Networks and cities' news

What Brno has learnt with the OnStage project – until now

Brno's participation in the URBACT OnStage network has been one of the first Czech experiences in using music education programs to promote social change. Two city schools now offer - even in the days of Covid-19 - free music lessons for enthusiastic children, a large majority of whom belong to the Roma community.

Good practice definition for the NGO Platform

NGO Platform in a nutshell
NGO platforms connects citizens who need help or who care about a particular issue with local groups which are active in this field. NGO platforms support local groups with advice, information and support to co-ordinate their work. Those involved in co-ordinating NGO activity in a town often fulfil important bridging functions between civil society and public agencies.
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Good practice definition of aPop-up Shop

Pop-up shop in a nutshell
Pop-up shops utilise under-used or vacant premises for short term commercial or social initiatives. Short term and low cost leases reduce the risks for entrepreneurs to experiment with new service concepts or test the market for unusual goods. At the same time the event character of a pop up shop catches the interest of the public and generates good PR. If successful the short term nature of the pop-up shop can evolve into more permanent arrangements.

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Play and Public Procurement

by Matthew Baqueriza-Jackson, AD-Hoc Expert for Playful Paradigm | Services and activities require Municipalities to buy goods, services and works through the process of Public Procurement, historically viewed as very bureaucratic and technical. How can we procure goods, services and works for Play and Games in a more efficient, effective and playful manner?

10 Steps to Po-up Success

Julia Hussman, former pop-up manager at Altena, shares lessons learned from developing and implementing a pop-up programme

1. Set your goal and think of your vision
2. Find a suitable executing organisation
3. Create material to promote project
4. negotiate with shop owners, sign contracts, prepare exposés of shops
5. Acquire project partners
6. Define framework
7. Determine financial incentive/support
8. Recruit potential Pop Up operators
9. Take care of them and their issues
10. Plan marketing, PR and events

REIMAGINE THE EMPTINESS: COMBINING PLACEMAKING AND POP-UP SHOP INITIATIVES (by Daniele Terzariol, Urbact Ad-hoc expert)

Empty commercial spaces can be understood as urban supplies for the experimentation with collective dreams, not just places for  relaunching trade. Which point of view do we have to adopt to reinterpret abandoned places and to give them new life and shape? How to combine and integrate temporary uses into longer term  urban regeneration processes? How to rekindle interest or provoke debate on the tools, policies, laws and practices of reactivating marginal, degraded and underutilized spaces? How can we make them accessible again and capable of answering society's housing, leisure and work needs? Some recent design experiences in Europe, many of which are funded through URBACT encourage experimentation with practices that reuse  places by extending their use  to a plurality of actors, fertilizing abandoned spaces with new activities and uses. Than can  trigger new economic activity  that combine architectural conversion with public art, creative urbanism, activism and social design. These reuse projects will be the result of continuous selection and settlement processes.

Commercial services maintain and amplify a socially aggregating function: they aren’t a “public cities” in the strict sense, but they represent places where a plurality of "public life" activities take place and, with very different forms, they continue to connote spaces potentially and variously "central” in local settlement systems. Temporary informal spaces near small commercial realities can be considered places of participation and sharing, places where you can experience forms of community and where you can take control and management of spaces, even if for a short time and with limited purpose activities.

The Urbact “Re-growCity” network is experimenting with the creation  of pop up shops. These are temporary uses of vacant retail property by local entrepreneurs, artists or community groups.  Deepening the dynamics of temporary reuse for the revival of trade placemaking is an important element for successful cases. Below we will analyze some examples, which are inspirational.