With this new publication, which follows the first hanbook on alternatives and approaches to the regulation of temporary uses at regional and urban level, the number of good practices shared by the project rises to 15, all based on the experience of the cities and regions involved: the city of Riga, the Tuscany Region, the Mazowieckie Region, the city of Lille, Bucharest-Ilfov and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Among the experiences, some of which we got to know closely in interesting study visits, we find initiatives such as:

• The gardens of the Riga sports hall, where a former sports centre was transformed into urban gardens and cultural spaces, involving more than 150 residents;
• The regulation on temporary uses in Borgo San Lorenzo, which thanks to the participatory processes ‘Borgo Prossima’ and ‘Spazi ai Giovani’ introduced operational guidelines and a model convention for projects of up to eight years;
• the ‘Housing for Renovation’ programme implemented by the Polish city of Zyrardow, an initiative aimed at providing affordable housing, upgrading the existing housing stock and fostering integration and social cohesion;
• the temporary occupation of the Convent of the Poor Clares in Roubaix, which began in 2019 with a project that reactivated the site through activities and workshops.
• The procedural requirements for the conclusion of contracts for the temporary use of public spaces in Romania;
• The urban gardens of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a project that aims to reuse abandoned areas for recreational, ecological and social purposes, through the renaturalisation of urban space and the creation of green areas and infrastructures to encourage interaction between citizens.

Each case is presented for resources used, evidence of success and potential for learning and transferability. The handbook is aimed at all those who wish to learn more about the potential of temporary uses as a lever for sustainable and inclusive urban development, and in particular cities and regions wishing to improve policies for sustainable development plans by considering temporary uses for abandoned or underused spaces to be regenerated.

L'articolo 15 good practices to improve European policies on temporary uses proviene da LAMA.

The B-Trust project, funded by Horizon Europe, proposes to develop an inclusive and transparent governance model to build and maintain trust in the biobased and agri-food sectors, with the ultimate goal of facilitating the adoption of innovation and supporting the European bioeconomy.

Within this initiative, our challenge is to apply impact assessment methods by supporting the coordination, monitoring and supervision of social impacts. To do this, we started by designing the Theory of Change (TOC), a strategic tool to ensure that the project has a clear and measurable impact.

The role of TOC

Through the Theory of Change, the project aims to inform the public, engage stakeholders and exchange good practices, improving understanding of how consumers and practitioners perceive the risks and benefits of biotechnology.

The TOC is an important tool that enables the entire consortium to:

• Understand how needs, activities, results and short- and long-term objectives are interlinked;
• Verify the assumptions and conditions necessary to plan and carry out project activities;
• Pay attention to critical aspects that could put the project at risk and avoid possible problems.

Project actions will be built on the basis of TOC, which will ensure the impact and involvement of actors while maintaining the co-trajectories and engagement of civil society and stakeholders, the latter defined as catalysts for building trust.

The model will be applied to six biotechnology use cases, mapping perceived risks and benefits in order to increase confidence in it. The results will also be structured through a forum so that they can be replicated as a model in other research, policy-making, development and funding programmes.

B-Trust’s ToC is presented in both a visual and narrative format in order to be accessible and easy to understand for all stakeholders. The visual format provides an overview of the project logic and impact pathways, while the narrative format offers detailed intervention logic for key work packages and explanations of each element of the ToC and their interconnections.

Read the B-Trust TOC

L'articolo Building trust in biotechnology with the Theory of Change proviene da LAMA.

POST COLONIA confronts the built and natural landscape of the Apuan coastal stretch of Marina di Massa, in the north of the Region of Tuscany, dotted with ‘Marine Colonies’ designed in the first half of the 20th century by large Italian industrial groups, including Fiat, Montedison and Olivetti, to house the daughters of the working class.

Just as most of the colonies have now fallen into disuse, a reminder of unfulfilled promises and failed utopias, the surrounding natural landscape has also radically changed: the climate crisis engulfs the heavily man-made seascape and in turn threatens the architecture itself, just as the economic model that designed them is shattered.

