This week I held a 15-minute city workshop with a senior group at Dom Kultury KADR. Thank you Maria for your great support and translation during the workshop and thanks to both you and Mariusz for administering the survey!
We talked about a lot of things.
Walkability: This was naturally a main focus and it appeared the whole room had a great understanding and appreciation for walkable environments.
ToiletEquity: I went over some of my emergent work on public toilets. My focus is mainly on access to clean, accessible, free public bathrooms for all people.
Surprisingly (to me), questions about gender came up quickly. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, from a generational standpoint, this group did not understand the need or interest in gender-neutral or combined bathrooms. It was interesting to reflect with the younger locals in the room later who were more open to the idea.
I have my own personal slant on this issue (I prefer gender-segregated bathrooms, like the elderly individuals I presented to today) but I also understand there are movements and changes afoot in various societies to have a different model and in a professional context I aim to remain open to discussing all views.
15-minute city: And we talked about the 15-minute city concept. The cultural center where I was hosting the workshop is part of my case study area where I am exploring the concept as manifest at the neighborhood level.
None of the workshop participants had heard about the concept before but after I explained it they nodded. ‘That’s what we have right here’, they explained about their neighborhood.
