My name is Lisa Brenier and I am an IVY project partner for the COOL NOONs project at the Agency for Sustainable Mediterranean Cities and Territories (AViTeM) in Marseille, France. I recently graduated from the University of Freiburg and Sciences Po Aix with a double degree in political sciences, specializing in Euro-mediterranean cooperation. I was looking for an on field experience where I could use what I learned during the past few years. I was particularly interested in working on a project addressing climate change consequences in Mediterranean cities.
What is COOL NOONS about?
The goal of COOL NOONS is to promote climate change adaptation in urban settings while renewing the tourism offer in 5 pilot Mediterranean cities, during the hottest hours of the day : Lisbon (Portugal), Marseille (France), Imola (Italy), Dubrovnik (Croatia) and Budva (Montenegro).
First, the pilot cities will develop some Cool Noons paths, mapping and connecting fresh spots and cool areas, including tourist attractions. The firsts paths will be tested on summer 2024. If you happen to visit one of the pilot cities, feel free to check those itineraries out and let us know what you think!
Secondly, creative workshops involving citizens, tourists and local stakeholders will be organized to imagine and select some solutions to improve the quality of life and comfort of visitors. This could be greening the city, creating new shadow spaces, reinventing the use of some buildings, designing new indoors activities… Cool noon paths and some of the technical solutions will be implemented and tested during the summer 2025!
Who is involved?
The COOL NOONS project started in January 2024 and is funded by the Interreg Euro-Med program.
This project is coordinated by the Agency of Mediterranean cities and territories (Avitem, France) and involves 8 other partners from 7 European countries: the Municipality of Lisbon, the Municipality of Marseille, the Metropolitan city of Bologna, the Imola Faenza Tourism Company, DURA (City Of Dubrovnik Development Agency), the Municipality of Budva, the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and the American College of Greece.
As an IVY volunteering with AViTeM I support my colleagues in coordinating the activity of each partner – a little bit like an orchestra conductor. It is really fulfilling in the sense that I have an overview of the whole project and get to learn about a lot of different things (mapping tools and methodology, data collection, co-designing, communication etc.) Being posted in Marseille, one of the pilot cities, also allows me to see COOL NOONs being developed on the ground !
A project off to a great start
From March 25th to 27th 2024, my colleague and I organized a workshop gathering all project partners gathered in Marseille to kick-off the collective work and to get trained on design thinking and collective intelligence. Through this training we acquired essential skills to coordinate and facilitate the co-designing workshops in their respective cities. It was a nice way to meet everyone working on this project in person!
COOL NOONS was also under the spotlight during the kick-off of the Sustainable Tourism Community (Community4Tourism, C4T) in Rome on March 10th-11th 2024. The Community gathers all the thematic projects working on sustainable tourism funded by the Interreg Euro-Med program and aims to create synergies between them. We already saw promising connections with some “sister” projects!
COOL NOONS was also presented on April 2024 at the public session of the other horizontal project related to sustainable tourism in Interreg Euro-Med: Dialog4Tourism(D4T).
Taking part in such events is a great opportunity to interact with the people and institutions shaping European action on the ground. Plus, it help to get in touch with common issues we have in our respective countries and address them in a transnational collaborative effort.
As we presented COOL NOONS in Rome, the temperatures were reaching almost 30°C (in April), showcasing that the issues tackled by our project urgently need to be addressed beyond our five pilot cities.
Don’t hesitate to follow the updates of the project on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and its website.
– Lisa, IVY Project Partner at AVITEM – Agency for Sustainable Mediterranean Cities and Territories for the Interreg Euro – Med project “COOL NOONS”
