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Placemaking is more than shaping places or engaging communities. It is a complex constellation of actors, approaches, and local contexts. Here you will find a curated collection of placemaking cases, stakeholders, and methodologies that we find inspiring. Rather than a definitive guide, this collection is an invitation to explore together what is worth developing, why it matters, and how it can strengthen places and communities.

CASES STAKEHOLDERS METHODOLOGIES

Through these cases, we can explore how placemaking methodologies and stakeholder collaborations work in practice, what goals project initiators pursue, which challenges they address, who benefits from the outcomes, and how sustainable these processes are.

Section 1: Projects and initiatives focused on transforming urban environment

August-Frölich-Platz

The August-Frölich-Platz Initiative is a grassroots placemaking process centred on the transformation of a traffic-dominated intersection into a vibrant neighbourhood square in Weimar. Emerging from a citizens' petition in 2019 calling for safer pedestrian crossings, the initiative gradually evolved into a long-term collaborative effort involving local residents, civic organisations, architects, universities, municipal authorities, and neighbourhood businesses. Rather than following a predefined masterplan, the transformation has unfolded incrementally through temporary interventions, neighbourhood festivals, participatory workshops, citizen surveys, artistic experiments, academic design studios, and continuous dialogue with the municipality. Several of these activities have resulted in tangible physical improvements, including new pedestrian crossings, public benches, and experimental urban furniture, while others have strengthened local networks and collective visions for the square's future. As a placemaking case, August-Frölich-Platz demonstrates how the sustained combination of community action, tactical interventions, institutional partnerships, and civic negotiation can gradually transform both the physical character of a place and the relationships that sustain it.

August-Frölich-Platz is perhaps best understood as placemaking in its most comprehensive sense: not as a single intervention, event, or design project, but as a long-term process of collective place production. Unlike many examples that focus primarily on physical improvements, this initiative demonstrates how placemaking develops through the cumulative interaction of civic mobilisation, temporary experimentation, institutional partnerships, political negotiation, participatory learning, and incremental spatial change. Each individual activity—a festival, workshop, survey, university project, or tactical intervention—functions not as an end in itself but as one step within a broader process of transformation.

The case also illustrates that placemaking is inherently non-linear. Progress depends not only on successful interventions but also on the capacity of communities to sustain motivation over time, negotiate with public authorities, adapt to changing circumstances, and continually recruit new participants. Volunteer fatigue, fluctuating participation, and institutional resistance emerge as integral parts of the process rather than signs of failure. In this sense, August-Frölich-Platz demonstrates that placemaking should be evaluated less by the immediate completion of physical projects than by its ability to build local capacity, strengthen civic relationships, and gradually reshape the governance of place.

For this reason, the initiative represents an important bridge between placemaking theory and practice. It incorporates many of the participatory methods discussed in contemporary placemaking frameworks—including tactical urbanism, co-design, community mapping, temporary activation, and collaborative governance—while demonstrating how these methods can be combined into a sustained, adaptive process of neighbourhood transformation.

Parckfarm

Parckfarm is a community-led ecological and social space located within Tour & Taxis Park (Park L28) in Brussels. The project originated as part of the Parckdesign Biennale, where it was conceived not as a temporary exhibition but as a lasting neighbourhood resource. Transforming a neglected railway cutting into an edible park and community farm, Parckfarm combines ecological restoration with everyday social practices such as gardening, cooking, composting, learning, and informal gathering. Situated at the intersection of several culturally diverse neighbourhoods, it has evolved into an important local meeting place that supports both environmental sustainability and community life. Rather than treating green space as a passive recreational landscape, Parckfarm encourages residents to actively cultivate, maintain, and collectively shape the environment. Through this combination of ecological production and social participation, the project demonstrates how placemaking can create durable relationships between people, place, and nature while fostering long-term neighbourhood stewardship.

Parckfarm demonstrates how placemaking can extend beyond the design of attractive public spaces towards the creation of long-term social and ecological commons. Unlike projects driven primarily by temporary activation or institutional investment, its success depends upon continuous collective stewardship and the integration of environmental and social practices into everyday neighbourhood life. The case illustrates that ecological placemaking is not simply about introducing green infrastructure but about creating opportunities for residents to become active co-producers of urban nature. At the same time, it highlights an important tension facing many successful commons: as neighbourhoods become more attractive and land values increase, maintaining community autonomy and long-term access may become increasingly challenging.

Kiosk of Solidarity

The Kiosk of Solidarity is a mobile urban practice developed in Berlin that supports grassroots initiatives working in the contested fields of housing, labour, migration, health, and social justice. Emerging in 2023 as a spin-off of the Transforming Solidarities research project and becoming an autonomous initiative within the Constructlab e.V. network in 2024, the kiosk functions as a temporary public infrastructure that circulates between different locations across the city. Rather than establishing a permanent community centre, it creates short-term spaces for encounter, networking, mutual aid, political discussion, and collective action wherever local initiatives need them. Each activation responds to specific neighbourhood conditions while simultaneously linking local struggles into wider city-wide solidarity networks. In doing so, the project demonstrates how placemaking can operate not through the long-term transformation of a single site, but through the strategic occupation of public space as an infrastructure for civic engagement and socio-political mobilisation.