Since the 1980s, this area has witnessed a progressive collapse of the industrial sector, causing quite a few consequences whose evident signs have redefined the contours of the coastline – now populated by concrete complexes of mostly abandoned and eroded colonies – and produced various forms of reuse and redefinition often dictated by pragmatic needs such as the right to live, which has turned them into squatters’ living spaces, or the right to transgress, which has converted them into resilient, spontaneous and ephemeral social places.

The festival addresses the coast as a complex system of relationships, economies, culture, nature and the built environment, where these architectural legacies and their ‘failure’ become a lens through which to think, experimenting with the temporary, about possible and desirable futures, in the face of the urgencies of contemporaneity.

The festival therefore confronts the history and the present of this coastline where ‘the invention of mass tourism’ has given rise to a process of anthropisation of the landscape that today must be rethought in non-extractive and sustainable terms.

From 7 to 13 April 2025 in Marina di Massa (MS).

Project partners:

Italian partners:
LAMA Impresa Sociale – Lead partner
Associazione Orizzontale – Project partner
DOC.scs Cooperativa Sociale – Project partner
International partners:
CIVA – Center for Architecture in Brussels
Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design
Plateau Urbain, Paris
Technlcal sponsors:
ISTITUTO PROFESSIONALE STATALE PER L’ENOGASTRONOMIA E
L’OSPITALITA’ ALBERGHIERA “G. Minuto”
Autolinee Toscane
Supporters:
Rai Radio Rai Tre Soldi
INU – Istituto nazionale urbanistica
Associazione Lo Stato Dei Luoghi
DIDA – Università di Firenze

Project manager
Francesca Mazzocchi (LAMA)
Art direction
Martina Angelotti e Emanuele Guidi
Multidisciplinary Team
Riccardo Luciani, Margherita Manfra, Aldo Giannotti, Cèline Condorelli, Silvia Franceschini

Project funded by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture.

L'articolo POST-COLONIA | Festival of Architecture and Imaginaries in Transition proviene da LAMA.

Over EUR 5 million to transform Prato into a laboratory of innovative and sustainable industrial tourism, which combines the valorisation of the city’s industrial heritage with the promotion and deseasonalisation of the existing tourist offer, integrating the history of textiles with the contemporary practices of design and fashion.

LAMA is the partner responsible for Capacity Building and Governance activities whose objective is to ensure a collaborative governance structure for the Prato destination and to empower the actors of the tourism ecosystem in the planning and management of sustainable tourism.

More specifically, LAMA will be in charge of designing and conducting an engagement and co-design process in support of the Municipality of Prato. The main phases of the process include:

1. Understanding the city system
2. Co-construction of a portfolio of actions
3. Facilitating collaboration
4. Creation of new institutional infrastructures

LAMA will also be responsible for the implementation of stakeholder mapping and involvement, participation and capacity and skills development activities.

The project involves the collaboration with various actors of the tourism ecosystem (hotels, restaurants, site managers, tour guides, etc.), economy (especially SMEs in the textile and clothing sector) and civil society, to co-design new tourism products that extend the offer both temporally and spatially. Under the guidance of the Municipality of Prato and with the support of research and advanced technology providers, the new co-created products will combine real experiences with Virtual Reality content enhanced by Artificial Intelligence, offering an immersive and complete experience to visitors and extending the offer of the already funded TIPO project https://www.pratoturismo.it/it/cosa/tipo-turismo-industriale/

The project partners:

Municipality of Prato

Fondazione Museo del Tessuto di Prato

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Istituto di Bioeconomia

Cristoforo Società Cooperativa Sociale

LAMA Impresa Sociale

Immerxive srl

Flod srl

Associazione Eutropian

Fondazione Sistema Toscana

Awhy Srl

L'articolo EPIC – Experience Prato Industrial Culture proviene da LAMA.

From a technological point of view, there is still a lot of potential to be explored: indeed, there is a significant gap in the development and widespread adoption of digital tools to improve the lives of people with disabilities and reduced mobility, tools that can offer significant benefits such as customisation, optimised management of operations, real-time accessibility information, as well as innovation in terms of sustainability and design. It is also crucial for Europe to work towards establishing commonly accepted standards for assessing accessibility and developing a unified classification system for real estate units and the urban environment.

