urban Health Games, with a total of 72 interested students.
2nd meeting of the task force members
April 2018, Győr
Also in April, the Task Force members held their second meeting. After the experiences of the cycling tour, the members of the task force have decided about the Health Itinerary and made some final adjustments and comments regarding the map. The partners have also talked about the game scenario and the concept.
Photo: Honvári P.
On-site inspection by bike
April 2018, Győr
The project partners cycled across the planned Health Itinerary in Győr. Following the discussions about possible routes and spots, the time has come to actually visit the designated areas. Partners collected ideas on how to improve the public spaces, how good (or bad) the connection between different points of the routes are, and what kind of games could be played on site.
Photos: Tòth, P.
PREHealth project partner on context based playful technologies and urban green spaces
February 2018, London
Monique Simons presented a paper on context based playful technologies to promote the use of urban green and blue spaces for health promotion (PREHealth Project) at the CBC Conference 2018th Annual Conference – Behaviour Change for Health: Digital & Beyond.
Find out more here.
3rd Steering Committee Meeting
February 2018, Darmstadt
From the 4 to 7 February 2018 all the partners, including the city representatives, gathered for the third Steering Committee Meeting in Darmstadt, Germany. Part of the agenda included a walking tour that showed some of the “best practices” of green open spaces and physical activity in the City of Darmstadt. In addition, the project partner Prisma (Athens) presented the results of the face-to-face surveys (Intellectual Output 2).
Launch of the task force
January 2018, Győr
The task force started its operation in Győr. Respresentatives of different organizations, urban development experts, civil society members alongside with the City of Győr and the Széchenyi István University gathered for the first time in the frame of PREHealth. The partners presented the project, and collected the first ideas on how to develop a health itinerary within the city, and how to encourage city dwellers for a more active use of the open spaces. Ideas were collected and also presented on maps.
Photo: Honvári P.
2nd Steering Committee Meeting
September 2017, Utrecht
On 25 and 26 September 2017 all partners gathered for the second Steering Committee meeting in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The two-day meeting brought fruitful discussions about the process of the project. In addition, the project partner TU Darmstadt presented the results of the Intellectual Output 1: State of the Art Desk Research.
PREHealth project partner on health in spatial planning
April 2017, Potsdam
Prof. Martin Knöll (TU Darmstadt) presents a paper on co-design tools at the annual conference of the Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (ARL) – Leibniz-Forum for Spatial Sciences in Potsdam, Germany.
PREHealth partner on mobile games and health
March 2017, Mechelen
Monique Simons (Utrecht University) gave a lecture on mobile games for healthy urban living at the conference Public Space in Mechelen, Belgium.
More on this topic at Utrecht University
Consortium Meeting at TU Darmstadt
February 2017, Darmstadt
The consortium meets for the first time at TU Darmstadt to plan their research in more detail. We layout the keywords for our state of the art research and the survey on how people are using open spaces in our cities.
28 EU ambassadors visit the green, healthy, and smart city of Utrecht
May 2016, Utrecht
The ambassadors visited Utrecht because of the Dutch presidency of the EU. The ambassadors were introduced to demos by Utrecht University, HKU and UMC Utrecht in the application areas sustainability, health, open, safe and inclusive societies, and adapting to a changing society.
European Union / DAAD funds Europe-wide strategic partnership PREHealth with 350.000,- for the period from December 2016 to July 2019
May 2016
The main goal of PREHealth is to encourage city dwellers to use public spaces more actively. Researchers will study the role that digital applications can play in learning about and planning of active and health-promoting spaces. Can augmented reality games, for instance, promote participation by allowing players to collectively record data of their favorite places in the city? How can mobile gaming and playful interaction make positive health effects more tangible? In order to find out, the consortium partners will design applications in cooperation with users and tested in schools, universities, and in adult education institutes.
Seven European partners are involved in the project: four universities and research institutions (TU Darmstadt as coordinators, Utrecht University, PRISMA Planning and Research Consultants and the Szechenyi Istvan University); as well as three cities (Darmstadt, Athens, and Győr); and four associated partners, including the Brabant City region.
