Forgotten for almost a decade, the complex of buildings that once constituted the offices for the administration of statistics under the old socialist regime came to the center of the public discourse as a symbol of an across-the-board struggle for the right to the city of Berlin. Civic society actors and public stakeholders joined their efforts to put the unconditional selling of publicly-owned buildings to a halt, stressing the need to replace the monetary principle with the pursuing of the societal common good. The professionalization of bottom-up forms of activism claiming space for culture and diversity transformed the Haus der Statistik initiative into a large-scale project. This currently aims at regenerating the buildings to benefit local neighborhoods, refugees and cultural producers alike through the implementation of participatory practices of urban development.
Since 2014, in the heart of the Giardini Margherita park in the city of Bologna 500 m² of abandoned greenhouses and 3000 m² of open-air area have been the subject of an incremental regeneration process that has given rise to Le Serre dei Giardini, a veritable ‘nursery’ of ideas: here desirable, sustainable and inclusive futures are brought closer to people through the realisation of tangible projects that propose a rethinking of the relationship between urban space, human beings and the natural environment.