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CENTRINNO Framework

About this GitBook

An iterative document on the CENTRINNO Framework, updated during the project's life

CENTRINNO is a research project that aims at demonstrating how industrial historic sites could adopt innovative, sustainable and inclusive urban transformation processes. The CENTRINNO Framework attempts at creating a common language for all the project partners to understand each other and share our findings with a wider research audience, being able to explain what, why and how things are done in CENTRINNO.

This GitBook is a living document where the different pieces of the project come together, building on the fly this common language and reporting and sharing it during the project's life. This document target audience are CENTRINNO pilot cities and project partners, but also policymakers, local governments, or researchers who are interested in following and applying the CENTRINNO approach, methods, and tools in other cities.

The Gitbook has five parts:

Partners worked on policy recommendations that they shared in two main reports presented in the section.

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Acknowledgement:

This publication reflects the views of the authors only, the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use. The author’s ideas are their own. If you see an error, please let us know: info@centrinno.eu.

This is a project working document, owned by IAAC (Fab Lab Barcelona), one of the CENTRINNO partners. This GitBook is open for public consultation during the project's life, while its content is updated and adjusted according to the work developed.

CENTRINNO Project

New CENTRalities in INdustrial areas as engines for inNOvation and urban transformation

Shape new socio-economic and sustainable identities of industrial historic sites
Foster social inclusion through craftsmanship culture and heritage
Rethink the way cities govern their material resources

CENTRINNO is based on project-based learning, focusing on the role of heritage and vocational training, including digital fabrication tools and soft skills connected to local challenges and needs, and, at the same time, producing social and environmental impact by adopting the principles of circular economy in new urban transformation processes. Ultimately, CENTRINNO tests and assesses innovative strategies, approaches and solutions for alternative urban regeneration processes in different European sites.

Acknowledgement:

CENTRINNO vision

Transforming industrial sites into productive and creative hubs

Two centuries ago, Europe ignited the Industrial Revolution, and economic benefits at regional and national scales became abundant. More recently, globalisation, which was foreseen to strengthen global markets, has led to substantial losses for the manufacturing capacity of European cities. Europe's forced transition to a knowledge economy has resulted in a decrease in manufacturing jobs, a lack of appreciation for these jobs, and the neglect of industrial areas. Subject to decay or exploitation by extractive economic activities, historic industrial areas are disconnected from local knowledge or value generation. Cities are currently facing huge challenges that demand new solutions.

The current model of massive consumption and extraction contributes to the acceleration of the climate crisis. Automation and Industry 4.0 present great potential but also challenges, such as the loss of jobs, the polarisation of the workforce, or the social exclusion of vulnerable populations. Coronavirus pandemic has drastically exposed the fragility of the current system and our own vulnerability in cities. We are at a moment in history in which we need to make a change. CENTRINNO experiments with alternative urban regeneration processes which will be welcomed as opportunities in this context, leaving no one behind as we transition toward a sustainable future.

CENTRINNO supports cities creating local impact by enabling productive processes at post-industrial historic sites and hubs, that

Use heritage as a catalyst for innovation and social inclusion
Boost a diverse, inclusive, and innovative urban economy
Hold true to the ecological challenges of our time

CENTRINNO approach

Heritage, Circular Economy, Social Inclusion, Education and Innovation Spaces

Heritage responds to the need of taking into account the material and immaterial past of industrial historic areas, in order to reflect about the present and discuss what we want for their future.

Circular economy: new productive activity in productive areas needs to consider alternative and circular resource flows that move away from the dominating consumption patterns, based on extraction and depletion of resources, pollution and generation of waste on a massive scale.

Social inclusion: current transformation processes in historic industrial areas, often in central or strategic metropolitan locations, usually increase land value and bring new land uses, producing drastic changes in the physical and social fabric of the city. Urban transformation process in CENTRINNO should consider existing population in decision-making processes, as well as foster social inclusion of disadvantaged or vulnerable groups.

Learning Ecosystems: the new economy at the core of the sustainable and inclusive transformation of historic industrial areas will need new professionals and jobs. Programs at the intersection of hands-on and theory, as well as open and accessible knowledge, play a key role in training this new working force, connecting tangible urban issues with local organizations and companies.

Innovation Spaces: physical and hybrid spaces in which innovative productive activities are experimented from the bottom-up, based on the collaboration between different stakeholders and a democratic access to technology and knowledge. CENTRINNO is based on situated and contextualised action by new constellations of stakeholders, productive activities, economy, and urban space.

CENTRINNO & Fab City

CENTRINNO, a Fab City experiment in historic industrial areas

Fab Cities use the Full Stack to plan initiatives towards an inclusive and sustainable shift in their production-consumption patterns. It is based on a platform-understanding of cities, each platform containing different sets of actors, technologies, spaces, and tools, and at the same time interrelated with each other. The Fab City Full Stack aims at providing guidelines to structure initiatives to understand what resources a city already has, which resources would need to develop, and which existing resources could be used in a different way to foster productive, sustainable and manufacturing activities.

CENTRINNO partners are in constant contact with the Fab City Global Initiative, fostering exchanges between the project's pilot cities and the cities within the Fab City Network, making sure that the experimentation within the EU project can be exploited later in other cities, both in Europe and in all over the world.

Fab City Hub

At the core of the experimentation in Pilot Cities

Pilots will have three main resources that support the development of their own Fab City Hubs:

Developed within the CENTRINNO project, Fab City Hub's ten principles are group three elements The FCH vision, the FCH community, and the FCH infrastructure:

Fab City Hubs are local ecosystem activators
Fab City Hubs are physical interfaces to access local and global distributed ecosystems
Fab City Hubs are complex organisms that foster resilience
Fab City Hubs are extensions of traditional institutions
In Fab City Hubs, community comes first, space comes after
Fab City Hubs give voice to citizens
Fab City Hubs focus on facilitating and empowering communities
Fab City Hubs adopt an incremental approach, and avoid over-design
Fab City Hubs do not replace factories
Fab City Hubs are multi-layered spaces, both physical and digital

CENTRINNO Framework

The project's experimentation framework, including the analysis of tools and methods

The Framework

Research on cities' micro missions

Reconnection of local productive economies with their regional and local biophysical environment, thus, fostering socio-ecological interactions, awareness and interdependencies in which urban communities play an active role.
A maker culture that fosters an active role of citizens in the production model, thus increasing local capacity to produce goods, changing mindsets towards non-consumerism, and increasing local community's resilience and adaptability to global challenges.
Data exchanges and open knowledge are accessible to citizens and provide opportunities for up- dating and acquiring new skills, creating new job opportunities in sectors such as education, agriculture, health, banking, etc.

