BackYoung Planners Work Towards Spatial Planning Challenges in the Baltic Sea Region: Insights from VASAB Young Planners’ Summer School 2026
From 23 to 29 August 30 young professionals and students from across the Baltic Sea Region and Ukraine came together in Gdańsk, Poland, for a week of learning, exchange and collaboration, to explore emerging spatial planning challenges, share ideas and shape solutions for the future of our region.
Participants were allocated in 6 groups and developed ideas addressing four spatial planning challenges:
- Preparedness and resilience
- Climate change adaptation and mitigation, including green energy investment
- Connections between people and places
- Effective use of space, incl. no net land take and multiuse concepts
Here you can find all groups’ final presentations, explaining each group’s work and results.
Among the six outstanding final presentations, the Summer School jury selected the group that made the strongest overall impression with their presentation, “Containing Resilience: A Modern Counterpart to a Historic Icon.”
The winning team – from left Hubert Wulbach, Efia Faschina, Ugnė Bačinskaitė, Wiktoria Jędrusik, Polina Dovzhenko, and their mentor Tīna Šipkēvica, Spatial Planning Expert at the VASAB Secretariat
At the heart of their proposal is territorial identity as a spatial concept for building resilience. Resilience is not only about infrastructure being able to withstand floods, geopolitical disruption or other shocks. Spatial planning can create places for interaction, participation and co-ownership, strengthening people’s relationship with place and, ultimately, the resilience of communities.
See team’s full presentation here.
