Civic labs and participation
62 places in the atlas
Citizen labs, civic innovation hubs, digital participation platforms and responses to depopulation rooted in social entrepreneurship.
Japan14
Ama Town / Oki Dozen海士町
Islas Oki, Shimane · Chugoku
A remote island that reversed depopulation under the motto "Nai mono wa nai" (be content with what there is): reforming its only high school to save…
BONUS TRACKボーナストラック
Shimokitazawa, Tokio · Kanto
A low-rise complex on land freed by undergrounding the Odakyu line: live-work buildings with low rents, independent shops, a shared kitchen and a squ…
Fukuoka Growth Nextフクオカグロースネクスト
Fukuoka · Kyushu
The former Daimyo primary school converted into a startup hub with over 400 companies, coworking and free advice.
Grin Grin / Island Cityぐりんぐりん
Fukuoka · Kyushu
Toyo Ito's green-roofed landscape building in the central park of an artificial island, with greenhouses and gardening workshops: public architecture…
HAGISO / hanare萩荘
Yanaka, Tokio · Kanto
A 1955 wooden apartment building saved from demolition and reborn as "Tokyo's smallest cultural complex".
Higashikawa, Town of Photography東川町
Higashikawa, Hokkaido · Hokkaido
A municipality that chose photography as the axis of its identity and development: an international festival, a national high school championship and…
Spain12
Ateneus de Fabricació
Barcelona (red) · Cataluña
A public network of neighbourhood fablabs: digital fabrication at the service of schools, organisations and residents, with social return instead of…
CIVICS (mapa de innovación ciudadana)
Iberoamérica (desde Madrid) · Nacional
A collaborative cartography of thousands of citizen initiatives in cities across Spain and Ibero-America.
Decide Madrid / Consul
Madrid · Madrid
The digital participation platform (proposals, participatory budgets, debates) whose free software, Consul, has been adopted by hundreds of instituti…
Decidim
Barcelona (global) · Cataluña
Free digital infrastructure for participatory democracy, governed by its own community (Metadecidim) and used by hundreds of cities and institutions…
El Hueco
Soria · Castilla y León
A social entrepreneurship ecosystem against depopulation: coworking, a rural accelerator and the Presura repopulation fair.
Frena la Curva
Zaragoza (red global) · Aragón
A civic platform born in 48 hours at the start of the pandemic: a mutual aid map, an open innovation festival and replicas in some twenty countries.
France14
Association Nationale des Tiers-LieuxANTL
París · Nacional
The association that brings together France's third places and their regional and thematic networks, born in 2019 as a prefiguration structure and fo…
Avvià, la fabrique à projetsAvvià
Bastia · Corse
A public project factory run by the Communauté d'Agglomération de Bastia, opened in June 2021 in the historic centre of the city, near the citadel.
BLIIIDA
Metz · Grand Est
A former three-hectare bus depot in Metz, handed over to artists in 2013 during a Nuit Blanche and later transformed by the association TCRM Bliiida…
France Tiers-LieuxGIP France Tiers-Lieux
París (20 avenue de Ségur) · Nacional
The public interest grouping that coordinated state policy on third places, created in 2022 by the State, the ANCT and the national association.
Hôtel Pasteur
Rennes · Bretagne
A former dentistry faculty from the late 19th century, without university use since 1967 and converted since March 2021 into a third place led by the…
L'Hermitage
Autrêches · Hauts-de-France
A former 30-hectare farm estate in the Oise forest, bought in 2017 by a citizen initiative that brought together 850 people and a crowdfunding campai…
Italy22
BASE Milano
Milán · Lombardia
BASE Milano occupies 12,000 square metres of the former Ansaldo factory, in the Tortona district, following a public competition run by the city coun…
Camini
Camini (Reggio Calabria) · Calabria
A village in the Aspromonte that was losing population to emigration until, from 2011, the social cooperative Jungi Mundu (founded in 1999) began hou…
Casa Netural
Matera · Basilicata
The first rural coworking and coliving space in southern Italy, opened in Matera in 2012 before the city became European Capital of Culture.
Cascina Roccafranca
Turín (Mirafiori Nord) · Piemonte
A former 17th-century farmhouse abandoned in the 1960s and recovered by the Turin city council's Progetto Urban, which reopened it as a casa del quar…
Castel del Giudice
Castel del Giudice (Isernia) · Molise
A small mountain municipality in the Alto Molise that in the early 2000s launched, under mayor Lino Gentile, a regeneration model based on a combinat…
Comunità Energetica Rinnovabile di Ussaramanna
Ussaramanna (Sud Sardegna) · Sardegna
A small municipality in the Marmilla that in 2021 launched one of Italy's first renewable energy communities, driven and funded by the town council i…
What they share: Prototyping happens in public, with neighbours as producers rather than audience.