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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Interactive Cities – A conversation with Daniela Patti
What is the local challenge when implementing digital governance tools?
Daniela Patti, Interactive Cities Network’s Lead Expert, answered to this and other questions to introduce us the work that has been done with the Interactive Cities Network.
Interactive Cities’ final Conference in Genoa 11-13 April. 2018
La Cuciria – A circular economy-based sewing workshop
La Cuciria – Sartoria Creativa Emotiva creates awareness of ethical consumption through the activity of sewing in the periphery of Ravenna. It functions as a commercial space to exhibit and sell locally created clothes: a circular economy model where material scraps are reused to make new products that are sold to the public to finance the initiative.
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.
SANNAS – Creating a local network of cooperation among various enterprises
SANNAS is a group of enterprises in Madrid, working in a shared space on projects with social, environmental and economic dimensions. One of the projects of SANNAS is the co-housing project Entrepatios where SATT Architects takes care of the architectural part whilst Logica Eco of the management of the stakeholders.
Coop57 – Financing projects in the social and solidarity economy
Coop57 is a cooperative with the objective of financing projects in the social and solidarity economy. It was created in Barcelona in 1995 from a compensation fund that former employees of the publishing house Bruguera received when the company went bankrupt. Coop57 acts as a financial intermediary: it collects savings from citizens and channels them into social economy initiatives that promote employment, solidarity and sustainability.
Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust – From demolition to regeneration
Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust addresses housing issues within Liverpool’s Eighth District. In this scheme, the local community owns land and leases some parcels and buildings for various uses and development projects, keeping control over prices and ensuring long-term affordability and community benefit.
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.
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.