The CENTRINNO Framework proposes three action areas to organize micro missions. Action Areas facilitate knowledge sharing between pilot cities, as well as the connection of organisational practices and resources available in the CENTRINNO Framework and throughout the project to support experimentation activities. The three action areas are:

Crafting the vision

by understanding and mapping local urban ecosystems holistically

Mapping a local ecosystem may involve understanding the material and waste flows of a city, contextualizing people's narratives, or exploring existing knowledge resources. Under the CENTRINNO approach, mapping local resources is key to understanding the productive capacity of an urban area and find the gaps where specific micro missions may enable impactful change.

Mapping the local ecosystem and finding potential gaps and opportunities may create changes by:

Increasing access and connection to information, communities, projects and initiatives related to the local distributed creative and productive ecosystems.
Embracing emergence of new needs, projects, and organisations through open and resilient structures amidst rapidly changing and hazardous environments.
Engaging with and creating new institutions through experimentation and prototyping of diverse assemblages of actors and functions.
Activating interactions and facilitating connections and collaborations among the different actors active in urban environments.

Narrowing down the scope and lens of analysis may be a good starting point. This may involve selecting a specific type of resource, such as plastics, a type of actor, such as SMEs working on manufacturing activities, or by looking at a specific activity related to a space or community, such as the materials, people and knowledge needed to transform a warehouse into a textile lab, or the food waste generated by local restaurants in a neighbourhood. In the following lines, we present some examples on how tools can be used to change practices.

Collecting, analysing data and sharing it with other partners and stakeholders is key to put topics in the public agenda from the bottom-up, and allows citizens to stirr the public debate of the urban regeneration process, or highlighting potential gaps and opportunities for the circular economy that makers and new productive activities may be able to address.

Practice: Embracing emergence of new needs, projects, and organisations through open and resilient structures

Involving citizens in mapping and managing data is key to develop informed communities that are active stakeholders in the urban regeneration process.

Practice: Engaging with and creating new institutions through experimentation and prototyping of diverse assemblages of actors

The experimentation with new institutions where citizens, local organisations and produces play a role, will showcase innovative governance assemblages for alternative urban regeneration processes.

Practice: Activating interactions and facilitating connections and collaborations among the different actors active in urban environments

Building a community

Inclusive communities of practice and collaborative decision-making

Developing a community of practice and collaborate with your partners and other stakeholders in co-creation processes may produce changes by:

Fostering bottom-up deliberation for defining the needs and conditions for a community coalescing around a physical space
Enabling participation in expression and debate through inclusive approaches that give space to citizens and local communities
Facilitating community action, while orchestrating a common vision

In the following lines, we describe different tools and methods that could be used to create and nurture a local community of practice and co-define its focus interest. These tools are also connected to change in specific practices.

Practice: Fostering bottom-up deliberation for defining the needs and conditions for a community coalescing around a physical space

Personas is a tool used in design-driven development processes for design anthropologists to document and map users’ behavior. Personas translate this knowledge into a form that is simpler and easier to grasp and thus serve as a good basis for the development of new solutions. In CENTRINNO, personas could be used to collectively map and understand the target audience, and adapt the stakeholder engagement and co-creation activities accordingly.

Practice: Enabling participation in expression and debate through inclusive approaches that give space to citizens and local communities

Practice: Facilitating community action, while orchestrating a common vision

Establishing the infrastructure

Fab City Hub as test-beds for a resilient urban transformation of industrial historic areas

Implementing a Fab City Hub as an experimental facility in your local environment involve to put effort in setting up the infrastructure and fosters changes by:

Developing incremental design of space to create room for real and situated needs to emerge from the community
Creating awareness around convivial forms of innovation, manufacturing capabilities, creative citizenship and social connections
Combining physical spaces and facilities with digital communication for diverse communities through multi-layered coordination

Practice: Developing incremental design of space to create room for real and situated needs to emerge from the community

It is key to have a spatial strategy. Square meters in cities are a very precious asset, especially on central and accessible areas. Owing or managing a space is a great start, but if you don't have access to a space yet, you may put in a place a strategy to find one. The Communications Handbook for Projects is a comprehensive resource where cities can find useful resources to raise awareness around your FCH concept or its specific approach. Platforms such as a Blog, social media or YouTube channels will also be useful for pilot cities to continuously co-develop and share the narrative of its own FCH, reaching and engaging their target audiences.

Practice: Creating awareness around convivial forms of innovation, manufacturing capabilities, creative citizenship and social connections

Collaborative activities are at the core of the FCHs, including collaborative fabrication activities and workshops focusing on collaborative design and fabrication of tools and artifacts that cover specific community needs and support the development of better conditions of life. This type of activity will benefit from adopting an Open Design Documentation method by creating simple and detailed how-to guides for community designed and manufactured tools that can be later shared to raise awareness around them. These guides can break language and cultural barriers and allow local communities to scale-wide, through the sharing of knowledge and practices. Tools, processes and designs work better when integrated and adapted to the local context.

Practice: Combining physical spaces and facilities with digital communication for diverse communities

Fostering manufacturing activities and communities of practice around manufacturing will be key to devise alternative paths to transform industrial historic sites. Make Works online platform is a useful resource for pilot cities to manage and foster this type of communities. So far, in CENTRINNO it has been used as a resource to map manufacturers in different cities and regions worldwide, including Paris and Barcelona. Nevertheless, combined with offline activities, such as gatherings or debates, it has a great potential to to enable FCH participatory communities around manufacturing activities.

Fab City Hub Toolkit

to support the emergence and implementation of Fab City Hubs

The FCH Toolkit includes key information about:

The context where the FCH toolkit was originated and its expected impacts.
What is a Fab City Hub, including key terms, the ten FCH principles, and the FAQ.
The FCH Toolkit approach and its iterative development
How to set up a Fab City Hub in your city, both if you start from scratch, or you want to tackle one single challenge already identified locally.

