Ex Centrale as a suburbs hub: inclusion, participation, innovation
An abandoned former industrial building in the periphery of Bologna regain life as a multipurpose social-centre and is today a shared space for residents, young, associations and informal groups that organize activities everyday: Ex Centrale is a participative and multidisciplinary process of regeneration that transformed a crumbling former dairy produce in the ‘Hub of the Suburbs’ actively involving hundreds of locals in dreaming and realizing a new common and collective urban space.
Regional
Italy
Emilia-Romagna, Bologna
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-12-31
As an individual
First name: Federico Last name: Loreti Gender: Male Nationality: Italy Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via di Corticella 129 Town: Bologna Postal code: 40129 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 338 247 6454 E-mail:excentralebo@gmail.com Website:https://excentralebologna.it/
Ex Centrale is a participative and multidisciplinary process of regeneration promoted by 12 associations, artistic collectives, and informal groups, focused on socially transforming a former industrial building into an ‘Hub of the Suburbs’. The building was in a complete state of abandon, and it is currently a social multipurpose space hosting artistic performances, live music, assemblies, meetings and conferences, neighbourhood parties and activities, sport events, and cultural activities. Sustainability, inclusion, and recovery of urban abandoned spaces have been at the core of the project. Ex Centrale is a successful project that connected local institutions and citizens thanks to the “neighbourhood laboratories” promoted by the Foundation for Urban Innovation in partnership with the Municipality of Bologna. An informal group composed by individuals, associations, and local collectives, had the opportunity to imagine and design a new social destination for a former industrial building, and through the process of the “neighbourhood laboratories” they decided not only what they desired, but also a) how to concretely realize it and b) how to collectively manage the new social space. For that reason, Ex Centrale represents an extraordinary example of inclusiveness and participation leading to a true transformation and making it possible to concretize solutions that effectively answer the residents’ needs and make it clear that sustainability, inclusion, and aesthetics can be integrated and interconnected parts of a path of urban transformation.
community
sustainability
inclusion
participation
innovation
Sustainability is a strategic pillar of the project that has been developed also involving the local environmental associations and informal groups. The philosophy is rooted on the principle of ‘zero land consumption’, and this is the main reason why the promoters decided to restore an industrial abandoned building in a peripheral context. In the design phase it was decided that all the spontaneous wood vegetation that grew up during the site abandonment had to be saved. No trees were cut down during the restoration of the place, and they are currently part of the garden that will be used in summer for events.
During the building restoration, raw materials were recycled on site, and when possible, no new materials were used. Furthermore, all the furniture are second-hand products. The managing assembly was and is committed in reducing the environmental impact within the project implementation and during the management of the regenerated building. In future, the managing assembly wants to promote an energy community involving nearby inhabitants. During the restoration, and currently, visitors and people participating in events hosted in the space are involved in activities aimed at raising public awareness on climate mitigation and climate adaptation. Sustainable mobility is promoted, and Ex Centrale is easily reachable using public transport and bikes.
Ex Centrale aspires to be a significant part of people's daily lives, a place where everyone feels at home, and where everyone, from children to adults, can truly be themselves and express their creativity and personality: therefore, we believe in it. Firmly must possess a certain type of identity, style, and beauty. The contribution of the creative skills of the artistic collectives that make up Ex Centrale is essential to achieve these objectives: the furnishing elements and structures were designed and created with the participation of volunteers, friends or children, during practical workshops carried out by our member of the community Ar.Co Wood, mainly using recycled materials. The results are some very distinctive co-designed spaces with a fresh look, 100% wheelchair accessible and reduced environmental impacts. Furthermore, we have created street art murals in all the spaces of Ex Centrale, capturing the potential of a grassroots mural art movement that has been developing in Bologna in recent years. The union between recycled furniture and the recovery of old gardens with trees more than 100 years old together with the murals make the spaces of Ex Centrale unique of their kind in a metropolitan city like Bologna. Thus, the Ex Centrale-project has literally favoured the social and urban regeneration of the neighbourhood, transforming it into a more welcoming area for anyone passing by, giving it a general sense of care and beauty and making it after decades of neglect and abandonment a place appreciated by all inhabitants of the neighbourhood.
Ex Centrale is focused on participation at all levels, from the initial design to participation in the first call for tenders, up to the regeneration and management of the current spaces.
From the early planning stages together with the associations of architects and engineers, the purposes of all the spaces were collectively elaborated to then propose an overall project that took into account every specificity that emerged from children to the elderly.
From the design workshops to the victory of the tender, we moved on to the neighbourhood assemblies which kicked off the real regeneration of the spaces, all completely carried out free of charge by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, which made it possible to make everyone participate in the real construction and proper to the hub of the suburbs.
Today that assembly initially intended for the regeneration of spaces has been transformed into the assembly for managing the space to which networks, realities and neighbourhood associations have connected who can use the spaces free of charge. First experimentation of this type in Bologna which in its success has allowed the drafting and approval of the New Regulation on the forms of collaboration between civic subjects and the Administration for the performance of activities of general interest and for the care and regeneration of urban commons which officially entered into force in January 2023. To interact with the communities and give new life to the regenerated spaces, we have used community art as a tool. Within the spaces of the former Centrale, popular sport activities are held aimed to youth centres, schools, communities for immigrants and young.
