Teaching sustainability: concept of Smederevo as a healthy city

Abstract

Sustainability as a broad concept has developed into a numerous new approaches both in theory and practice. One of the concepts that emerged from the ecological aspects of sustainability is the healthy city concept. Indubitably, its importance is emphasized in a new universal set of global goals – the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs (UN, 2015), which represent a platform of the sustainable development by 2030. Namely, the Goal no. 3: Good health and wellbeing refers to the health-for-all concept, universal health safety and the access to quality health facilities (UN, 2015; Mitrovic, 2017). Nowadays, the healthy city concept refers to a wider frame – healthy environment and good quality of life in urban areas.

Meeting the contemporary trends in sustainable planning, as well as in high education for sustainability, the Master class in 2018 at the Master course Integral urbanism, Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade embraced the diversity of topics within an umbrella-topic ‘Strengthening the cultural identity in Danube basin: case study of Smederevo’, under the DANUrB international project and through INTERREG Danube EU program. It was released with the support of the city of Smederevo. Master class program was conducted in two parts: master thesis and master project.

One of the approaches to the assignment was to examine the possibilities of implementing of the health city concept to the city of Smederevo and its tributary areas. While the master thesis examined the theoretical background of the healthy city concept and in situ conditions of Smederevo, the master project offered a future network for diverse healthy places and activities, from the city centre to the surrounding green areas. The focus of this paper is to present the educational process and pedagogical methodology which resulted in the quality, realistic and implementable solutions.