The FAB CITY HUBS Toolkit BLUEPRINT is available here :

CENTRINNO Platforms

Interfaces between the cities' activities and the CENTRINNO framework

Each city may choose its own path to develop its Fab City Hub and its own urban transformation process to foster a sustainable and inclusive economy.

Living Archive

Unravelling the potential roles of heritage in urban regeneration

Local offline co-collection efforts and exhibition space
An online network visualisation exploratory tool which provides access to shared and annotated/tagged local content.
A series of online publications (dossiers) which provide analysis and reflections on the co-collection and curation process and the emergent network of content.

The main purpose of the Living Archive is to help communities imagine a new ‘heritage of making’ through the memories, experiences and traces of (former industrial) places, practices and the related interactions with materials, with contents about:

Practices of making (the acts, skills, modes, devices, tools, words and methods);
Human interactions with each other and with the materials used (in the practices of making);
Effects of the environment (energy, animals, materials, products, etc.) on these human and non-human interactions and vice versa.

During the second period of the project, partners developped the online webplatform for the Living Archive:

You may also read the detailed report of the Living Archive Alpha official deliverable below, containing an explanation of the context, the structure, the methods and tools associated to heritage 'collection and making', and the development process of the platform:

Network

Fostering a socially inclusive and commoning approach in cities activities

The Network supports the development of interconnected socially inclusive communities. It has two different scales where interactions take place: The local hubs' networks where different actors will collaborate to tackle urban challenges, and the global knowledge-exchange network across the nine CENTRINNO cities and beyond.

The two main objectives of the CENTRINNO Network are fostering a socially inclusive approach in pilot cities activities and supporting a "commoning" approach to pilot cities management of resources. The CENTRINNO Network will have different characteristics in each pilot city based on the activities, events, digital exchange systems, or decision-making spaces that are more suited to its local context. Nevertheless, the CENTRINNO Network development will focus in four dimensions:

Developing or adopting tools to manage interactions between the local hub network and other actors
Reflecting upon activities and networking events with a socially inclusive lens to find gaps, engage missing actors, or explore new spaces to disseminate the pilot’s findings
Devising innovative ways to collaborate with other actors in and across Fab City Hubs

Local hubs' networks

Polycentric & collaborative frameworks
Decision making processes
Public participation
Conflict resolution
Glocal interactions

A global knowledge-exchange network

The implementation of the CENTRINNO Network relies heavily on the exchanges and interactions across cities. These bottom-up learning process is achieved by reflecting upon ongoing activities, engaging missing actors, or exploring new spaces to disseminate the pilot cities' findings. It also enables innovative ways to collaborate with other actors in and across Fab City Hubs.

Online exchanges in this platform facilitate CENTRINNO community to feel part of a global movement. The glocal character of the productive and creative hubs is based on a constant connection between the local territory and global economic and cultural dynamics that allow knowledge to travel between different locations. Being part of the larger Fab City community grants the CENTRINNO pilot cities a wider access to people, material and immaterial resources.

The conversation at the CENTRINNO exchange platform takes place in three channels:

The centrinno_library offers a selection of quality content that is extremely useful for pilots. This means that this channel does not promote debates, but essentially only functions as a selection of content published on a regular weekly basis with a tag system to facilitate navigation and searches on specific topics.
The centrinno_forum provide a space to gather and discuss topics of interest to pilots and the Centrinno community. This channel works as a debate space to exchange ideas and points of view.
The centrinno_bar was created with the aim of creating a social meeting point for the Centrinno community. In this channel we promote the free exchange of all kinds of information between all contributors.

The Network blueprint is available here:

Building a community

Inclusive communities of practice and collaborative decision-making

. Co-creation processes are at the core of CENTRINNO to facilitate conversations and discussions among local stakeholders and steer the research process towards alternative solutions that are socially and environmentally sustainable, but also locally significant.

Developing a community of practice and collaborate with your partners and other stakeholders in co-creation processes may produce changes by:

Fostering bottom-up deliberation for defining the needs and conditions for a community coalescing around a physical space
Enabling participation in expression and debate through inclusive approaches that give space to citizens and local communities
Facilitating community action, while orchestrating a common vision

The is the key CENTRINNO platform that supports the development of communities of practice, using heritage as a catalyst for social innovation and stakeholder engagement. Within this platform, you will find different approaches and tools that will help you to adopt a participatory and inclusive approach to building your network of stakeholders. Co-creating a diverse and cohesive community is key to implementing action from the bottom up in any urban regeneration process.

Living Archive

Practice: Fostering bottom-up deliberation for defining the needs and conditions for a community coalescing around a physical space

Neighbourhood typologies, included in CENTRINNO's , is a method used to categorize urban areas according to top-down collected spatial data. This categorization needs to be discussed among different stakeholders and may also support or influence the co-definition of the pilot city's focus. Making this sort of choice, or sharing the results after the categorization, could be a sensitive process, for it may affect or clash with how communities self-perceive themselves. This method requires an open mind and an inclusive approach.

The Participation Map, or Stakeholder Map, is a tool that comes from the and could be used to map and classify local stakeholders of the local pilot city network according to the role they play either in a specific pilot city activity or in its whole experimentation process. The , supported by the project partner , will foster the use of Participation Maps to understand the local actors’ ecosystem and develop a community of practice around training activities in each pilot.

Practice: Enabling participation in expression and debate through inclusive approaches that give space to citizens and local communities

Street Vote is a playful way to connect with citizens in an easy, low-cost, and data-driven way by making interactive interventions in the public space. Passers-by can respond to enticing and inspiring questions through polls displayed in the urban space while at the same time, certain topics are publicly positioned to position or foster a narrative. It may be used as an engagement tool to build up a community of practice, or as a part of a plan to implement a (FCH). Street Vote and other 'community tools' can be found in . Other examples of these tools are the Lego Challenge, a team building activity, the Stakeholder Trust Map, used to classify and analyse collectively the relationship with stakeholders, the Circles of Connection, which provides an overview of the organizations needed to involve in order to reach specific goals, or Ambition Ranking, which is a useful tool to prioritize decisions in a collaborative way and, thus, co-define the focus of a wider community through a very easy set-up.