From these premises, the AccesS project ‘Enhancing Accessibility and Sustainability in Smart Cities and Smart Buildings: The Universal Accessibility Suite Initiative’, the fourth Horizon that complements our initiatives. The project is part of Cluster 5 ‘Climate, Energy and Mobility‘ of the new Horizon Europe programme and the Built4People partnership.

Our main role will be to address the aspects of social inclusion and user-centered designthat is, formulating the user-centered design approach, assessing the needs and challenges of people with reduced mobility and vulnerable groups in active mobility solutions, gathering comprehensive data on existing infrastructures, accessibility, and user preferences to inform the development of inclusive solutions We will also work to connect AccesS with other projects and initiatives at the European level.

With this new project, we renew our commitment to a more inclusive and sustainable Europe, with the aim of contributing to the creation of truly accessible spaces for all.

L'articolo Research and technological innovation for more accessible public spaces proviene da LAMA.

These are just the main points of what emerged from theneeds analysis of young people and local institutions in non-urban areas, which we conducted in recent months as part of the Place Out! projectwhich runs in parallel in four European rural territories with similar characteristics, including Mugello (Tuscany) in Italy.

In a field such as territorial regeneration, promoting dialogue between institutions and youth groups can be an important key to activating processes that can generate innovation and have a positive impact on the social, political and economic dynamics of these territories.

Based on the findings of the first phase of the project, we developed a calendar of training sessions targeted at the two identified interest groups.

‘REVITALISING RURAL SPACES’: ONLINE TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

Two webinar cycles in March and April: from 6 March every Wednesday until 24 April there will be a cycle dedicated to youth organisations and from 14 Marchevery Thursday until 11 April  there will be a cycle dedicated to local institutions. 

A range of topics will be explored, including spatial regeneration, European project development and participatory processes, providing valuable insights and practical knowledge to promote positive change.

Read the programme and more information for youth organisations

Read the programme and more information for local institutions

TRAINING COURSES IN MUGELLO

In the middle of March, training courses will be organised in the municipality of Borgo San Lorenzo. This again consists of two separate courses, one for the under-35s and one for public authorities.

9 and 10 March: Shaping the future, bringing ideas to life. Tools and skills for youth organisations. See the programme.

12, 16 and 23 March: Implementing territorial policies. Tools and skills for public administrations. See the programme.

Read more.

L'articolo Building skills for the future of non-urban areas proviene da LAMA.

‘Participatory Futures’ is a guide to methods and tools for designing and implementing temporary use strategies in urban regeneration, which we’ve co-authored. Aimed at businesses, local authorities, developers and property investors, the guide contains all the tools developed through the experimentation of temporary uses in various European cities. Recognising the complexity of contemporary urban regeneration and the multiple challenges involved, the project team developed a flexible methodology that could adapt and evolve according to the needs and opportunities of different contexts, building on the challenges of the pilot projects.

‘In the meanwhile’ is a new podcast that explores the power of temporary urbanism through the voices of experts in the field and the showcasing of innovative projects that promote the positive transformation of spaces and contribute to the creation of inclusive, sustainable and resilient cities. Topics covered in the first episodes included the relationship between design and urban fauna, and the relationship between social innovation and big data.

L'articolo Tools to unlock the transformative potential of temporary uses proviene da LAMA.

Future Divercities aims to involve organisations from the arts and cultural sector in imagining culturally-based regeneration processes of urban voids.

13 European partners, led by La Friche La Belle de Mai in Marseille, will work simultaneously for four years in the cities of Berlin, Zagreb, Split, Kuopio, Marseille and Florence, as well as in three European capitals of culture: Timişoara, Elefsina (2023) and Liepaja (2027) in rethinking urban spaces through artistic and cultural interventions, adopting an ecological perspective: nature, citizens, urban structures and infrastructures as part of a single system capable of promoting the environmental sustainability of cities. Future DiverCities focuses on the methods and language of art: through artistic production, the aim is to raise awareness, engage citizens, associations, and the public sector in rethinking disused spaces, so that they can be rehabilitated and recognized as valuable resources.

Why Future DiverCities?