The Kiosk of Solidarity challenges conventional understandings of placemaking by shifting attention from the long-term improvement of physical places to the temporary production of political and social space. Rather than creating permanent destinations, it creates mobile infrastructures for civic organisation and collective action. In this sense, the kiosk demonstrates that placemaking can be understood not only as the making of places but also as the making of publics. It illustrates how temporary spatial interventions can strengthen solidarity networks, support civic mobilisation, and foster new forms of urban citizenship without relying on permanent physical transformation.

Filter Café Filtré

Filter Café Filtré emerged in Brussels in 2018 as a citizen-led initiative responding to growing concerns about air pollution and traffic safety around schools. Initially organised by parents advocating for healthier environments for children, the movement rapidly evolved into a broader platform promoting school streets, child-friendly mobility, and more liveable public spaces. Over time, the initiative expanded beyond grassroots mobilisation into a wider ecosystem of design research, urban advocacy, and partnerships with architects, designers, and public institutions. While its immediate objective has been to improve environmental conditions around schools, the initiative has also contributed to wider debates about children's right to the city and the transformation of streets from traffic corridors into spaces for everyday social life. As such, Filter Café Filtré illustrates how placemaking can emerge through civic advocacy and public campaigning rather than through conventional urban design projects alone.

Filter Café Filtré occupies an important intermediate position between civic activism and placemaking. It demonstrates that advocacy campaigns can reshape public perceptions of urban space and influence planning agendas without necessarily producing permanent physical interventions themselves. At the same time, the case illustrates a recurring challenge within participatory practice: those represented symbolically are not always those who exercise meaningful influence over decision-making. Consequently, the project serves not only as an example of advocacy-led placemaking but also as a useful case for reflecting on the distinction between representation and genuine co-creation.

KANAL – Centre Pompidou

KANAL – Centre Pompidou is one of the largest cultural redevelopment projects currently underway in Brussels. Located in the former Citroën garage in the city's canal district, the project aims to transform a former industrial complex into a major museum of modern and contemporary art, architecture, and urban culture. Initiated by the Brussels-Capital Region in partnership with the Centre Pompidou, KANAL represents a flagship investment intended to strengthen Brussels' international cultural profile while simultaneously contributing to the regeneration of the canal area. Public activities and temporary programming began before the building's full renovation, allowing the site to function as a public venue during its transformation. Beyond the creation of a new cultural institution, KANAL seeks to establish the building as an accessible urban destination where cultural production, public life, and architectural heritage intersect. As a placemaking case, it illustrates how large-scale institutional investment can reshape both the physical environment and the symbolic identity of a city.

KANAL demonstrates that placemaking can operate at the metropolitan scale through the adaptive reuse of major cultural infrastructure. Unlike community-led placemaking, however, its primary mechanism is institutional investment rather than grassroots mobilisation. While the project adopts the language of openness, participation, and public accessibility, these principles appear to function primarily within a framework defined by public authorities and cultural institutions. Participation is therefore oriented more towards accessing a pre-designed cultural environment than towards co-producing its development or governance.

The case illustrates a broader tension within contemporary placemaking: the concept is increasingly employed to legitimise large-scale regeneration projects whose strategic objectives and decision-making structures remain largely top-down. In this sense, KANAL raises the question of whether placemaking should be understood primarily as the creation of attractive public destinations or as a democratic process through which communities gain meaningful influence over the production of urban space. From this perspective, the project's openness is largely spatial and cultural, but only partially political.

Rather than challenging existing governance structures, KANAL largely reproduces them while framing the outcome through the vocabulary of participation and inclusion. The case therefore serves as a critical reminder that physical accessibility and rich cultural programming should not be conflated with democratic placemaking. It illustrates how flagship regeneration can successfully transform urban environments and strengthen a city's cultural identity while simultaneously leaving fundamental questions of local ownership, participation, and the distribution of decision-making power unresolved.

TRACK

TRACK is a collaborative placemaking initiative developed in Brussels to strengthen cooperation among local stakeholders engaged in neighbourhood development. Rather than focusing on the transformation of a single public space, the project seeks to improve the processes through which places are collectively managed, programmed, and sustained over time. Bringing together residents, community organisations, public authorities, designers, cultural actors, and other local institutions, TRACK creates structures that support dialogue, coordination, and shared responsibility for neighbourhood development. Its activities combine networking, participatory planning, knowledge exchange, and collaborative experimentation, enabling actors with different interests and resources to work together on common local challenges. As a placemaking case, TRACK demonstrates that creating successful places depends not only on physical interventions but also on building durable relationships and governance arrangements capable of supporting collective action.