Practice: Facilitating community action, while orchestrating a common vision

At the core of all co-creation processes in CENTRINNO lays the Emotion Networking method , developed by and the , also a project partner. The Emotion Networking method will facilitate conversations and discussions around the transformation of historic industrial areas, putting heritage items at the centre of the discussion. Each pilot city develops its own way of implementing this method. Discussions about heritage items will ultimately support the recognition of different views, and will contribute to approaching views that may in the future enable collaboration through shared values. This method will also facilitate the collection of qualitative information related to the other , including knowledge on traditional practices (vocational training), missing stakeholders (social inclusion), perceptions on materials and resources (circular economy), or opportunities to collaborate and pressing local issues (innovation spaces).

Other resources specifically aimed at co-defining common interests and supporting the development of a community's vision are the Full Stack Card Game (to devise potential activities aligned to the ) and the Service Journey (to visualize user’s experiences). They can be easily applied in short activities and sessions by pilot cities' teams to co-define with their local communities both the focus and the implementation process of their , often falling in the middle of community and FCH micro missions. Reflection Journals or Zines (collective reflection on a common experience in a short self-published book or text) may also be used to orchestrate a common vision.

Network

Fostering a socially inclusive and commoning approach in cities activities

Adopting an inclusive governance model to make decisions at pilot city level and in the
Developing or adopting tools to manage interactions between the local hub network and other actors
Reflecting upon activities and networking events with a socially inclusive lens to find gaps, engage missing actors, or explore new spaces to disseminate the pilot’s findings
Devising innovative ways to collaborate with other actors in and across Fab City Hubs

Local hubs' networks

CENTRINNO pilot cities focus on the local scale to explore inclusive governance models and implement tools to manage interactions between the local hub network and other actors. This work is supported by our partner , who fosters the discussion at each pilot city around five key governance aspects:

Polycentric & collaborative frameworks
Decision making processes
Public participation
Conflict resolution
Glocal interactions

Adopting an inclusive is a key step towards any hub implementation strategy. To support this, the CENTRINNO Network doesn't use a specific platform or resource to support pilot cities on building their socially inclusive communities. Nevertheless, all tools, approaches and frameworks developed for the CENTRINNO School are included in the Fab City Hub Toolkit, under the step "".

A global knowledge-exchange network

CENTRINNO leverages on the existing infrastructure of , managing its own experimentation space for CENTRINNO FCHs to work in a small group within the network of 41 exiting Fab Cities.

The Network uses the CENTRINNO Slack channel as a global exchange platform. This platform lays within the Fab City slack channel and is moderated by our partners at together with the . This exchange platform is a place for instant communication, collaboration and mutual learning among CENTRINNO community, especially between the nine Fab City Hubs developed during the project's life.

The conversation at the CENTRINNO exchange platform takes place in three channels:

The centrinno_library offers a selection of quality content that is extremely useful for pilots. This means that this channel does not promote debates, but essentially only functions as a selection of content published on a regular weekly basis with a tag system to facilitate navigation and searches on specific topics.
The centrinno_forum provide a space to gather and discuss topics of interest to pilots and the Centrinno community. This channel works as a debate space to exchange ideas and points of view.
The centrinno_bar was created with the aim of creating a social meeting point for the Centrinno community. In this channel we promote the free exchange of all kinds of information between all contributors.

To join the network,

Within the , the CENTRINNO Network is a key platform both to enable a reflection on socially inclusive networks locally and to experiment knowledge exchange with a large community that connects local and global scales, connected to all key concepts of the . This platform is also relevant to map potential stakeholder and collaborators gaps, as well to discuss about the configuration of the different groups that are involved in the FCH's activities.

The Network blueprint is available here:

A dedicated chapter in the has been dedicated to Social Inclusion and Networks.

Crafting the vision

by understanding and mapping local urban ecosystems holistically

Mapping the local ecosystem and finding potential gaps and opportunities may create changes by:

Increasing access and connection to information, communities, projects and initiatives related to the local distributed creative and productive ecosystems.
Embracing emergence of new needs, projects, and organisations through open and resilient structures amidst rapidly changing and hazardous environments.
Engaging with and creating new institutions through experimentation and prototyping of diverse assemblages of actors and functions.
Activating interactions and facilitating connections and collaborations among the different actors active in urban environments.

The main project platform to explore the potential to activate these changes is the . Within this platform, you may also fins a series of tools and methods that will support your city in identifying gaps and opportunities for citizens and organisations to be part of sustainable urban regeneration processes. Pilot cities' micro missions may include mapping their social, natural and industrial resources. CENTRINNO’s understanding of resources includes the interconnections between material availability and flows, the local material and immaterial heritage, local stories and existing knowledge, techniques and processes used in manufacturing activities, or stakeholders and local audiences, among others.

Cartography

The includes several methods and tools to perform activities that could increase access and connection to information. Some of these methods are Geo-Spatial Analysis, Stakeholder Surveying, or Material Flow Analysis. Material Flow Analysis and the analysis of Material Stocks are key approaches in CENTRINNO to develop initial top-analyses to find gaps and opportunities in our ecosystem. Understanding the movement and availability of materials will unfold opportunities for pilot cities to foster, through new products and companies, circular manufacturing in industrial historic sites. This process is supported by , project partner of CENTRINNO. While Material Stock and Material Flow Analysis focus on materials, Geo-Spatial Analysis could be used to map any type of resources, and Stakeholder Surveying is used to map actors and actor-based processes. The latter is also a key method to engage stakeholders if used in combination with other tools.

Practice: Embracing emergence of new needs, projects, and organisations through open and resilient structures

The Smart Citizen Toolkit is a toolkit thought for participatory environmental maker practices that enables gathering data on a specific topic key to a community, while fostering active intervention in its surroundings. In CENTRINNO, the data managed could be used to map issues around physical transformation of historical industrial sites (noise, pollution, etc.), to draw comparisons between the impact of different economic activities (circular manufacturing, traditional industry, or office spaces), or to show the local potential for new activities (e.g., soil quality sensors to map potential for urban agriculture). Some activities around this toolkit (developing the sensor kits, co-defining the issue to be addressed, or data-sharing events) may also be used to build a community of practice. Activities using the Smart Citizen Toolkit may involve the , with more than 9000 registered users and visualized data of more than 1900 unique sensors.

Involving citizens in mapping and managing data is key to develop informed communities that are active stakeholders in the urban regeneration process.

Practice: Engaging with and creating new institutions through experimentation and prototyping of diverse assemblages of actors

Other tools, such as Personas, Participation Maps or Neighbourhood typologies may also be used both to have a better understanding of the local ecosystem and co-developing a community of practice. These tools are described in more detail in , but they can be used to confront and debate different perspectives on the city's neighbourhoods, or to scope together with other partners different configurations of stakeholders.

