STUN – Social Transitory Use Network Erasmus Project

Project Title

STUN – Social Transitory Use Network

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social entrepreneurship / social innovation; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

[Context]
Cities across Europe are packed with vacant and unused buildings. Instead of seeing them as issues, we consider them as opportunities to support all types of initiatives carried out by young people who bring innovative solutions to challenges that Europe’s societies are confronted with.

We consider each empty building as one more possibility to develop new approaches to citymaking. We provide spaces to young entrepreneurs for them to use as urban laboratories and develop proofs of concepts in a broad range of fields such as horizontal democracy, harmonious architecture, social entrepreneurship, active education, urban food production, soft mobility, green energy, recycling, etc. We host thinkers, makers, creators, educators, innovators and social entrepreneurs. They meet, exchange ideas and bring something unheard of to the city, to their neighbourhood and to the community they live in.

We call our practice ‘transitory use’ (TU) because we take care of a space during its transition from its current unused state towards its next state (usually after heavy renovation works). We add ‘social’ (STU – social transitory use) to the name of our practice because it is strongly anchored in supporting young or jeopardised people and communities as well as empower them to re-own their neighbourhoods.

However, we do not simply occupy buildings. We connect people by developing a sensation of togetherness between all users of our buildings. We do that by gathering our users into a community which they can identify to and be supported by. Being part of a dynamic community is key to bring a project to a successful conclusion. It helps in mulling over an idea, finding the best ways to realise it, and most of all: believing in it.

We build ecosystems of people, which facilitates their empowerment, engagement and connections. Being part of a proactive and positive community that they can identify to is probably one of the strongest changemaking tool that we provide to young people.

[Objectives]
Our objectives for this E+ KA205 programme are to:
→ launch a EU network around our practice: Social Transitory Use Network (STUN)
→ have an exchange of best practices over topics such as community management, youth involvement & engagement, best technical approaches in renovation, safety measures, negotiations with municipalities and building owners, legal frame of STU, etc
→ create a STU handbook to spread the knowledge we will exchange during this project
→ create a STUN website
→ lobby around STU on national and EU level in order to improve receive support from policymakers.

[Participants]
Participants to STUN are 7 cutting edge non-profit organisations:
→ Communa (project coordinator, Belgium);
→ Free Riga (Latvia);
→ Yes We Camp (France);
→ Paradocks (Austria);
→ Planungsbüro für Urbane Transformation (Germany);
→ Meanwhile Space (UK);
→ Institut for (X) (Denmark).

Together, they employ 120 people from various backgrounds such as law, urban, cultural or gender studies, architecture, project management, philosophy, engineering, carpentry, etc. We all are young ambitious social entrepreneurs who wish to have a true impact on the fabrication of our cities.

We also wish for STUN to have an inspirational impact on volunteers involved in our organisations as well as on young people gravitating around our networks, buildings and users.

[Activities]
During the three transnational meetings organised in the frame of STUN (Riga in June 2019, Riga in August 2019 and Brussels in December 2019), we will:
→ get to know each other
→ exchange our best practices
→ design lobbying strategies on a national and EU level
→ collectively write down a ‘handbook of STU’
→ celebrate our meeting.

[Methodology]
Our methodology lies on mutual learning through immersion, informal exchange, and experimental methods. It is by working together on real cases that we will exchange practices and learn best from each other. In order to assess the success of our project, we will develop specific KPI, gather documentation and write various evaluation reports about the process.

[Results and impact]
The creation of STUN will allow all STU actors in Europe to:
→ formalise their exchange in order to continuously learn from each other;
→ influence EU policies on STU;
→ join forces to access EU funding;
→ raise knowledge and create access to the countless, already existing or emerging STU initiatives across Europe.

[Long term benefits]
The E+ KA205 programme will allow us to found STUN, which is a long term project by itself. STUN will help us
→ improve the outreach, sustainability and quality of our services for youth and society
→ organise and attend lectures given by experts of fields connected to transitory use
→ scale up our best practices of STU on a EU level, thereby amplifying the support that we provide to EU’s youth.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 47500 Eur

Project Coordinator

Communa asbl & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Paradocks – Verein für horizontale Stadtplanung und integrierte Projektentwicklung in der Zwischennutzung
• Yes We Camp
• FREE RIGA
• Institut for (X)
• Meanwhile Space
• Planungsbüro für Urbane Transformation