TRACK demonstrates that placemaking can focus on building governance capacity rather than directly producing physical change. Instead of treating collaboration as a means to implement projects, it positions collaboration itself as the primary outcome. The case therefore expands conventional understandings of placemaking by showing that sustainable place transformation depends upon durable institutional relationships, trust, and mechanisms for collective decision-making. At the same time, the project illustrates that collaborative governance does not automatically resolve structural inequalities between participating actors. Effective facilitation remains essential for ensuring that participation extends beyond formal representation towards genuinely shared influence over local development processes.

Cultureghem

Cultureghem is a community-based initiative operating in and around the Abattoir site in Cureghem (Anderlecht), Brussels. Established in the early 2010s, it has transformed a busy market environment into a welcoming public space centred on encounter, food, creativity, and everyday social interaction. Rather than redesigning the site physically, Cultureghem gradually reshaped its social function by introducing recurring activities that encourage people to stay, meet, cook, learn, volunteer, and collaborate. Shared meals, neighbourhood events, workshops, and open invitations create opportunities for diverse groups of residents to participate in public life regardless of their social or cultural background. Through long-term repetition rather than spectacular interventions, the initiative has established the Abattoir not only as a commercial destination but also as a civic place where everyday hospitality becomes a mechanism for building community. As a placemaking case, Cultureghem demonstrates how public spaces can be transformed through care, openness, and continuous social activation rather than through physical redevelopment alone.

Cultureghem demonstrates that placemaking does not necessarily depend on physical transformation or large-scale urban redevelopment. Instead, it shows how places can be produced through repeated practices of hospitality, care, and everyday social interaction that gradually reshape the meaning and use of existing public spaces. Unlike event-driven placemaking, which often relies on temporary spectacles or one-off interventions, Cultureghem builds place through continuity. Its success lies not in attracting occasional visitors but in creating conditions that encourage people to return, participate, and eventually become contributors to the life of the space.

The case also highlights an important tension within socially oriented placemaking. Openness is not self-sustaining but depends upon continuous stewardship. The organisation must actively curate programmes, maintain partnerships, and preserve the welcoming atmosphere that enables diverse groups to participate on equal terms. Without this ongoing organisational labour, informal hierarchies and unequal patterns of participation could quickly emerge. Cultureghem therefore illustrates that successful placemaking requires not only open public space but also sustained investment in the social infrastructures that make openness possible.

House of Compassion

House of Compassion is a civic initiative based in the historic Beguinage Church in central Brussels that reimagines a religious building as an open public space dedicated to compassion, justice, and solidarity. Building on the long-standing social engagement of the Beguinage community, the initiative transforms the church into a place where cultural activities, civic dialogue, artistic expression, and social action intersect. Rather than functioning solely as a place of worship, the House of Compassion hosts exhibitions, public discussions, solidarity campaigns, artistic projects, commemorations, and gatherings addressing issues such as migration, poverty, human rights, and social exclusion. Through these recurring activities, the project demonstrates how an existing symbolic space can acquire new civic functions while remaining deeply rooted in its historical identity. As a placemaking case, it illustrates how values, hospitality, and public engagement can collectively transform a building into an inclusive place of encounter and social responsibility.

The House of Compassion expands conventional understandings of placemaking by demonstrating that places can be produced not only through physical transformation or participatory design but also through shared ethical commitments. Rather than changing the architecture of the Beguinage Church, the initiative redefines its public meaning by creating an environment where compassion, justice, and hospitality become everyday spatial practices. The case therefore illustrates how symbolic spaces can be reactivated as contemporary civic infrastructures without losing their historical identity.

The project also highlights an important tension within value-led placemaking. Its strong normative orientation inevitably raises questions about openness: can a place explicitly grounded in particular ethical commitments remain genuinely inclusive? Interestingly, the House of Compassion suggests that these objectives need not be contradictory. Rather than narrowing participation, the initiative's clearly articulated values appear to provide a framework that enables diverse actors to collaborate around shared principles of dignity and solidarity. In this sense, the case demonstrates that openness is not necessarily achieved through value neutrality but can also emerge from a transparent and consistently enacted ethical vision.

Community Garden – Global Bio Gardens

Global Bio Gardens (GBG) is an international community garden established in Erfurt, Germany, in spring 2020 as a response to the social isolation caused by the COVID-19 lockdown. Initiated by international students from the University of Erfurt and the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, the project transformed unused land near the university into a shared space for ecological food production, intercultural exchange, and community building. What began as a practical response to disrupted everyday life soon evolved into a broader initiative connecting international students, refugee families, local residents, children, agricultural experts, and institutional partners. Through collective gardening, knowledge exchange, and everyday cooperation, the project creates opportunities for participants from diverse cultural backgrounds to establish meaningful relationships with one another and with the place they temporarily or permanently call home. As a placemaking case, Global Bio Gardens demonstrates how shared care for land can foster belonging, resilience, and social integration while simultaneously addressing ecological sustainability and food security.