The experimentation with new institutions where citizens, local organisations and produces play a role, will showcase innovative governance assemblages for alternative urban regeneration processes.

Practice: Activating interactions and facilitating connections and collaborations among the different actors active in urban environments

The previous actions, aiming at changing the three first practices, lay the ground to experiment with new interactions and connections between information, needs and new institutions. These interactions are referred as Synergizing, convening and connecting in the and they are part of the final step pilot cities enable through this platform.

Establishing the infrastructure

Fab City Hub as test-beds for a resilient urban transformation of industrial historic areas

CENTRINNO pilot cities are developing its own specific approach to a local during the project. Each is activated through programs of workshops, events, or trainings that have productive and creative activities at their core and foster collaboration between the local communities of practice and other key stakeholders, such as Municipalities, entrepreneurs, policy makers, industrial actors or educational institutions.

Implementing a Fab City Hub as an experimental facility in your local environment involve to put effort in setting up the infrastructure and fosters changes by:

Developing incremental design of space to create room for real and situated needs to emerge from the community
Creating awareness around convivial forms of innovation, manufacturing capabilities, creative citizenship and social connections
Combining physical spaces and facilities with digital communication for diverse communities through multi-layered coordination

The supports cities in their implementation of their own Fab City Hubs. Contextualised tools, examples, roadmaps, and a lot of detailed information in the toolkit guide interested organisations and citizens in deploying a Fab City Hub in their local environment.

Fab City Hub Toolkit

Even though the Fab City Hub Toolkit is the main resource to implement your own productive hub, we include here some examples of resources that cities could use to implement their own FCH, connecting them also to the CENTRINNO framework and the organisational practices. Nevertheless, if you are interested in exploring the implementation of a FCH in your city, please see .

Practice: Developing incremental design of space to create room for real and situated needs to emerge from the community

A (FCH) offers a permeable space for citizens and groups to experiment together with other actors on productive and circular practices connected with local challenges. Some cities organize Fab City Camps to spread the word locally and organize a local Fab City Hub Community.

Think of your FCH as a test-bed, aiming at increasing impact to the city scale. You may co-create the concept and the spatial approach with your community, and be sure of leaving always room for situated needs of the community. Specific tools and resources are available for this purpose depending on the approach a FCH may adopt, such as the Full Stack Card Game or Street Vote, already described in . Have also a look at , which has not yet a defined space to operate, is approaching an incremental approach.

Practice: Creating awareness around convivial forms of innovation, manufacturing capabilities, creative citizenship and social connections

Oral History Methods are interviews with key figures in the local context that could be done, not by experts, but by peers or collaborators of the FCH community. This could contribute to building the narrative of the FCH around the views and perceptions of the local ecosystem at the same time that the ideas influence the public debate and reach a broader audience. These stories could also enrich the or may be connected with the curricula, thus bringing heritage or education to the core of FCH activities. For the latter, the Open Schooling Framework may support FCHs to work as mediators in their local communities, positioning training programs as spaces for collaboration between families, universities, research institutes, companies or civil society organisations. Also, methods such as Gradual Release of Responsibility, frameworks such as Constructivism, or specific tools such as Service Journey, also mentioned in , may be useful for FCHs implementing training activities.

Practice: Combining physical spaces and facilities with digital communication for diverse communities

In some cases, FCHs will host activities, interconnecting FCH with vocational training and learning experiences. For this, the Fab Academy Distributed Model offers a great source of inspiration as well as key resources to adopt a distributed approach to learning, based on both physical and digital spaces.

For FCHs focused on Circular Economy, digital platforms such as Materiom, or the Circular Material Library developed by , could be used as a source of inspiration to access recipes and specific resources for developing biomaterials or products from waste with their local communities. The DRIVEN x Reflow is an online distributed incubation program developed by , which aims to embed advanced computational design strategies in early-stage entrepreneurship for a circular economy. The program includes an online training workshop to apply digital technologies to the circular economy that may be useful for some pilot cities.

Global platforms are a key resource for cities to expand and develop their own approach in their . The provides cities with tools and resources to foster manufacturing in cities, together with the yearly , an opportunity for pilot cities to discover and join the initiative. The , a networking hub for the European maker movement, or , which aims at sharing principles, tools, and philosophy to democratize access to technology, may be also interesting resources for cities to exchange knowledge on manufacturing and Fab City Hubs globally and collaborate between online and offline spaces. operate locally and share knowledge globally.

Impact Assessment

Constant Evaluation of the CENTRINNO Framework

The main methodological approach employed for the evaluation methodology is Outcome Mapping, a planning and assessment methodology applied in projects aiming for sustainable social and structural change. Outcome mapping approaches impact through three interrelated change processes that focus on (a) outcomes, reflecting changes in behaviours, actions, and relationships of the people and organisations the project directly interacts; (b) strategies, which are employed to achieve the outcomes; and (c) organisational practices, which are necessary for the project to remain relevant throughout and after its life-cycle. Respectively, the CENTRINNO evaluation methodology employs outcome mapping to define impact in terms of:

the relevance of the strategies employed by the project’s technical activities to achieve the above outcomes; and

CENTRINNO Theory's of Change

In order to provide a consistent narrative about the project’s envisaged transformation, upon which the evaluation methodology aims to build, impact assessment is employing a theory of change.

A theory of change provides a clear definition of the project’s starting point, assumptions, envisaged activities and ambitions. It helps explain how the project’s planned activities contribute to the desired outcomes and, eventually, lead to observable impact. From the perspective of impact assessment, the theory of change provides the main line of narrative upon which the evaluation methodology aims to build, connecting impact with the CENTRINNO framework and approach.

To monitor and evaluate these processes of change, a continuous and participatory process has been designed. Pilot participants are included in the definition of the desired outcomes based on their values and local specificities. Project partners (WPs) are engaged in the definition of the strategies, including the key actions and tools offered to the pilot cities, as well as in the assessment of the organisational practices for FCHs and the relevant long-term implications. In this process, the evaluation methodology offers a common vocabulary to understand the CENTRINNO impact, and a structured process, including monitoring tools and step-by-step guides on their application, that systematise the project’s data and resources. The main outputs of the evaluation methodology will be two impact assessment reports, to be delivered during 2023. The coordination of the relevant processes is planned to synchronise with the development of the pilot sprints, defining specified checkpoints for planning and reflection.

