Participatory urbanism
32 places in the atlas
Planning, public space design or regeneration processes with real neighbourhood participation, from Japanese machizukuri to vacant lot programmes and tactical urbanism.
Japan9
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…
Furano Marcheフラノマルシェ
Furano, Hokkaido · Hokkaido
A food and retail complex on the site of a relocated hospital, a national symbol of citizen-led town centre revitalisation, combining local produce,…
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…
Kumamoto Artpolisくまもとアートポリス
Prefectura de Kumamoto · Kyushu
A programme commissioning signature public architecture (Ando, Ito, Sejima) with independent curatorship and workshops between architects and residen…
machimori / Atami Ginza熱海銀座
Atami, Shizuoka · Chubu
Bottom-up regeneration of central Atami after its tourism bubble collapsed: vacant premises renovated by young entrepreneurs and "renovation machizuk…
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…
Spain5
El Cabanyal participativo
Valencia · C. Valenciana
From the Salvem el Cabanyal movement against the avenue's extension (twenty years of resistance) to the participatory regeneration plan of the seasid…
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…
Estonoesunsolar
Zaragoza · Aragón
A programme that turned dozens of vacant lots into squares, gardens and courts through employment plans, with neighbourhood decision processes.
Solar Corona
El Carmen, Valencia · C. Valenciana
A private lot ceded and activated by collectives and neighbours of El Carmen as a community space for culture, cinema and encounter.
Superilles (supermanzanas)
Barcelona · Cataluña
Reorganising traffic into superblocks to give streets back to pedestrians, play and greenery.
France7
Ateliers Médicis
Clichy-sous-Bois · Île-de-France
A public cultural institution created in 2015 in Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil, the municipalities that symbolised the 2005 riots, to host artist…
Base 11/19
Loos-en-Gohelle · Hauts-de-France
A former mine pit closed in 1986 in the town of Loos-en-Gohelle, converted into a reference hub for sustainable development with intensive resident p…
Bruit du Frigo
Bordeaux · Nouvelle-Aquitaine
An urban creation collective founded in 1997 by architects, with roots in street workshops from the mid-1990s.
Les Grands Voisins
París · Île-de-France
Temporary occupation of a former 3.4-hectare Paris hospital between 2015 and 2020, run by the collectives Aurore, Plateau Urbain and Yes We Camp.
Les Quatre Saisons
Rouen · Normandie
An intergenerational residence of 35 homes in the Grand-Mare district of Rouen, driven since 2016 by the neighbourhood association BVGM and built tog…
Saillans, democracia participativa municipal
Saillans · Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Between 2014 and 2020, a citizens' list with no leader or fixed manifesto governed this Drôme municipality using participatory democracy methods: com…
Italy11
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…
Cvtà Street Fest
Civitacampomarano (Campobasso) · Molise
An international urban art festival that since 2016 has brought murals by artists from around the world to the façades of a medieval Molise village e…
Farm Cultural Park
Favara (Agrigento) · Sicilia
A contemporary art centre created in 2010 by notary Andrea Bartoli and lawyer Florinda Saieva in the historic centre of Favara, five months after the…
Giardino ex Caserme Duca d'Aosta
Trento · Trentino-Alto Adige
In 2024, during Trento's year as European Volunteering Capital, the San Giuseppe Santa Chiara district ran a participatory process to revalue the gar…
Giardino Liberato di Materdei
Nápoles · Campania
A former garden of an abandoned convent in the Materdei district, reclaimed around 2012 by residents and collectives who turned it into a vegetable g…
LamaLAMA Impresa Sociale
Florencia (FI) · Toscana
LAMA is a Florentine cooperative founded in 2007 that specialises in public policy design, participatory processes, placemaking and the management of…
What they share: The plan is not a document but a conversation: the neighbourhood takes part in deciding and also in making.