Global Bio Gardens demonstrates that placemaking can emerge from moments of crisis through collective responses to everyday needs. Established during the social isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the initiative transformed a practical concern—access to meaningful activity, fresh food, and social contact—into a lasting process of community formation. The case illustrates that productive landscapes can become powerful social infrastructures, enabling participants not only to cultivate food but also to cultivate relationships, trust, and belonging across cultural differences.

Unlike many community gardens that primarily emphasise environmental sustainability or neighbourhood improvement, Global Bio Gardens explicitly connects ecological practices with migration, intercultural learning, and global citizenship. The project therefore expands the understanding of ecological placemaking by demonstrating that gardens can function as spaces where global identities are negotiated through local practices. At the same time, its long-term sustainability depends upon continued institutional support, secure access to land, and the ongoing commitment of volunteers and partner organisations. The case thus highlights both the transformative potential and the structural vulnerability of community-led placemaking initiatives that rely on collaborative stewardship.

Wandering Living Room

The Wandering Living Room is a mobile urban art intervention developed by CGE e.V. and volunteers in 2023 as part of the Kunstfest festivals in Erfurt and Weimar. Designed as a temporary installation, the project transformed ordinary public squares into oversized "living rooms" by placing enlarged domestic furniture—including a sofa, table, television, lamp, and bench—within urban space. By relocating familiar elements of private life into the public realm, the intervention invited passers-by to pause, interact, and reflect on the meaning of home, belonging, and coexistence. Participants were encouraged to write on a specially designed bench what "home" meant to them or to share their migration stories, turning the installation into a visible archive of personal experiences. Following several temporary interventions, one of the project's central elements—the mobile bench—was permanently installed on August-Frölich-Platz in Weimar in 2024, where it continues to function as a flexible public seating element. As a placemaking case, the Wandering Living Room illustrates how temporary artistic interventions can activate public space and stimulate social interaction while also revealing the limitations of short-term interventions as stand-alone placemaking strategies.

The Wandering Living Room illustrates both the potential and the limitations of tactical placemaking. Its greatest strength lies in its ability to transform overlooked public spaces into temporary settings for dialogue, curiosity, and social encounter with relatively modest resources. Through artistic intervention, the project makes invisible social questions—such as migration, belonging, and urban isolation—visible within everyday public life.

At the same time, the case demonstrates that temporary activation alone should not be equated with placemaking. While the intervention successfully changes how people experience a place for a limited period, it does not by itself establish the sustained social relationships, governance structures, or patterns of collective stewardship that characterise longer-term placemaking processes. From this perspective, the Wandering Living Room is perhaps best understood not as a complete placemaking project but as an effective placemaking tool — a method capable of initiating conversations, revealing the social potential of public spaces, and serving as an entry point into more comprehensive participatory processes. The subsequent installation of the mobile bench at August-Frölich-Platz illustrates how elements of temporary interventions can be integrated into more permanent forms of place activation.

Kultur Street Work Neuaubing Westkreuz

Kultur Street Work Neuaubing Westkreuz was a neighbourhood-based cultural development initiative operating in the Munich districts of Aubing, Neuaubing, and Westkreuz. Implemented primarily between 2021 and 2022, the project responded to multiple processes of urban change, including neighbourhood redevelopment, the planned demolition of the Neuaubing shopping centre, and the social fragmentation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than establishing a permanent cultural venue, the initiative worked through a mobile cultural street worker who connected residents, artists, local organisations, activists, and public institutions while creating opportunities for cultural participation throughout the neighbourhood. Through cultural walks, participatory art projects, public events, neighbourhood roundtables, and mobile interventions, Kultur Street Work encouraged residents to reflect on local identity, share memories, and collectively imagine the future of their neighbourhood. Although the project itself has been completed, several formats and partnerships continue through local cultural centres, demonstrating its lasting contribution to neighbourhood cultural life.

Kultur Street Work demonstrates that placemaking can be understood as the cultivation of cultural infrastructure rather than simply the production of physical places. Its principal innovation lies in introducing the role of the cultural street worker as a broker who connects people, organisations, ideas, and spaces that would otherwise remain fragmented. Rather than organising isolated cultural events, the initiative invests in relationships that enable local cultural ecosystems to develop greater resilience and visibility over time.

The case also broadens the understanding of placemaking by highlighting the importance of mobility. Instead of expecting residents to come to a particular venue, the project actively brings cultural opportunities into streets, public spaces, and neighbourhood meeting points. This flexible approach allows cultural participation to adapt to changing urban conditions while lowering barriers for groups who may not otherwise engage with formal cultural institutions.

