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Culture and heritage

ExRotaprint: From industrial production to collective urban development

ExRotaprint was founded in 2007 by tenants of the former Rotaprint industrial complex located in Wedding, a traditional working-class district in central Berlin. ExRotaprint set up a legal configuration comprising a heritable building right and non-profit status in order to buy the complex put up for sale by the Berlin Municipality’s Real Estate Fund. Established by the tenants ExRotaprint became owner of the 10,000 m2 complex and started a non-profit real estate development project setting a precedent in Berlin that inspired many experiments in cooperative ownership and a campaign to change the city’s privatisation policy. ExRotaprint offers affordable rents to small businesses, artists and social projects.

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Färgfabriken: From producing paint to producing culture

Färgfabriken is a platform and exhibition venue for contemporary cultural expressions, with an emphasis on art, architecture and urban planning established in an industrial building built in 1889. The building previously accommodated a paint factory, from which it also borrowed its name. Since its creation, Färgfabriken has not only become a key cultural institution in Stockholm, but has also pioneered a model of building inclusive, participatory processes through art and dialogue. Färgfabriken has a great impact on the development of the surrounding area and on the inclusion of a great variety of stakeholders in decision-making processes.

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London Community Land Trust: Creating communities through affordable housing

London’s first Community Land Trust was established in the former psychiatric hospital of St Clements, in the Mile End area. It provides affordable housing, allowing long-term residents who would be priced out to stay in the area, countering the tendencies of displacement and housing unaffordability. Supported by the Greater London Authority to work with a private developer, the CLT also promotes community engagement and is actively working on the creation of a community centre at the St Clements site.

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Stará Tržnica: Breathing life into an old market hall

Stará Tržnica (Old Market Hall) is a historical building in the centre of Bratislava. After years of unsuccessful attempts by the municipality to keep the market alive, a redevelopment plan with the input of the locals was realised by the Alianca Stará Tržnica combining a food market, cultural events, cafés, a grocery shop, a cooking school and a soda water manufacture. The space has helped to rebuild the community and runs in an economically sustainable way.

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Cascina Roccafranca – The Public-Civic Governance of Space

Cascina Roccafranca is a multi-functional community centre operating in a building owned by the City of Turin. The centre is managed through a cooperation between public and civic actors: a scheme that offers a valuable governance model while providing a wide range of social and cultural activities.

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Cascina Roccafranca: The journey from farmhouse to community centre

Cascina Roccafranca is a multi-functional community center located in a former farmstead in Turin’s outskirts. After 30 years of vacancy, Cascina Roccafranca was bought by the Municipality of Turin and requalified with the support of the European Union Urban II program. Today, Cascina Roccafranca is a public asset managed through a cooperation between public and civic actors and it provides a wide range of social and cultural activities. Since 2012, Cascina Roccafranca has been part of a network of similar community centers in Turin which was formalized in 2017, and today collaborates with the City Council in the management and the regeneration of urban commons.

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Largo Residências: Transforming a community through responsible tourism

Largo Residências is a hostel, hotel, artist-in-residence and café in Lisbon’s fast-changing Intendente neighbourhood. Largo Residências, run by a cooperative, uses its revenue from tourism and events to develop projects to support the cultural and social inclusion of the most vulnerable groups. In the past years, Largo has become a social net for many of the area’s residents and a community as well as a community hub, leading the discussion about Lisbon’s touristification and gentrification. Endangered by the tourism-driven real estate development transforming the city’s historical areas, Largo has been working on opening new spaces for its activities.

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De Besturing – From tenancy to collective ownership

De Besturing was founded in 2006 in an industrial area of The Hague and over the years it has been transformed from a temporary studio complex into a sustainable collective of artists and designers. Initially rented out for free on a temporary basis from the municipality, the community nevertheless collected the rent from tenants, constituting a capital that made possible the building’s purchase in 2017.

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Müszi – Public functions in private spaces

MÜSZI Art & Community Centre was a cultural space operating on the 3rd floor of a socialist-style department store in Budapest. Müszi stands as an unprecedented venture in Budapest, a venue that positions itself as an independent, self-sustaining “house of culture,” and offers affordable space and activities to a wide range of age groups, while combining its artistic and social mission with business principles in a sustainable manner.

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The Peissnitzhaus – Renovation with community shares

The Peissnitzhaus, a historical building in Halle/Saale. The house had been empty and neglected since the German reunification until 2003, when 17 people founded the “Peißnitzhaus e.V.”, a non-profit organisation. The members began to renovate the subsidiary buildings and to revitalise the beer garden by offering cultural and educational events.

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Largo Residências – Urban regeneration through local jobs

Largo Residências is a hostel, hotel, artist-in-residence and café in Lisbon’s fast-changing Intendente neighbourhood. It serves as a community hub for many of the area’s residents and initiatives, and develops projects to support the cultural and social inclusion of the neighbourhood’s precarious inhabitants. The establishment of Largo was assisted by the Lisbon Municipality’s BIP/ZIP program in 2011.

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Bottega Artistico Musicale – Public-civic cooperation for independent culture

Bottega Artistico Musicale is an experimental centre of independent cultural production in Sapri, Southern Italy. BAM’s space encourages open sharing of uses, resources and skills, in order to promote mutualistic, cooperative and supportive production. The building was offered by the municipality for free and was renovated by students, temporary employees, unemployed people, graduates, musicians, activists, artists.

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Stara Trznica – New purpose for a public building

Alianca Stará Tržnica is an NGO managing the Old Market Hall, a historic building in the centre of Bratislava, combining a food market with cultural, as well as two cafés, a grocery shop, a cooking school and a soda water manufacturer. Rethinking the opportunities of the Old Market Hall allows the organisation to run the building in an economically sustainable way, while gradually renovating it, creating a new event venue and meeting space in the heart of the city.

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Stiftung trias – Taking properties out of the speculation market

Stiftung trias was established in 2002, to help community groups and co-housing projects access financing. Trias takes land off the market by separating the ownership of land and buildings: supported initiatives lease the land from the foundation in the form of a long-term Heritable Building Right and their lease fee is collected in a mutual fund run by Trias. In recent years, Trias has also been working with public administrations, securing functions for properties that municipalities are obliged to sell under austerity laws.

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Jurányi Incubator House – A home for performance arts

The Jurányi Incubator House brings together dozens of theatre groups, associations and creative companies in a former school building owned by the Budapest Municipality. Jurányi did not only create an unprecedented venue and umbrella organisation for the independent theatre scene, it also brought a cultural and community centre in an area with no cultural activities before.

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LaFabrika detodalavida – Revitalising a rural area

LaFabrika detodalavida is a multifunctional community centre set up in an abandoned industrial space in Extremadura in Spain, that offers a series of local services to its rural community, such as cultural events, music, construction spaces and most importantly gathering venues.

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LaFabrika detodalavida – Revitalising a rural area

LaFabrika detodalavida is a multifunctional community centre set up in an abandoned industrial space in Extremadura in Spain, that offers a series of local services to its rural community, such as cultural events, music, construction spaces and most importantly gathering venues.

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ExRotaprint – Community ownership against speculation

ExRotaprint was founded by tenants of the Rotaprint industrial complex in Wedding, a traditional working class district in Northwest Berlin. When the complex was put up for sale by the Berlin Municipality’s Real Estate Fund, members of the ExRotaprint began to look into the possibility of buying the area.

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