Future DiverCities comes from the need to rethink cultural-based regeneration paths starting from the existing and ‘forgotten’ spaces of cities and peri-urban areas. The intent is to create generative fractures of culture and art production that unhinge urban space with the intention of looking at urban voids in a new way, as spaces that can offer opportunities for citizen participation and inclusion, stemming the processes of gentrification, becoming places where artistic experimentation stimulates urban experimentation, that is, the way we use and think about cities.

The project will address key issues and challenges of contemporary cities: the management of common goods and public spaces, the promotion of biodiversity and a renewed relationship between people and nature in urban contexts, the reuse of urban voids based on an inclusive and participatory approach, catalysed by the possibilities offered by cultural and artistic interventions.

What do we propose?

The project experimented with new types of cultural interventions in the 8 pilot cities with the aim of promoting the ecological value of empty urban spaces, going beyond raising awareness and activating participation and appropriation dynamics by citizens. The project will bring together local coalitions of citizens, artists, local authorities, local inhabitants and potential users of the spaces affected by the project interventions.

The project is also an opportunity to activate a space for self-reflection on the role of art in urban regeneration. The projects developed locally will in fact be test-beds for action-research paths aimed at developing methods to qualify the social and ecological impact of creative and cultural interventions in urban space, systematising strategies, tools and approaches adopted in the 8 cities involved.

Project participants and promoters themselves will be affected by some of the changes brought about by the project: not just the 13 partner organisations, but the local networks that collaborate with them to conceptualize and experiment with cultural production as well: the organizations will take part in a training course on issues such as urban ecology, commons, and the impermanence of urban spaces and functions.

What does LAMA do?

LAMA has a double role in the project: facilitating the exchange among the eight cities of methods and instruments of collective intelligence – which make it possible to develop a common approach among such different contexts – and directly developing an intervention in Florence, with the intention of working on green areas and spaces, planning opportunities for the use and re-appropriation of these places by the citizenship, making possible activities of involvement and activation of spaces through the language of contemporary art.

More about the partnership

The partners involved are: La Friche as leader and Seconde Nature from Marseille (FR), ANTI Festival from Kuopio (FI), KONTEJNER from Zagreb and Split (HR), LAMA Impresa Sociale from Florence (IT), Public Art Lab from Berlin (DE), BIOS and European Creative Hubs Network-ECHN from Athens (GR), the “Culture Department” of the Municipality of Liepaja (LV) and PLAI from Timişoara (RO). The project also benefits from the experience of INNOCAMP PL from Poland (Ashoka network), LAMA Impresa Sociale, Savonia University from Finland and Trajna from Slovenia (Krater project).

Next steps

It’s possible to follow the development of the project on the dedicated website. During the first year (2023) La Friche will develop a mapping tool and protocol for the territories, taking into account not only the actors to be involved, but also the spaces affected by the artistic processes to be developed within the project. In 2023, numerous meetings and discussions will take place with users and inhabitants on the creative potential and possibilities of the spaces concerned. For updates on our next actions, it’s possible to follow Future DiverCities on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Vimeo.

L'articolo Future DiverCities – ecological strategies in urban cultural regeneration proviene da LAMA.

Place Out! acts both at local and European level, directly addressing youth organisations, local institutions and citizenship.

L'articolo PLACE OUT! European Dialogue-Building for increasing youth protagonism in non-urban areas proviene da LAMA.

The BET! project funded by the European Erasmus+ programme therefore aims to innovate the professional practices, skills and knowledge of 400 European teachers in order to respond adequately, in a planned, conscious and structural way to the challenges of the future of a global and digital society.

The activities planned for the next 2 years are:

• A needs analysis research on educational innovation and digital competence development in school curricula in the Covid 19 and post-Covid 19 era in the 4 countries involved;
• A European Digital Curriculum aimed at identifying the best learning strategies and the most appropriate digital and technological tools to meet disadvantaged students’ learning needs in particular;
• The realisation of the BET UE! Academy, a comprehensive set of online and face-to-face training courses and webinars for teachers.

The first research phase starts with the release of a QUESTIONNAIRE addressed to SECONDARY SCHOOL teachers in the 4 countries where the project takes place (Italy, Romania, Greece and Portugal).

BET!’s partners

L'articolo BET – Digital Learning for Social Inclusion proviene da LAMA.