At the same time, the case illustrates the structural vulnerability of network-based placemaking. Because the initiative relied heavily on dedicated facilitation and project funding, its long-term impact depends on whether the relationships, practices, and formats established during the project continue to be sustained by local organisations and residents after the formal project has ended. In this respect, Kultur Street Work demonstrates that successful placemaking is not only about creating events or places but also about building capacities that outlive individual projects.

Loppemarked

The Loppemarked (Flea Market) organised annually by IL Nordlyset, the local sports club in Pasvik Valley, Northern Norway, is one of the region's most significant community events. Held every October for more than fifteen years in the small village of Skogfoss, the market serves simultaneously as the principal fundraising activity for the sports club and as a major social gathering for residents throughout the valley. Organised largely by retired women from the club together with numerous volunteers, the event mobilises hundreds of local residents who donate goods, assist with preparations, or visit the market as buyers and participants. Although outwardly resembling a conventional flea market, the event functions as an annual community ritual that reinforces local identity, renews social relationships, and reproduces collective commitment to local institutions. As a placemaking case, the Loppemarked demonstrates how recurring community traditions can produce and sustain a strong sense of place without relying on physical redesign or formal participatory planning.

The Loppemarked challenges conventional understandings of placemaking by demonstrating that places may be produced through ritual rather than design. Unlike many placemaking initiatives that focus on physical transformation or participatory planning, this case illustrates how recurring collective practices can generate equally strong forms of belonging and place attachment. The flea market itself is not the primary outcome; rather, it provides the social infrastructure through which community relationships are renewed year after year.

The case also highlights the importance of repetition in sustaining place. While many placemaking projects rely on one-off interventions or limited-term funding, the Loppemarked derives its significance precisely from its predictability and continuity. Each annual event reinforces memories of previous gatherings while creating new opportunities for participation, allowing local identity to be continually reproduced across generations.

Finally, the case reminds us that placemaking need not be consciously recognised as such by participants. The organisers understand the event primarily as a fundraiser for the sports club, yet in practice they are simultaneously maintaining one of the most important social institutions of the valley. This suggests that some of the most powerful forms of placemaking emerge not from explicit placemaking strategies but from longstanding community traditions that reproduce belonging through everyday collective action.

Section 2: Placemaking Organisations and Collectives

Constructlab

Constructlab is a European transdisciplinary network of architects, designers, builders, artists, and community organisers working at the intersection of participatory design, collective construction, and urban transformation. Rather than functioning as a conventional architectural practice, the organisation develops collaborative processes through which local communities actively shape public space. Working across different cities and neighbourhoods, Constructlab creates temporary and long-term interventions that respond to local contexts while fostering social interaction, learning, and collective ownership. Projects such as Kiosk of Solidarity and Forest Room (Waldraum) illustrate this approach by combining spatial interventions with community engagement.

Constructlab demonstrates that placemaking can prioritise the creation of collaborative processes over the production of physical spaces. Its immersive working model—remaining on site throughout implementation—helps build trust, supports continuous adaptation, and reduces the distance between professionals and local communities.

A key strength of the organisation is its integration of architecture, construction, education, and social facilitation into a single practice. At the same time, this approach depends on long-term commitment, sufficient resources, and sustained participation, which may limit its applicability in some contexts.

Saline 34

Saline 34 is a small-scale placemaking initiative located in the Salinenstraße 34 area of northern Erfurt, Germany. Developed by Plattform e.V. and CGE e.V., the project focuses on recognising and activating the social significance of an ordinary urban place rather than creating a new public space. Documented through the 4learning Placemaking platform, Saline 34 explores how everyday neighbourhood environments acquire meaning through use, participation, and local relationships. The case demonstrates that placemaking can emerge from observing, documenting, and strengthening existing social practices rather than through large-scale physical interventions.

Saline 34 expands the understanding of placemaking beyond physical transformation by demonstrating the importance of documenting and interpreting everyday urban life. Instead of producing a new public space, the project reveals the existing social value embedded within an ordinary neighbourhood setting.

Its main contribution lies in showing that placemaking can begin with observation and recognition. At the same time, the case illustrates the limitations of research-oriented initiatives, whose broader impact depends on sustained local engagement and the ability to translate documentation into longer-term community action.

Frivilligsentral – Kirkens Bymisjon

Frivilligsentral is a volunteer centre in Kirkenes, Norway, managed by the NGO Kirkens Bymisjon as part of Norway's municipal volunteer centre network. Since taking over the centre, Bymisjon has reoriented it from a service-based facility into an inclusive community meeting place that combines indoor activities with the adjacent public park. Rather than focusing on physical transformation alone, the initiative strengthens social infrastructure by creating opportunities for everyday encounters, volunteering, and collective use of public space. Through a combination of regular activities and community partnerships, the centre aims to foster belonging across different generations and social groups.

