Consortium PlaceCity
PlaceCity aims to advance placemaking as a new approach to creating better cities together by gathering placemaking tools and implement those tools in the partners cities. The aim is not merely to test the tools but also to establish sustainable business cases for placemaking in local contexts. To achieve this the project partners work together with a combination of local partners (cities, communities, businesses) as well as partners at a higher level (knowledge partners, governments etc). The consortium will develop itself as a knowledge platform with direct connection to the implementation.
The PlaceCity project in funded under the Joint Programming Initiative starting in February 2019 and will last through July 2021.
Below, you can find out more about the partner teams that work collaboratively on the PlaceCity project over the next 16 months.
Supported by JPI Urban Europe, Federal Ministry Republic of Austria: Transport, Innovation and Technology, The Research Council of Norway
”This project has received funding in the framework of the Joint Programming Initiative Urban Europe.”
Nabolagshager
NABOLAGSHAGER is an Oslo-based social enterprise and consultancy kickstarting a transition to a greener and more just society. Our goal is promoting a shift to sustainability through entrepreneurship, placemaking and knowledge exchanges. Through local initiatives and international collaborations, we co-create multifunctional bottom-up solutions to urban challenges, such as facilitating green job opportunities for youth, creating rooftop gardens, integrating vulnerable groups, and increasing urban biodiversity. Key local projects we have initiated include: Tak for Maten – an award-winning rooftop farm, Oslo Living Lab – an entrepreneurship program where green jobs and circular economy are co-explored and co-created by local minority youth, and Sjakkplassen – an urban small park which regenerated an underused public space considered unsafe, by inviting in immigrant seniors, local businesses and tourists alike for shared experiences with outdoor chess, gardening and community events.
Garden Circus: A neighbourhood party in Grønland (Oslo) organized by Nabolagshager and local partners. Foto: Beathe Schildrop (Mandel&Sesam)
BIDs
BIDs Belgium provides support and advice, using creative design thinking processes, that result in socio/economic regeneration. Our BIDs and ‘C-BIDs‘ strategy of ‘collaboration, connecting, creating and citizens’ become a valuable tool for social innovation and creating inclusive communities.
Supporting active citizens, businesses, non-profit organisations, community groups, local Communes, Cities/Regions and Governmental authorities and representatives. Helping develop Improvement Districts with an open, inclusive, collaborative and transparent approach in implementing BIDs frameworks.
City of Oslo: Agency for Urban Environment
Oslo is the capital of Norway and the country’s largest city with approximately 670.000 inhabitants. Oslo is one of the fastest growing cities in Europe with about 2% population increase per year – constituting both a great opportunity and a great challenge. The City has to plan and build for growth in terms of infrastructure, schools, care facilities and service production, while implementing an ambitious environmental and climate policy. Instead of expanding outwards, Oslo is being sculpted from within through compact urban development and the creation of new hubs and transport solutions. The Agency for Urban Environment initiates and supports placemaking projects to ensure a green city development such as a pop-up urban garden to transform a public park in a centred district into a thriving community project with summer jobs for local youth; and a community farm in a public park in the city centre co-created by artists, volunteers, local residents, NGO’s and urban developers with the city employing a farmer to run and coordinate activities.
Urban farming at Losæter (c) Clare Keogh
City of Vienna: Municipal Department Urban Development and Planning
PlaceCity Floridsdorf (c) Valentin Schalk, Emrich Consulting
The Municipal Department ‘Urban Development and Planning‘ – is the strategic urban development unit of the City of Vienna. Based on current trends it develops forward-looking approaches and overarching urban planning strategies. Tasks of this department include urban research, spatial analyses, protection of green and public spaces and public relations. As well as the development of a polycentric urban structure to ensure active, vibrant centres among the whole city area to improve the quality of life of all citizens and the provision with goods and services for everyone. Therefore place-led development of specific areas is necessary to identify emerging topics and challenges. The aim is to develop a common vision to vitalize the urban space and make it useable for the local population with hands-on implementation strategies.
