Commons and belonging
85 places in the atlas
Places whose reason for being is to sustain the bond: belonging to something shared rather than consuming a service. Urban commons, self-managed or co-managed spaces, cohousing and places of belonging (ibasho).
Japan5
Ibasho House居場所ハウス
Ofunato, Iwate · Tohoku
A donated farmhouse dismantled and rebuilt by local artisans after the 2011 tsunami.
Ishinomaki Laboratory石巻工房
Ishinomaki, Miyagi · Tohoku
Born as a public DIY workshop so that neighbours hit by the tsunami could repair houses and furniture; today it is a global "Made in Local" furniture…
Kodomo Shokudo / Musubieこども食堂・むすびえ
Red nacional (sede Tokio) · Nacional
A network of community canteens that reached a record 12,601 in 2025, outnumbering public high schools.
Machizukuri de Ishinomaki y Kesennuma石巻・気仙沼
Miyagi · Tohoku
Participatory reconstruction after the tsunami: local initiatives in central Ishinomaki and the regeneration of Kesennuma's fishing cultural landscap…
Mano / Nagata (Kobe)真野・長田
Kobe, Hyogo · Kansai
A founding case of machizukuri: its neighbourhood organisational fabric enabled a participatory reconstruction after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Ear…
Spain16
Astra
Gernika · País Vasco
Gernika's former arms factory converted, through youth and neighbourhood initiative, into a "social creation factory" co-managed with the town counci…
Ateneu Popular 9 Barris
Nou Barris, Barcelona · Cataluña
An asphalt plant occupied by neighbours in 1977 and turned into a community cultural centre devoted to social circus.
Can Batlló
La Bordeta, Barcelona · Cataluña
A 19th-century factory precinct recovered through neighbourhood pressure ("tick-tock, Can Batlló") and run communally: people's library, carpentry, b…
Casa Grande del Pumarejo
Sevilla · Andalucía
An 18th-century palace inhabited and defended by its neighbours as a community house: living heritage, a popular school, a solidarity pantry.
CSA La Tabacalera
Lavapiés, Madrid · Madrid
The former Embajadores Tobacco Factory, partly ceded as a self-managed social centre: workshops, rehearsals, a garden, screen printing and assemblies…
El Campo de Cebada
La Latina, Madrid · Madrid
The lot of the demolished La Latina sports centre, ceded to neighbours and run by assembly for seven years: garden, sport, cinema, assemblies and sel…
France20
Coco Velten
Marseille · Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Temporary occupation of a former public building in central Marseille, led by Yes We Camp with Groupe SOS and Plateau Urbain.
Darwin Écosystème
Bordeaux · Nouvelle-Aquitaine
A former 19th-century military barracks, handed over in 2008 and transformed since 2011 into an ecological transition ecosystem with coworking space,…
Écolieu La Filerie
Fresnes · Centre-Val de Loire
A resource space for ecological transition in the Sologne, created in November 2019 by a group of residents of Loir-et-Cher around a vegetable garden…
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…
La Cagette
Montpellier · Occitanie
A cooperative and participatory supermarket opened in 2017, run by more than 5,500 members who are at once owners, customers and volunteer workers.
La Californie
Toucy · Bourgogne-Franche-Comté
A former industrial friche in Toucy transformed since 2018 by three local associations and residents into a space for making, experimentation and enc…
Italy44
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 del Popolo Il ProgressoCircolo Il Progresso
Florencia (FI) · Toscana
The Casa del Popolo Il Progresso was founded in 1915 in the Florentine district of Rifredi as a workers' recreational society and moved in 1922 to th…
Casa delle AgriCulture Tullia e Gino
Castiglione d'Otranto (Lecce) · Puglia
An association founded in 2013 in a village in the Salento to reclaim more than fifteen hectares of abandoned land lent free of charge by their owner…
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 Cuccagna
Milán · Lombardia
This 17th-century farmhouse, municipal property since 1984, was abandoned and declared uninhabitable in the 1990s.
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…
What they share: Governance rests with those who inhabit the place, and belonging matters more than using.