Frivilligsentral illustrates how placemaking can be achieved through the continuous activation of existing spaces rather than through major physical redevelopment. The transformation lies primarily in changing the social function of the volunteer centre and its surrounding park, turning them into places of everyday interaction and community care.

A particular strength of the initiative is its ability to connect diverse organisations through a shared physical space while extending activities into the wider municipality. At the same time, its long-term success depends on sustained volunteer engagement, local trust, and organisational capacity—factors that may be difficult to reproduce where community networks are weaker.

Space for Teens Steilshoop

Space for Teens Steilshoop is a participation-based placemaking initiative in the Steilshoop neighbourhood of Hamburg, facilitated by the Johann Daniel Lawaetz Foundation. The project focuses on recognising teenagers as legitimate users of public space and involving them in neighbourhood development. Rather than concentrating on a single physical intervention, the initiative seeks to strengthen young people's role in shaping their everyday environment through participatory planning and dialogue with local institutions. It demonstrates how placemaking can support more inclusive and democratic approaches to urban development by addressing the needs of a group that is often underrepresented in planning processes.

This case demonstrates that placemaking can be understood as a democratic process of recognising underrepresented groups rather than simply producing new public spaces. Its primary contribution lies in repositioning teenagers as active participants whose everyday experiences can inform neighbourhood development.

A particular strength of the initiative is the intermediary role played by the Lawaetz Foundation, which facilitates collaboration between communities, civil society, and public institutions. However, the available documentation provides relatively limited information about the project's specific activities and outcomes, making it difficult to assess its long-term spatial impact independently from the Foundation's broader work.

GILBARD

Gilbard is a collective based in Anderlecht, Brussels, working at the intersection of material reuse, design, education, and community engagement. Founded in 2019, the collective recovers, redistributes, and reuses construction materials while maintaining an openly accessible neighbourhood space where materials can be exchanged, stored, or freely collected. Alongside its reuse activities, Gilbard develops small-scale design projects, educational programmes, and collaborative initiatives that connect local residents, practitioners, artists, and students. Rather than functioning solely as a workshop or material depot, the space has evolved into a neighbourhood resource that combines environmental sustainability with everyday social interaction.

Gilbard demonstrates that placemaking can emerge through the long-term maintenance of shared practices rather than through the creation of new physical spaces. The collective has established a stable social infrastructure centred on material reuse, where environmental sustainability, education, and neighbourhood life reinforce one another.

A particularly valuable aspect of the case is its ability to transform an ordinary workshop into a common space through everyday activities and sustained relationships. Rather than relying on temporary events, Gilbard produces belonging through repeated interaction, negotiation, and collective care. This makes the initiative especially relevant for understanding placemaking as an ongoing social process.

Architects for Tempelhofer Feld

Architects for Tempelhofer Feld (A4THF) is an informal initiative of architects, urban researchers, and spatial practitioners established in Berlin in 2024 to oppose proposals for development on Tempelhofer Feld. Rather than designing new spaces, the collective seeks to protect an existing public landscape by defending the legal framework established through Berlin's 2014 referendum. Through public advocacy, exhibitions, publications, and strategic participation in an official planning competition, the initiative demonstrates how architectural practice can be mobilised to preserve public space and strengthen democratic decision-making.

This case expands conventional understandings of placemaking by demonstrating that places can be produced not only through physical transformation but also through acts of preservation and collective refusal. Rather than creating a new place, the initiative strengthens the social and political meaning of an existing one by defending its current use and symbolic value.

A particularly significant aspect of the case is its use of institutional procedures as sites of democratic action. Instead of rejecting the competition from outside, the collective entered it in order to contest its underlying assumptions from within. This strategy illustrates how placemaking may involve shaping public narratives, legal frameworks, and collective imaginaries as much as shaping physical environments.

Mädchen(Plan)Büro

Mädchen(Plan)Büro is a participation initiative developed by the Fachstelle Interkulturelle Mädchenarbeit of the LAG Autonome Mädchenhäuser / feministische Mädchenarbeit NRW e.V. in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. The project promotes girls' and young women's participation in shaping public space through feminist and intercultural approaches. Rather than focusing on physical design alone, it seeks to make the experiences, needs, and rights of girls visible within urban planning and neighbourhood development. By placing girls' perspectives at the centre of participatory processes, the initiative demonstrates how placemaking can contribute to more inclusive and socially just urban environments.

This case demonstrates that placemaking can function as a process of empowerment as much as one of spatial transformation. Its primary contribution lies in making experiences that are often invisible in urban planning visible and legitimate sources of planning knowledge.

A key strength of the initiative is its intersectional perspective, which recognises that girls' experiences differ according to migration background, disability, health, and other social conditions. Rather than treating participation as a neutral process, Mädchen(Plan)Büro addresses structural inequalities that shape who feels welcome, safe, and represented in public space. This broadens placemaking beyond physical design towards questions of recognition, justice, and democratic inclusion.