Inside the spaces of Ex Centrale there are two counters, one for listening and territorial investigations created during the pandemic on the issue of health by surgeons, experts from local associations and researchers. The second is a legal desk for the homeless and migrants that carries out practices for free.
The strategy for involving civil society in the design and implementation of the project consists in the initiative of neighbourhood laboratories, promoted by the Foundation for Urban Innovation in partnership with the Municipality of Bologna.
Thanks to the open dialogue between the territorial networks of citizens and activists in the Spazio Laboratory it was possible to develop a proposal that recognized the diversity and the proposals of the realities that required space for their activities. From the Laboratory, 5 municipally owned spaces emerged which were subsequently banned and for the first time in an experimental form unrecognized and informal realities were able to access them as requested during the first laboratory phase. The redevelopment, functions and animation of some spaces of the Ex Centrale was co-decided and co-planned between the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and professional associations with the aim of creating spaces for culture, study and experimentation in the social field as a proximity pole with particular attention to mutual innovation, experimenting with innovative practices of reuse of part of an area which, empty since 1955, would become an example of urban regeneration and a response to the new needs of the territory and its inhabitants.
The assignment of the spaces took place in June 2019 immediately after the works to regenerate the spaces began. The works have made it possible to complete the regenerative objectives established by the ‘Associazione Architetti di Strada’ solely and exclusively thanks to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood who, thanks to their skills, including former workers in the construction field, meticulous retirees and willing young people have allowed spaces were totally regenerated in two years of work, without any type of public funding, totally in self-recovery.
The experience of Ex Centrale stems from an 18-year dispute over social spaces.
Years of occupations and evictions of vacant and abandoned properties owned by joint-stock companies, banks, and public bodies by local networks of students, workers and precarious workers to satisfy the need for spaces for culture, for socializing and for popular sport.
The recognition of the networks that have made this request for the spaces along the 18 years of occupations has allowed the meeting between institutions and social networks with the opening of a City Spaces Laboratory by the Urban Innovation Foundation and the Municipality of Bologna. The "Laboratorio Spazi" has allowed the encounter between the requests coming from the bottom up from the informal networks that had constituted and given life to the struggle for spaces for culture, aggregation and sociality and the Municipality of Bologna through the Urban Innovation Foundation. This mutual recognition has allowed the opening of a tender in which 5 public spaces that have been disused or abandoned for decades have been made available to allocate them to spaces with social and cultural purposes. The method of the participatory laboratories of the Urban Innovation Foundation born in an experimental form in 2018 then became a model in the following years not only for the question of spaces but for various themes in an attempt to bring the institutions closer to the territory.
The experimentation made history for Bologna, the assignment through tender of a space to a non-legally recognized social network allowed the Municipality of Bologna, thanks to the excellent success of the grassroots regeneration of the Ex Centrale spaces, to approve in the City Council in 2022, with entry into force on 1 January 2023, the new "Regulation on the forms of collaboration between civic subjects and the Administration for the performance of activities of general interest and for the care and regeneration of urban commons".
In terms of planning and implementing the Ex Centrale-project, various areas and fields of knowledge had to confront each other and find synthesis between them.
Starting from the first moment of the ‘Spazi Workshops’ in which Proximity Agents together with social scholars sat down in the assemblies to intercept and give practical form to the experimentation of assigning spaces through social co-planning.
The crucial moment for the physical space of Ex Centrale was then the architectural design since it was a space that had been abandoned for 55 years and had to change its intended use from Centrale del latte to a space for social and cultural activities. The ‘Associazione Architetti di strada’ and several engineers intervened in this field and, with their skills in the field of regeneration of abandoned spaces, have made it possible to present, follow up and complete the urban regeneration works. Works that for the first time on a public space have been carried out not by specialized companies but through the voluntary effort of men, women and children who live in the neighbourhood who, with their own contributions, have allowed the project to be carried out.
They then interacted for the construction of the Ex Centrale that we know today as a law firm who initially focused on the study and the legislative proposal of the first case of assignment to an informal network of public spaces and then dedicated themselves today to the listening and address desks for the homeless and migrants.
The overall management of such a varied planning that took into consideration all the various aspects could only pass through the horizontal discussion and planning assemblies of the Ex Centrale networks.
Through the project, an abandoned industrial building has been transformed into what Ex Centrale is: a public space, regenerated after 55 years of abandonment, inclusive and crossed which has actively contributed to the social regeneration of the surrounding neighbourhood, under various aspects.
First of all, it has strengthened the identity of the surrounding district, becoming its main point of reference: a cultural space that combines the charm of an old milk plant with the local characteristics of cultural dynamics, sociability beyond all genders, ages and origins. This has made it possible to become a hub for the suburbs, creating an open community that generates new connections between culture, art and social intervention, in a virtuous circle that gets stronger day after day.
