It happens between sessions, over coffee, while walking between venues and, most importantly, around a shared table.
Each edition creates opportunities for our community to gather. These moments give us time to meet each other beyond our professional roles. We talk about projects, of course. But we also talk about where we come from, what brought us into placemaking, what we have learned, what we are struggling with and what matters to us outside our work.
That human connection is an important part of why this community keeps growing.
Meeting beyond the professional role
Placemaking brings together people from many different backgrounds. Architects, urbanists, public-space practitioners, municipal teams, researchers, community organisers and many others come together because they care about how people experience and shape places.
During a festival, it is easy to focus on ideas, methods and projects. Gathering socially creates a different kind of space.
You can sit beside someone you have only known through their work. You can hear their story. You can discover a shared experience. You can make a connection that continues after the festival ends.
These relationships can become collaborations, friendships, new ideas or simply a stronger sense of belonging to a community that stretches across cities and countries.
That is why we make room for gathering.
A table with a story behind it
At PWE26, the Community Dinner will take place at Czasoprzestrzeń, a former tram depot in Wrocław.
Since 2017, the Raft Association has been transforming the space into a community hub. Families, seniors, students, artists and local organisations come together there through concerts, workshops, exhibitions, festivals and other activities. The space is designed to support people who want to develop and run their own projects, with infrastructure and support available to them.
Czasoprzestrzeń gives us a powerful setting for a community dinner because its story is already about people creating space together.
The meal itself carries another story.
It will be prepared by Mniej Więcej, a local NGO whose work grew out of the response to the arrival of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. In February 2022, Wrocław chefs Paweł Bieganowski and Tomasz Wencek travelled to Korczowa to cook for refugees. Soon after, World Central Kitchen helped establish food outlets in Wrocław. Within two days, two canteens were operating with the support of dozens of people, providing nearly 6,000 free meals a day.
When World Central Kitchen ended its activities in Poland, the people running the canteens decided to continue their charitable work. They created the More or Less Foundation and Social Cooperatives.
For PWE26, they will bring Polish and Ukrainian cuisine to the Community Dinner.
Making space for one another
There is a connection between these stories.
A community does not grow from a concept alone. It grows when people make time for each other, respond to needs, share resources and create places where others can participate.
Czasoprzestrzeń shows what can happen when a former infrastructure space becomes a place for culture, activity and community. Mniej Więcej shows how people can come together around a basic human need and build something that continues.
Our Community Dinner brings these two stories together.
For one evening, 200 placemakers will have the chance to sit down, share a meal and spend time together in a space built around community.
We hope you will bring your curiosity, your stories and your appetite.
Because the connections we make when we meet eye to eye can become some of the most lasting things we take home from Placemaking Week Europe.
Join us in Wrocław. Get your PWE26 ticket and reserve your place at the Community Dinner: PWE26 tickets & Community Dinner reservation