Barents Spektakel

Barents Spektakel is an annual multidisciplinary arts festival organised by the curatorial collective Pikene på Broen in Kirkenes, Norway. Established in the late 1990s and held annually for more than two decades, the festival has become an important platform for exploring the cultural, political, and social realities of the Arctic and the Barents region. Through exhibitions, performances, public discussions, and site-specific artistic interventions, Barents Spektakel transforms Kirkenes into a space for dialogue about borders, identity, and the future of northern communities. The festival demonstrates how cultural programming can contribute to placemaking by shaping both local identity and international visibility.

Barents Spektakel demonstrates that placemaking can be achieved through sustained cultural programming rather than physical transformation alone. Over nearly three decades, the festival has contributed to reshaping the public image of Kirkenes, connecting local identity with international cultural networks and contemporary debates about the Arctic.

Its greatest strength lies in its ability to produce multiple layers of place identity simultaneously: Kirkenes becomes a local community, a border town, an Arctic cultural centre, and a site for geopolitical reflection. However, this model remains highly dependent on public funding, international partnerships, and broader geopolitical conditions. It may also be experienced differently by residents who are less engaged with contemporary art and cultural events.

Ruimte Pioniers

Ruimte Pioniers is a youth-led placemaking programme initiated by Urban Foxes in collaboration with a core group of young people and an expanding network of cultural organisations, mentors, municipalities, and community partners. Operating across Brussels and parts of Flanders, the initiative connects young people with public, shared, and temporary spaces where they can develop and realise their own projects. Rather than focusing on a single location, Ruimte Pioniers builds young people's capacity to analyse, activate, and transform a wide range of urban spaces while strengthening their role in local decision-making.

Ruimte Pioniers illustrates placemaking as a process of capacity transfer rather than simply place improvement. Its primary outcome is not only the activation of spaces but the development of young people's ability to navigate institutions, build partnerships, and influence their environments. By combining practical projects with learning, the initiative shifts participation from consultation towards shared authorship.

A notable feature of the programme is the balance between youth leadership and organisational support. While Urban Foxes provides coordination, networks, and resources, projects are intended to remain youth-driven, allowing participants to develop ownership over both the process and its outcomes. This highlights an important challenge for youth-centred placemaking: maintaining meaningful agency while providing sufficient guidance to sustain participation over time. The case demonstrates that effective participation often depends not on the absence of institutional support, but on how that support is structured so that it enables rather than replaces local initiative.

Magdeburger Allee 114–116

Magdeburger Allee 114–116 is a community support hub in northern Erfurt operated by Kontakt in Krisen e.V. (KiK) in collaboration with initiatives including JUGEND STÄRKEN im Quartier and Werkhaus Inclusion. Located in a residential neighbourhood, the centre provides a wide range of social, educational, and community services for children, young people, families, older adults, and people experiencing poverty or crisis. Rather than focusing on the physical transformation of public space, the initiative demonstrates how placemaking can be achieved through the creation of accessible social infrastructure that strengthens neighbourhood solidarity and everyday belonging.

Magdeburger Allee 114–116 demonstrates that placemaking can emerge through sustained practices of care rather than through physical design alone. The significance of the place lies not in its architecture but in its function as a reliable point of support, connection, and mutual assistance for diverse community members.

A particular strength of the initiative is the integration of multiple forms of support within one accessible neighbourhood location. By combining education, counselling, food assistance, housing support, and community activities, the centre creates an environment where social relationships develop alongside practical help. This broad understanding of placemaking emphasises that belonging is often produced through repeated acts of care and everyday interaction.

Toestand

Toestand is a Brussels-based organisation that activates vacant buildings and urban spaces through temporary community use. Working across multiple neighbourhoods—including projects such as Allee du Kaai, Marie Moskou, and Biestebroek—it transforms underused sites into accessible spaces for social, cultural, and civic activities. Rather than treating temporary use as an interim solution before redevelopment, Toestand views it as an opportunity to expand access to urban resources, support grassroots initiatives, and experiment with new forms of collective governance. The organisation has evolved from informal occupations of vacant spaces into a recognised intermediary that connects community initiatives, property owners, and public institutions.

Toestand demonstrates that placemaking can operate simultaneously at the scale of individual sites and urban governance. While each project activates a specific location, the organisation's broader contribution lies in changing how vacant space is understood, managed, and made available for public use.

A distinctive feature of the case is its ability to combine bottom-up experimentation with institutional negotiation. Rather than remaining entirely outside formal planning processes, Toestand works between civic initiatives and public authorities, translating temporary projects into broader discussions about urban policy. This intermediary role illustrates how placemaking can reshape governance as well as places themselves.