Two public reports was developped during the project.

CENTRINNO Handbook

The book ‘Regenerative neighbourhoods in the making’ retraces the practices of neighbourhood regeneration through design during the three and half years of the CENTRINNO project, co-funded by the European Union. It aims to make accessible the project’s methodology and to supports territorial change-makers, from policy agents and urban planners, to designers and citizens. The book gives to the reader a way to be more familiar with the topic of neighbourhood regeneration while at the same time being more equipped to develop local interventions to transform old industrial sites into locally productive hubs. It questions, opens, illustrates, and culturally embeds emerging practices of collective production in urban spaces as a plausible alternative to reconstruct the relationship between humans and natural resources at the hyper-local, regional and planetary scales.

Regenerative neighbourhoods in the making, is a publication developed as a part of the CENTRINNO project.

Written, edited, and advised in a collaborative process led by Fab Lab Barcelona, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, Barcelona, 2024 in collaboration with CENTRINNO partners.

Authors

Marion Real and Milena Juarez (Fab Lab Barcelona - IAAC), Tomas Diez (Fab City Foundation), Frenzi Ritter (METABOLIC), Jonathan Even-Zohar and Hester Dibbits (AHK), Carlotta Fontana Valenti and Francesco Cingolani (Volumes), Cristina Olivotto and Carolina Becker (Onl’fait), Alexandros Pazaitis (TalTech)

Proof-reading and revisions Rebecca Anne Peters (Fab Lab Barcelona - IAAC)

Reviewers: Pietro Lupo Verga, Flavio Besana (Comune di Milano), Carolina Becker and Cristina Olivotto (Onl’fait)

Visual design Manuela Reyes and Guenda Dalcin (Fab Lab Barcelona - IAAC)

Editorial design Aina Eguiluz (Studio Gaecea)

Contributions A big thanks to all the contributors and CENTRINNO partners:

Design Society - DDC, Departament D'educació - Generalitat De Catalunya, Fab Lab Barcelona/ Institut D'arquitectura Avançada De Catalunya, Fab City Grand Paris, Fablab Zagreb, Haskoli Islands - HI, Kobenhavns Kommune, Manifattura Digitale In Ex Ansaldo Rete Di Imprese, Poblenou Urban District, Sony Europe, Stichting Hout- En Meubileringscollege - HMC, Stichting Pakhuis De Zwijger, Sveuciliste U Zagrebu Arhitektonski Fakultet - UOZ, Textilmiostoo Islands Og Pekkingarsetur A Blonduosi - ITC

Information, comments, and discussions: www.centrinno.eu

To be cited as Real, Marion, Calvo Juarez Milena, Diez Tomas, Ritter Frenzi, Even-Zohar Jonathan, Dibbits Hester, Fontana Valenti Carlotta, Cingolani Francesco, Olivotto Cristina, Pazaitis Alexandros. Regenerative neighbourhoods in the making. Centrinno Handbook. Fab Lab Barcelona, IAAC, 2024. ISBN: 978-84-120886-5-6 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Blueprints

Policy development guidelines for replicability and wider use in other cities

By exploring and assimilating how CENTRINNO resources have been developed and applied in diverse territories, the document presents two levels of blueprints derived from the main projects results: the evolution of its core platforms and the primary outcomes of each CENTRINNO pilot city.

CENTRINNO Platforms’ Blueprints

Aligned with the five key concepts – circular economy, heritage, vocational training, innovation spaces and social inclusion – the document brings together the representation of the CENTRINNO platforms creation aimed at supporting a transition of bioregions, cities and neighborhoods towards regenerative, inclusive and productive territories of living and producing.

CENTRINNO Pilots’ Blueprints

In a more practical level and drawing inspiration from the CENTRINNO pilot cities – Amsterdam, Barcelona, Blönduós, Copenhagen, Geneva, Milan, Paris, Tallinn, and Zagreb – the document showcases nine distinctive journeys, accompanied by their main outputs for replication alongside a selection of practical tools developed by the local teams. Based on this knowledge, the report also provides potential recommendations for policy making following a peoplecentred approach. The recommendations include strategies for the establishment of distributed and physical Fab City Hubs reflecting on the solution of complex urban challenges Structure of the Document involving stakeholders at various levels in local policy decision-making, ranging from public and private actors and mature and emerging industries to cities and bioregions, Fab Labs, innovation centers and heritage-related organizations. The recommendations include strategies for the establishment of distributed and physical Fab City Hubs reflecting on the solution of complex urban challenges involving stakeholders at various levels in local policy decision-making, ranging from public and private actors and mature and emerging industries to cities and bioregions, Fab Labs, innovation centers and heritage-related organizations. Within this scope, this document does not intend to cover all the CENTRINNO resources and pilots’ solutions as inspiration for policy recommendations, but rather highlight specific best practices connected to the CENTRINNO main areas of intervention. It endeavors to distill the knowledge obtained from the project into an advocacy call, urging for the enhancement of our cities as more livable, productive and inclusive territories.

Cartography

The CENTRINNO exploratory mapping journey

The CENTRINNO Cartography is a platform for finding, mapping and connecting resources in local neighbourhoods into circular & regenerative local economies. It is an outcome of ongoing work with nine pilot teams working on neighbourhood regeneration strategies as part of the CENTRINNO Project. As an outcome of the cartographic journey, pilots facilitate the creation of industrial symbioses between local industries, or find opportunities and needs for commoning, pooling or sharing tools and equipment required for sustainable production. In a wider sense, mapping of expertise (or the lack thereof) to apply circularity thinking to the design, production, delivery and recovery of goods and services, allows pilots to feed training programs of the CENTRINNO School curriculum with content that is rooted in already existent local knowledge, while also addressing critical gaps to unleash a circular economy.

Former industrial areas give way to redevelopment projects that are set to extract maximum value from "underutilized" urban spaces. Often with profound consequences for local communities who currently live and work in these areas. We need better methods and strategies for regenerating neighbourhoods. Making neighbourhood regeneration truly regenerative means that we start considering locally available materials, skills, knowledge and human resources as the point of departure for the future vision of a circular, inclusive and sustainable city.

