Rethinking Tronchetto: Sustainable Textiles for Venice’s Future

As part of the GCHU’s Summer School blog series, Mia Frleta’s explores reimagining Venice’s Tronchetto island, proposing a sustainable textile factory, Algitura, that uses algae to create eco-friendly fibers, addressing over-reliance on tourism while revitalizing the city’s historical textile industry and offering diverse employment opportunities.

A patchwork of participation: Community-led solutions for Venice’s Tronchetto  

As part of the GCHU’s Summer School blog series, Merit Zimmermann proposes a community-led redevelopment of Tronchetto in Venice that prioritizes local residents’ needs by promoting affordable housing, vibrant cultural hubs, and environmental stewardship, while addressing the challenges posed by overtourism and climate change.

Lungs of Venice: Reimagining Tronchetto as a model of urban wellbeing

As part of the GCHU’s Summer School blog series, Vanja Pandurevic’s explores a proposal to transform Venice’s Tronchetto island into an ecologically sustainable “Communal Backyard,” integrating green spaces, urban agriculture, and cultural hubs to enhance community wellbeing, preserve Venetian heritage, and position the city as a global leader in sustainable urbanism.

Working Across Boundaries: Findings in Applying a Multidisciplinary Integrated Strategy Towards a Sustainable Tronchetto, and Venice

As part of the GCHU’s Summer School blog series, Jessica Zhang writes about her collaboration on a multidisciplinary design project to revitalize the Tronchetto area by integrating green and blue infrastructure, fostering community engagement, and addressing social and environmental challenges.

Tronchetto Reimagined: A blueprint for sustainable practices in Venice

As part of the GCHU’s Summer School blog series, Roxana Sala describes her participation in the workshop where she developed a proposal for revitalizing Venice’s Tronchetto island, focusing on water management, community-led design, and food resilience through a rain garden prototype, community gardens, and sustainable urban strategies.

Tronchetto: The Point of Attraction

As part of the GCHU’s Summer School blog series, Sofia Ryabinina and Beyza Ayaz propose transforming Venice’s Tronchetto Island into a vibrant cultural and educational hub, addressing sustainability challenges by creating student accommodation, art spaces, and green infrastructure to foster community engagement and cultural vitality.

The role of city leadership in delivering climate action – local and global collaboration

GCHU Visiting Fellow Dr. Katherine Maxwell’s new blog post discusses the key insights from her book, Governance Networks for Sustainable Cities, focusing on the role of city leadership in sustainability decision-making.

“Picture this” | University of British Columbia students create infographic of GCHU publication on Lived Experiences in Marginal Neighbourhoods

Based on GCHU Director of Research Dr Juliet Carpenter’s ‘Picture this: Exploring photovoice as a method to understand lived experiences in marginal neighbourhoods’ research article in the Urban Planning journal, undergraduate students at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have created an infographic on the background, method, and findings of the paper.

Beware the buzzword: how can community engagement actually improve housing?

GCHU Intern and BA Chinese Studies student Rebecca Gardner investigates how the UK’s housing crisis, extending beyond supply shortages to encompass monocultural estates and the pitfalls of community engagement, necessitates a nuanced approach, proposing Regional Building Hubs as a potential solution to empower communities, foster collaboration with small-medium sized builders, and address the multifaceted challenges inhibiting effective participation in housing planning.