Leads François Jégou and Marcelline Bonneau offer personal takes on the concept of Temporary Use and URBACT’s REFILL networks achievements through a report on the ‘Refill Workshop’ at the URBACT City Festival in Lisbon in September 2018.
URBACT writes:
Who can still remember vacant spaces and buildings, which someday were spaces free of rules, a ground for fertile experimentation, individual empowerment and creativity development? We could grow and empower ourselves as we can remember from the 50s’ film ‘Le chantier des gosses (link is external)’, where children were spending their leisure time in an yet-to-be-built abandoned lot in the very centre of the city of Brussels, and where the nephew of Tati’s ‘My Uncle (link is external)’ was eating doughnuts and whistling at pedestrians so that they would bump into a lamppost.
Vacant (abandoned places, urban wastelands, brownfields, derelict lands, degraded and deteriorated lands or buildings) can still foster creativity and experimentation for the city, benefitting from a Temporary Use. And many cities have experimented with them over the past few decades, putting together a source of inspiration for innovation and change and thus providing a new driver and incubator for urban development.
During two and a half years, the URBACT REFILL network sought to identify ways to access Temporary Use, notwithstanding the municipalities’ stage of implementation of Temporary Use projects. These ways are compiled in the REFILL Temporary Use Roadmap (link is external).
‘There are many entries to the Temporary Use of vacant spaces and buildings. These are not linear, depending on each of the cities’ point of departure but also interests and needs.’ explain François Jégou and Marcelline Bonneau, Lead experts of the REFILL network.
‘I invite you to take a tour in the five neighbourhoods of the City of Temporary Use while looking into some flagship initiatives.
Headlines include:
- Raising awareness through a video and a kiosk
- Addressing supply and demand by researching the opportunities and matching the needs
- Putting Temporary Use on the city agenda by designing targeted strategies
- Assembling a toolbox to start projects and assess their value
- Making Temporary Use the new normal by intermediating between owners and Temporary Users
- Take-away and Learnings on Temporary uses
Check out the back of the REFILL Temporary Use Roadmap… and identify the further information, resources and contacts that might be useful for your own journey towards Temporary Use!
For more information go to the following link:
For more om the Lisbon Festival see http://2018cityfestival.urbact.eu