As remnants of an old, extractive economy, the nine historic industrial sites participating in the CENTRINNO project possess a broad range of resources and opportunities that can set us on track for building towards the city of the future. CENTRINNO envisions locally productive and circular cities in which everyone has a role to play. From local makers and recyclers to schools and public institutions.

Map the local context: In CENTRINNO, cities are mapped through the flows of materials, socio-economic and environmental conditions, land use and cultural assets, amongst others.
Identify stakeholders and local resources: Long-established residents and newcomers, innovators and traditional craftsmen, old and young - all bring along different skillsets, practices, values and (im)material cultures.
Synergize, convene and connect: The resource inventory process forms the starting point to identify opportunities for more self-managed, locally productive and commons-based neighbourhoods.

Build local capacity to spot opportunities for material symbioses, networking and learning. The platform provides the basis for pilot cities (and their communities) to identify opportunities for implementing circular and socially inclusive value chains. This objective is addressed by mapping stakeholders and their resources to identify materials, infrastructure and machinery that are candidates for “industrial symbioses”, and highlighting gaps that are needed to implement circular economy and inclusive production models.

The Cartography blueprint is available here:

Publication and bibliography

CENTRINNO Publications

Referencing the work of others that inspired and influenced our ideas

Amato, D.; Kalathas, G.; Vlachopoulou, C.; Cingolani, F.; Fontana Valenti, C.; Kühr, W.; Armstrong, K.; Diez, T.; Guy, J.C.; Munoz Unceta, P.; Brouwer, N.; Ritter, F. (2021) Creative and productive hubs journal. Deliverable D3.1 CENTRINNO Project.

Diez, Tomas. 2012. “Personal Fabrication: Fab Labs as Platforms for Citizen-Based Innovation, from Microcontrollers to Cities.” Nexus Network Journal 14:457–468.

Diez, T. (2021) “Fab City Strategic Action Plan”. Conference paper at Fab City Summit 2021. Montreal.

European Commission (2020) Grant Agreement number 869595 – CENTRINNO.

Fab City Global Initiative (2014). Fab City Whitepaper: Locally productive, globally connected self-sufficient cities. Retrieved August 04, 2021

Hill, A.V. (ed.). (2020) Foundries of the Future: a Guide to 21st Century Cities of Making. With contributions by: Ben Croxford, Teresa Domenech, Birgit Hausleitner, Adrian Vickery Hill, Han Meyer, Alexandre Orban, Víctor Muñoz Sanz, Fabio Vanin and Josie Warden. Delft. TU Delft Open, 2020. Retrieved August 06, 2021, from

Jacobs, J. (1961) The death and life of great American cities. Random House, New York

Lave, J.; and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge University Press.

Making Sense Project (2018) Making Sense Toolkit. H2020 Project Final Report and Book.

Patel, R., and Moore, J.W. (2017). A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. N.p.: University of California Press.

Pazaitis, A.; Singh, A.; Niaros, V. (2022) Evaluation Methodology. CENTRINNO project's deliverable (confidential)

Rana, J., Willemsen, M. and Dibbits, H.C. (2017) “Moved by the tears of others: emotion networking in the heritage sphere”, International Journal of Heritage Studies

Robinson, J. (2006) Ordinary Cities. Between Modernity and Development. Routledge. UK

Wippoo, M., Hoekstra, N., van Dijk, D., Muñoz Unceta, P., Guy, J., Ritter, F., Even-Zohar, J., Dibbits, H., Becker, C., and Olivotto, C. (2021) Detailed Pilot Planning & Monitoring Framework. Deliverable D4.1 CENTRINNO Project (confidential).

Glossary

Trying to avoid confusion and misinterpretation of words!

Circular Economy

Circular Economy is a CENTRINNO Key Concept, that emphasises a transformative approach to resource management, promoting sustainability and reducing environmental impact

Community

Community is one of the main action areas identified in CENTRINNO defined as groups of people that may come together locally or globally and over a period of time form a community based on their interest or shared concerns. The project encourages inclusive communities of practice and facilitates the engagement of local stakeholders.

Emotion Networking

Emotion Networking is an exercise created by Reinwardt Academy, that provides insights into complicated interplays between emotions, interests and different sorts of knowledge, and between items of heritage and people.

Fab City Full Stack framework

The Fab City Full Stack is a framework that helps cities and regions interpret the Fab City challenge and guides them to implement it in a multiscalar and ecosystemic approach.

Fab City Hubs

Fab City Hubs are open spaces for city making. They work as a physical interface to connect actors within a Fab City Prototype (usually a neighbourhood) and foster collaboration and exchange of skills and knowledge between local communities in a given territory. (FCH Toolkit GitBook)

Fab City and Fab City Hubs Network

The (EU) Fab City Hub Network refers to the group of nine European Pilot cities, members of the CENTRINNO consortium, that are currently testing and implementing the first innovative models of FCH in their local regions. Both networks contribute to consolidating the model of Fab City.

CENTRINNO Framework

The CENTRINNO Framework is a resource created during the CENTRINNO project to support partners in consolidating their interventions in local territories. It describes a methodological approach to neighbourhood regeneration composed of three action areas, five key concepts, and associated tools and platforms.

Heritage

Heritage is one of the CENTRINNO Key Concepts, defined as a notion, a label applied to items from the past, in the present, toward the future.

Key Concepts and concept owners

The CENTRINNO Framework defines five key concepts which are Circular Economy, Heritage, Innovation Spaces, Learning Ecosystems and Social Inclusion. For each concept, one organisation partner was responsible to define and operationalise the concept through the design and testing of tools and strategies, during the project. Those organisation partners are called ``concept owners”.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is one of the main action areas identified in CENTRINNO focusing on the means and local capacities to achieve transformations towards regenerative neighbourhoods and development of Fab City Hubs.

Innovation Spaces

Innovation Spaces is one of the CENTRINNO Key Concepts, framing physical and hybrid spaces in which innovative productive activities are experimented with from the bottom-up, based on collaboration between different stakeholders and a democratic access to technology and knowledge.

Learning Ecosystems

Learning Ecosystems is one of the CENTRINNO Key Concepts, previously entitled Vocation Training. This Key Concept looks after the importance of learning in regenerative communities and Fab City Hubs by designing training programs to acquire practical skills and a “maker” mindset. Focusing on vocational students, adult professionals and citizens, the overarching goal is to effectively address skills, environmental and knowledge issues.