The Smart City Unit at the municipal department is responsible for the creation, evaluation and updating of the Smart City Wien Framework Strategy (SCWF) and is involved in various EU and national funded projects that support the goals of the Paris Agreement and the climate and energy targets of the European Commission. Thereby the unit supports Vienna’s development to a sustainable, smarter and more social city.
Die Angewandte: Social Design
The master programme Social Design Arts as Urban Innovation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna is oriented towards graduates from diverse fields of study, thereby stipulating work in transdisciplinary teams as the central teaching and learning approach in the programme. On the basis of professional competences acquired in their respective previous studies, students become acquainted with transcending disciplinary codes and thinking and working in greater interrelationships. Art in synergy with project-related scientific methods and knowledge is seen as a tool for urban innovation.
PlaceCity Floridsdorf: Workshop @ Angewandte with teenagers from Floridsdorf. (c) Nina Pohler
Placemaking Europe
Since the launch of Placemaking Europe in Stockholm, a two pronged strategy has expanded the placemaking movement in Europe: 1) a group international actors, chaired and facilitated by STIPO took the lead and 2) the network diversified as exemplified by the community’s projects and focuses. A group of international actors, chaired and facilitated by STIPO, took the lead in organising and formalising the network as a not for profit organisation. Together, the network collaborates to make cities better and more liveable through facilitating connections between placemakers and projects, and also applying shared open-source knowledge, born from the network, into new contexts with the Toolbox.
Placemakers socialise between co-creative and participatory oriented sessions at Placemaking Week Europe 2019 held with La Marina de Valencia. (c) Maria Visuals
Eutropian
In Eutropian, we believe that innovation is truly possible, if it’s based on inclusion, participation and collaboration. Real sustainability is only possible through spatial justice. Placemaking can be a very important vehicle to improve our cities and we are happy to utilize our experience, knowledge and resources for this project. In PlaceCity we are responsible for Project Management, international communication and dissemination of project results.
Stipo
“STIPO offers an open window to a better city.” STIPO is a multidisciplinary office for urban development. We focus on sustainable area development, good public spaces (The City at Eye Level and placemaking), social and economic innovation, and co-creation in strategic vision. We connect thinking and acting, bottom up and top down, long term and short term, local and global. We work in networks with our communities and partners to ensure we achieve results. We share our knowledge open source. As a public developer, we make ourselves co-responsible to bring new ideas from strategy into action.
Some projects include; Club Rhijnhuisen, Park Frankendael, Museumplein Amsterdam, ZOHO Rotterdam, The City at Eye Level, and Placemaking Week Europe.
Club Rhijnhuisen: A cooperative for Area Management, brings owners of vacant or old buildings together with new initiatives and new developers, alongside residents and local experts. (c) Club Rhijnhuisen.
Superwien
Superwien is a Vienna-based, co-disciplinary team that is working in the fields of architecture, urban and regional planning, urbanism, spatial research and urban design on the national and international level. In our projects we are aiming to find answers to the driving question of how to plan and develop vibrant cities for all – the activation of public spaces and ground floor areas is one of our main tasks. As planners and designers we are responsible for providing the suitable framework that leads the development of an urban area in a certain direction but still allows unplanned developments to happen and engages citizens and users to co-create their neighborhood. We are working with the participatory and dialogue-oriented methodology of the Urban Design Lab, which has been tested and implemented in various Latin American cities, as well as in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Also, Superwien is involved in various Placemaking projects throughout Europe. We are excited to share and utilize our experience and to enter an international exchange of knowledge and experiences about placemaking.
Some projects include; Club Rhijnhuisen, Park Frankendael, Museumplein Amsterdam, ZOHO Rotterdam, The City at Eye Level, and Placemaking Week Europe.
Pop-up restaurant at Badeschiff Vienna (c) superwien
