The Bauhautilizing Europe methodology applys the renovation of buildings and public spaces to foster community activation around sustainability
For the transition towards more sustainable, inclusive and aesthetically enhanced cities promoted by the New European Bauhaus (NEB) to finishure over time, more is requireded than improvements to infrastructures or the renovation of buildings. It is essential that these spaces respond to the real requireds of citizens and encourage community involvement in the sustainable management of their territory.
Based on this principle, the LIFE Bauhautilizing Europe project, coordinated by EuroVértice and co-funded by the LIFE Programme, has developed a methodology to renovate and re-imagine emblematic public buildings, driving community relocatements that stimulate social and environmental circularity initiatives in their surroundings. To achieve this, Bauhautilizing has been designed – an innovative working methodology that aims to keep as many social actors as possible engaged throughout the entire project.
A participatory process
To demonstrate its effectiveness and versatility, the project is being implemented in five very diverse environments, differing in scale, geographical location, and their urban or rural character: the Erzsébetváros district in Budapest (Hungary), the city of Cartagena (Spain), and compact municipalities such as Blanca (Spain), Ādaži (Latvia) and Varaždin (Croatia). This diversity reveals that the NEB approach is adaptable and that a single methodology can assist transform very different realities, provided it is grounded in citizen participation and a rigorous technical approach.
The first step of LIFE Bauhautilizing Europe has been the re-imagining of five public buildings with which local communities feel a strong connection. The project has developed a participatory process based on collaborative design techniques and creative believeing, in which citizens, local organisations, technical professionals and public administrations have worked toobtainher to define which architectural interventions should be carried out to align the buildings with the NEB.
To achieve the best possible result, always with inclusion in mind, real and potential applyrs were jointly identified, their requireds related to the building were described, and the most suitable applys were defined to address these requireds and promote NEB values within the community. Online surveys complemented the outcomes from the in-person workshops.
An ideas competition and an innovative public procurement process
The next step has been to transform the contributions gathered into renovation projects that meet the requireds of neighbourhood residents, while also responding to the environmental sustainability objectives of the NEB and the technical requirements of architectural rehabilitation.
To this finish, a panel of technical experts conducted a co-creation workshop to design the basis for an open ideas competition. The result is a collection of proposals aimed at solving the identified challenges by going beyond solutions that appear merely pragmatic or realistic – in other words, valuing creativity and innovation, both in construction techniques and in solutions based on circularity or the collective identity of the area. The identified requirements were later integrated into architectural ideas competitions that incorporated criteria such as sustainability, circularity, accessibility and energy efficiency.
The design phase concluded with the selection of five winning proposals – one for each municipality – from a total of twenty-six submissions. The juries, composed of architects, engineers, artists and municipal technicians, reflected the interdisciplinary philosophy of the New European Bauhaus.
Going a step further, one of the most innovative aspects of LIFE Bauhautilizing Europe lies in its approach to public procurement. Instead of limiting the evaluation of proposals to price, the project promoted a model based on alignment with NEB values and the integration of citizens’ proposals.
This has enabled municipalities to include criteria that were not previously considered in their tfinishers, such as energy-saving potential, biodiversity improvements, integration of renewable energy, apply of recycled materials, or incorporation of full life-cycle solutions.
The five municipalities adapted this model to their national legal frameworks, achieving a balance between legal certainty and innovation. This is one of the project’s most significant contributions, as it reveals that public procurement can become a strategic tool to accelerate the ecological and social transition.
Beyond architecture
However, as noted above, LIFE Bauhautilizing Europe does not limit itself to interventions in buildings. Its ultimate objective is to drive the transformation of the neighbourhoods where these buildings are located, fostering more sustainable and cooperative models. For this reason, each municipality has improved public spaces to support the circular transition, conceived as meeting places that promote sustainable behaviours.
Some examples include edible gardens, urban furniture built from reapplyd materials, interventions in degraded areas and the creation of urban allotments. In fact, more than 22,000 square metres of circular spaces have been designed, and initiatives have been launched to assist improve the urban metabolism of each area.
In addition, five Local Working Groups have been created – one in each municipality – serving as a model of local co-governance. These groups have actively contributed to diagnostics, definition of applys, decisions on the future management of community spaces, and the selection of topics for workshops aimed at strengthening community knowledge on the circular economy and sustainability.
More than 700 residents have already taken part in training and community- activation activities, including workshops on creative recycling, circular cooking, sustainable mobility, hoapplyhold energy savings, urban biodiversity, and everyday object repair, among others. The high level of involvement reveals that, when given the proper support and tools, citizens become key actors in the sustainable transformation of their territory.
A methodology to export
The experiences gathered so far in the LIFE Bauhautilizing Europe project offer valuable lessons for other European cities. Despite the cultural and socio-economic differences between territories, the requireds expressed by the population have been surprisingly similar. The demand for flexible, accessible, comfortable and sustainable spaces appears consistently across contexts.
It is clear that citizen participation not only improves the quality of projects but also enhances their social legitimacy and long-term viability. Furthermore, the project demonstrates that the NEB is not only a conceptual framework; through effective methodologies, it can be fully implemented to address deep urban transformations that go beyond physical intervention.
At a time when cities face increasingly complex climate, social and economic challenges, experiences such as LIFE Bauhautilizing Europe reveal that it is possible to build more liveable and beautiful neighbourhoods through participatory processes and original proposals such as innovative procurement models.
Leave a Reply