Maker and craft cultures

CENTRINNO project is led by partners who value the maker and craft cultures, as community of people who design, make, and unmake, share in an open-source way about fabrication processes, questioning the role of art and technology in the current societal transformations.

(urban) Material flow diagrams

Material Flow Analysis (MFA) is a method to quantify the inputs and outputs of physical or non-physical resources (energy, materials, goods) that flow through a predefined system (here - a city). MFAs are used to understand a city's consumption of different types of materials from a higher level, as well as the types of waste it is generating.

Micro-Mission

Micro-Mission is a term used in CENTRINNO as part of the experimentation with the nine pilots’ cities as a unit of action regarding each of the five CENTRINNO key concepts. Pilots organized three sprints during the project with dedicated micro-missions for each concept according to their local context.

Neighbourhood

A neighbourhood is generally defined as a geographical area within a city, typically characterised by shared physical proximity, social interactions, and a sense of local identity among its residents. It is a fundamental building block of urban and suburban environments, encompassing a cluster of residences, businesses, public spaces, and community amenities. As intermediate scales between domestic places and the city, they are looked in CENTRINNO as appropriate playgrounds for sharing, synergizing, and experimenting with change.

Organisational practices

Organisational practices were defined in CENTRINNO as skills, competences, and processes necessary for supporting the development of regenerative neighbourhood processes on the long-term.

Platforms

Tools developed during the project supporting pilots in implementing context-driven micro missions for each of the key concept. It counts digital platforms (the CENTRINNO Cartography, the Living Archive, the Fab City Hubs toolkit), an elaborated approach (CENTRINNO School) and the Network.

Pilots (Pilot teams)

CENTRINNO run an experimentation with nine pilot cities and associate pilot teams taking part in the different micro-mission on the project.

PITO-DIDO

“Product In Trash Out towards Data In Data Out” is a terminology used by Fab City to emphasize locally-circular economies that foster data rather than product exchanges.

Post-industrial cities

Post-Industrial cities refer to the cities that are being regenerated after industrial uses of their lands.

Research Diary

Research Diary in this document refer to an essay written by concept owner to situate, illustrate and reflect on their research during the project.

Social Inclusion

Social Inclusion is one of the five Key concepts of CENTRINNO, addressing the dimension of inclusivity in the process of neighbourhood transformations.

(Industrial) Site Area

Buildings or locations in cities that have once been dominated by industrial functions. They can include abandoned brownfields or derelict infrastructure, as well as areas that have found new functions and uses for industrial heritage buildings. Such sites are present in current neighbourhoods in or outside cities.

Territory - Place

Those two words are used in the book to refer to the studied areas (site area, neighbourhood, cities, bioregions) as geographical spaces qualified by natural and cultural particularities and potentially by administrative perimeter defined by their own national context.

Toolkit/Tools

A carefully curated selection of tools designed to meet specific needs. Each tool is described in terms of its potential purposes and/or outcomes and how it contributes to an overall objective. Depending on the context, different combinations of tools can be used to achieve specific goals. It is important to specify that in this context the term "Tool" is a general concept encompassing methods, workshops, digital platforms, various event formats, and school programs, best practice activities and event formats that can be replicated and adapted by others.

Urban ecosystems

In CENTRINNO, industrial and urban ecosystems are understood as complex and interconnected systems that embrace people and their communities, ecological systems, as well as industrial systems. Industrial and Urban Ecology are field of research that observe the metabolism of such ecosystems.

Vision

Vision is one of the main action areas identified in CENTRINNO focusing on defining the common grounds and envisioning the futures of the investigated area within the community. Mapping is one of the shared activities that is recommended by CENTRINNO partners to engage in regenerative processes in the early stage.

CENTRINNO Framework

About this GitBook

CENTRINNO Project

CENTRINNO vision

CENTRINNO approach

CENTRINNO & Fab City

Fab City Hub

CENTRINNO Framework

The Framework

Crafting the vision

Practice: Increasing access and connection to information related to the local distributed creative and productive ecosystems.

Practice: Embracing emergence of new needs, projects, and organisations through open and resilient structures

Practice: Engaging with and creating new institutions through experimentation and prototyping of diverse assemblages of actors

Practice: Activating interactions and facilitating connections and collaborations among the different actors active in urban environments

Building a community

Practice: Fostering bottom-up deliberation for defining the needs and conditions for a community coalescing around a physical space

Practice: Enabling participation in expression and debate through inclusive approaches that give space to citizens and local communities

Practice: Facilitating community action, while orchestrating a common vision

Establishing the infrastructure

Practice: Developing incremental design of space to create room for real and situated needs to emerge from the community

Practice: Creating awareness around convivial forms of innovation, manufacturing capabilities, creative citizenship and social connections

Practice: Combining physical spaces and facilities with digital communication for diverse communities

Fab City Hub Toolkit

CENTRINNO Platforms

Living Archive

Network

Local hubs' networks

A global knowledge-exchange network

CENTRINNO Project

CENTRINNO vision

About this GitBook

CENTRINNO approach

Fab City Hub

The Framework

CENTRINNO & Fab City

Building a community

Practice: Fostering bottom-up deliberation for defining the needs and conditions for a community coalescing around a physical space

Practice: Enabling participation in expression and debate through inclusive approaches that give space to citizens and local communities

Practice: Facilitating community action, while orchestrating a common vision

Living Archive

Network

Local hubs' networks

A global knowledge-exchange network

Crafting the vision

Practice: Increasing access and connection to information related to the local distributed creative and productive ecosystems.

Practice: Embracing emergence of new needs, projects, and organisations through open and resilient structures

Practice: Engaging with and creating new institutions through experimentation and prototyping of diverse assemblages of actors

Practice: Activating interactions and facilitating connections and collaborations among the different actors active in urban environments

CENTRINNO Platforms

CENTRINNO Framework

Establishing the infrastructure

Practice: Developing incremental design of space to create room for real and situated needs to emerge from the community

Practice: Creating awareness around convivial forms of innovation, manufacturing capabilities, creative citizenship and social connections

Practice: Combining physical spaces and facilities with digital communication for diverse communities

Fab City Hub Toolkit

Impact Assessment

CENTRINNO Theory's of Change

CENTRINNO Handbook

Blueprints

School

Cartography

Publication and bibliography

Policy recommendations

Glossary