The first round of workshops with city residents and other stakeholders implemented by IETU and the Municipal Urban Greenery Enterprise in Katowice took place on 2-6 September 2022. It was a one of a kind experience with great creativity,  involvement  and commitment  of working together with the residents, local community leaders, NGOs to co-create the final design of the NBS solutions of the infrastructural demos in line with community needs. Beside the co-creation workshops,  we interacted with the stakeholders directly at the five locations of planned NBS investments with short interviews. These discussions allowed us to get first hand spontaneous reactions and true contributions to our NBS planning process on what are the resident’s expectations and concerns. All the great ideas will be taken on board for the final planning process of the Katowice demos.

The NBS solutions to be implemented under the UPSURGE project are foreseen to be installed at 4 bus stops and on the market square. The places have been selected as being exemplary sites of urban heat island.

Our workshops are the first stage of the round of public meetings in UPSURGE as an important part connected with public involvement in creating solutions which would be useful for other cities as a pattern to follow on NBS developments in the future.