The Municipality of Castelfranco Veneto is looking for four Partner Cities, interested in discovering and learning from their experience as part of VARCITIES’ City-to-City Exchange! Located in Northern Italy, Castelfranco Veneto is developing six Visionary Solutions with the support of VARCITIES:

• Visionary Solution 1: Creation of garden access routes to ensure an improved access according to the needs of the garden users to improve H&WB of elderly and disabled users’ accessibility, giving the direct, safe and comfortable visit of the Villa Bolasco historic garden.
• Visionary Solution 2: Analysis and monitoring of psychological and physiological well-being for elderly people and people affected by Alzheimer’s, which will analyse the effects of natural environments on well-being, behaviour and physiological states in elderly and people with dementia to support the design of green spaces and to foster nature-based psychological and clinical interventions.
• Visionary Solution 3: Full monitoring of microclimatic conditions in the different areas of the garden of Villa Bolasco and assessment of the effect of green and blue areas on the health and well-being of visitors, elderly people and people with Alzheimer’s over the medium-term period.
• Visionary Solution 4: Development of green public spaces (re)design toolbox about human health and wellbeing and establishment of the “Local observatory on therapeutic effects of the landscape“ with a focus also on green and blue areas, promoting a new concept of urban green spaces centred on health and wellbeing principles.
• Visionary Solution 5: Implement virtual and ICT tools to ensure a rewarding experience for garden users and assist visitors with disabilities in increasing safety while visiting the garden via smart devices showing a real-time map or location map in case of emergency.
• Visionary Solution 6: Adaptive and intelligent lighting systems/energy data management; the installation of a touch screen outside the walls of the park of Villa Bolasco to develop an adaptive and intelligent information system for visitors by showing images, videos and sounds of the garden, and by visualizing environmental monitored data.

Specifically, Castelfranco Veneto has identified three challenges that VARCITIES is addressing:

• Accessibility, inclusion, and fruition
• Lack of awareness on the benefits coming from green and natural spaces
• To guarantee the continuation of these results after the project implementation

The six Visionary Solutions are the key solutions that VARCITIES will support to address these challenges.

Discover more about Castelfranco Veneto’s pilot on their Pilot Page: https://varcities.eu/pilot-cities/castelfranco-veneto-italy/

Castelfranco Veneto’s Partner Cities should share similar challenges and conditions (non-cumulative criteria) and be located in the EU, or in a country associated to Horizon Europe (such as the UK):

• Castelfranco Veneto is located in the Northern Italy, characterized by a Mediterranean continental climate with cold winters with snow and relatively warm summers
• Castelfranco Veneto’s pilot area is facing challenges related to lack of accessibility, Lack of awareness, and continuation of the activities after the project.

Are you interested in discovering Castelfranco Veneto’s experience in VARCITIES? Is your city facing similar challenges? Do you also want to better track health related data in your city using new IT technologies?

The selection process for the four Partner Cities of the municipality of Castelfranco Veneto is currently on-going. The City-to-City Exchange is expected to start in the first months 2024.

For any enquiries, contact us at contact@varcities.eu

About VARCITIES City-to-City Exchange

To support the replication of VARCITIES approach, each of the seven Pilot Cities engages with four other Partner Cities in City-to-City Exchange to promote and upscale their Visionary Solutions, exchange on common challenges, barriers and experiences. Notably, the City-to-City Exchange aims to cover issues linked with stakeholder engagement, governance, replication, IT solutions and inclusivity.  Through cross-learning, the 4 Partner Cities will participate in an online knowledge exchange with one of the Pilot Cities, supported by VARCITIES’ team, which may also be complemented by site visits. Partner Cities will be invited to join the Healthy Cities Helix, and future collaboration supported by European funding programmes will be explored.