Thanks to the participatory methodology of the open management assemblies, the project has successfully involved the men, women and children of the neighbourhood and the grassroots associations in the process of designing and implementing Ex Centrale: which has improved the sense of belonging to the commons as publicly owned spaces and the sense of community and solidarity among the inhabitants, reinforcing the sense of belonging to the space and, more generally, to the neighbourhood.
Thanks to its suggestive spaces and its cultural programming, Ex Centrale has also become an international destination for Bologna, transforming an abandoned area into a lively place of social and artistic experimentation.
These are the main results and impacts of the Ex Centrale-project and for these reasons we are applying for the Recovery of the sense of belonging category.
The innovative character of the project is based on the following aspects:
a. participation: both the design and the implementation phases involved people from different ages and backgrounds. The participation process characterized the design of the regeneration project that has been developed through citizens assemblies and workshops. A laboratory aimed at recognising different needs was the base to decide how to convert and use the spaces into the building, and interviews with the neighbourhood’s inhabitants were realized to increase the knowledge about the community’s expectation. During the building’s restoration citizens actively participated working during the weekends, and young people were especially involved.
b. circular economy: the restoration of the building has mainly been realized using the materials already present at the site. Furniture and equipment have been donated by supporters or purchased at second-hand markets.
c. informal group as recipient: for the first time, the local administration (that is the owner of the building) decided to assign it not to a juridically recognised association/organization, but to an informal group that does not have a legal representative. This represents a huge innovation as it makes it possible for citizens to take collective responsibility over a social space and the activities organized inside the building.
Ex-Centrale represents a flagship regeneration project because it transformed an industrial abandoned building into a social hub. It involves stakeholders and urban design and architect energies, implementing an innovative model of governance capable of regenerating the building and enhancing local networks into a well rooted community of practices. It welcomes different experiences and, respecting the history and characteristics of each one, relates them, to create new synergies and to share a vision.
The methodology to implement the project is based on active participation. Starting from the ‘Laboratorio Spazi’ (a public laboratory on social spaces in the city) promoted by the Municipality of Bologna and animated by Fondazione Innovazione Urbana (FIU), the original need to realize a self-managed space has been discuss in a forum that involved several stakeholders, formal and informal groups. This process is at the base of the participatory path that characterized all the project’s phases. Thanks to the group ‘Architetti di Strada’ (street architects) professional knowledge met the inhabitants’ needs and made it possible to tailor the project on the residents’ expectations. Laboratories were implemented to a) decide how to characterize the space and which activities will be host after the restoration; b) discuss the better solutions for restoring the building, and their coherence with the activities programmed and the fundamental principles (inclusion, sustainability, self-management, active participation); manage the restored spaces and implement the activities. Both individuals and formal and informal groups can currently participate at the managing assembly, which take place twice a month.
The main learnings of the Ex Centrale project can be transferred to other contexts, especially in less favoured city areas and zones, providing new spaces and opportunities to the people living the neighbourhoods. The cultural, economic, social, and political context influence projects like Ex Centrale: however, there are critical success factors that can be identified and transferred. One is the innovative agreement between the public administration (that owns the building) and the social actors that decided to regenerate the area: the negotiation process, the legal framework and the contract between the Municipality and the informal group involved can be inspirational for other groups and associations committed in enhancing the sense of belonging of the places where they live.
One of the keys that successfully facilitates the Ex Centrale-project is to actively involve people from different generations, hosting events, laboratories and activities organized by several formal and informal groups active in Bologna. That makes possible the establishment of a well rooted community where diversity and inclusion are key factors for increasing the social capital around the space. Furthermore, a key factor of the process has been encouraging the civil society - and especially the people living the neighbourhood - in participating in the regeneration process, both in the design and implementation phases; these phases have been characterized by a multi-actor governance model that made it possible a large active participation of people with different age.
Methodologies, learnings and experiences on this aspect of the Ex Centrale-project can easily be transferred as good practices that, of course, are not the solution that perfectly fits everywhere, but are inspirational ideas and experiences that can help in designing new regeneration processes.
Ex Centrale locally addresses several global challenges, like:
1. inequality: Ex Centrale hosts activities and initiatives like ‘PLAT - Piattaforma di Intervento Sociale’ (social intervention platform) that supports families and individuals living in the neighbourhood with the aim of facing poverty (and energy poverty) and facilitating access to healthcare and welfare.
2. climate change: Ex Centrale hosts activities and groups that actively promote social awareness about the issue and want to develop an energy community.
3. environmental degradation: the restoration of the building and the conservation of the vegetation in the premises guarantee actions on this field. Currently, Ex Centrale is committed to involving the neighbourhood in environmental protection activities.
4. peace and justice: Ex Centrale is fully committed in promoting these core principles, that are part of the project’s mission
Furthermore, Ex Centrale promotes urban regeneration of the peripheries reactivating a former industrial building involving civil society, informal and informal groups, and the local administration.