Young.Cities.Now

Young.Cities.Now is an educational initiative developed by Jugend Architektur Stadt e.V. (JAS e.V.), a German non-profit organisation dedicated to architectural education for children and young people. Presented as a Good Practice on the 4learning platform, the project encourages young people to explore, understand, and actively shape the built environment through participatory learning. Rather than focusing on the redesign of a single place, Young.Cities.Now equips children and young people with the knowledge and confidence to engage critically with cities, neighbourhoods, architecture, and public space. The initiative demonstrates how placemaking can begin with education by enabling future citizens to participate in shaping their everyday environments.

Young.Cities.Now demonstrates that placemaking can begin long before physical change occurs. By developing architectural literacy and spatial awareness, the initiative enables young people to understand cities as environments that can be questioned, interpreted, and shaped rather than simply inhabited.

A key strength of the project is its integration of education and participation. Instead of treating learning as separate from placemaking, it positions educational processes as a foundation for future civic engagement and more inclusive urban development. This broadens placemaking beyond immediate spatial interventions to include the long-term development of citizens' capacity to participate in shaping their environments.

Miss Miyagi

Miss Miyagi is a Belgian consultancy specialising in adaptive reuse, temporary use, and the redevelopment of vacant buildings and sites. Working primarily in Flanders, the organisation supports property owners, public authorities, and development partners in transforming underused spaces into temporary or permanent programmes that combine social activities with long-term redevelopment strategies. Rather than acting as a community organisation, Miss Miyagi operates as a professional intermediary, coordinating projects from early feasibility studies to implementation. Its work demonstrates how placemaking language and temporary use practices can become integrated into property development and urban regeneration.

Miss Miyagi represents a valuable boundary case for placemaking because it demonstrates how the language and practices of temporary use, social activation, and place-based development can operate within a property-led redevelopment framework. The organisation successfully creates opportunities for temporary public use, supports cultural initiatives, and activates vacant buildings, yet these activities are generally embedded within redevelopment strategies defined by property owners and institutional partners.

Unlike community-led placemaking initiatives, decision-making over the long-term future of a site typically remains with owners and commissioning bodies, while participation is mediated through professional project coordination. Users are invited to occupy and animate spaces, but their role in shaping long-term governance, ownership, or redevelopment trajectories is more limited. In this sense, temporary use functions simultaneously as a public programme and as part of a broader development strategy.

Rather than positioning the case outside placemaking, it highlights the diversity of contemporary place-based practice and the different governance models through which places are produced. It also raises important analytical questions about the relationship between activation and co-creation, temporary participation and long-term stewardship, and the extent to which placemaking redistributes decision-making power or primarily facilitates redevelopment. These characteristics make Miss Miyagi a useful reference point for distinguishing between community-led placemaking and professionally managed, development-oriented approaches while recognising that both contribute to the production of place.

Loppemarked

The Loppemarked challenges conventional understandings of placemaking by demonstrating that places may be produced through ritual rather than design. Unlike many placemaking initiatives that focus on physical transformation or participatory planning, this case illustrates how recurring collective practices can generate equally strong forms of belonging and place attachment. The flea market itself is not the primary outcome; rather, it provides the social infrastructure through which community relationships are renewed year after year.

The case also highlights the importance of repetition in sustaining place. While many placemaking projects rely on one-off interventions or limited-term funding, the Loppemarked derives its significance precisely from its predictability and continuity. Each annual event reinforces memories of previous gatherings while creating new opportunities for participation, allowing local identity to be continually reproduced across generations.

Placemaking Europe / STIPO Training Ecosystem

Placemaking Europe is a transnational network that promotes placemaking through conferences, festivals, publications, training programmes, and professional exchange. Together with organisations such as STIPO and the City at Eye Level initiative, it has played an important role in establishing placemaking as a recognised field of urban practice across Europe. Rather than implementing projects directly, the ecosystem focuses on knowledge production, capacity building, networking, and professional development, connecting practitioners, municipalities, researchers, consultants, and educational institutions.

The Placemaking Europe/STIPO ecosystem represents an important boundary case for placemaking because it shifts attention from place production itself to the production of the placemaking field. Rather than creating places directly, it creates the knowledge, networks, vocabulary, and professional legitimacy through which placemaking is increasingly understood and practiced.

The ecosystem has made significant contributions by connecting practitioners internationally, developing educational resources, and establishing a common language for participatory urbanism. At the same time, its reliance on conferences, training programmes, publications, and consultancy raises questions about how access to this professional community is organised. Participation often depends on institutional affiliation, financial resources, English-language competence, and the ability to attend paid events, creating thresholds that may be more accessible to municipalities, universities, and consultancies than to grassroots initiatives or smaller community organisations.

This case therefore highlights an important distinction between placemaking as a civic practice and placemaking as a professional field. As the latter becomes increasingly institutionalised, questions emerge about who defines legitimate knowledge, whose practices become visible, and how professionalisation shapes access to the field. Rather than suggesting a contradiction, the case illustrates the ongoing tension between broadening participation in placemaking and building a sustainable infrastructure for professional learning and exchange.