Dragoner Areal is a key area in the heart of Kreuzberg, the nucleus of a Regeneration area (Sanierungsgebiet Rathausblock) that was planned to be sold to private investors and has been the object of a mobilisation of citizens against the privatisation.
A wasteland along the Spree river, that soon became a place of refuge for those with no place in society. Evacuated from its informal inhabitants, the area has undergone restructuring to host a complex of luxury buildings.
Located in the south-eastern part of the city of Latina, Piazza Ilaria Alpi is one of the place identified by the UPPER UIA project in Latina as a demonstration site for the planting of new plant species to counteract the increase in temperature, linked to the heat island effect. Tesserae was responsible for the co-design activitiies of the project.
Hohenschönhausen is a district part of the borough of Lichtenberg. During the separation of the city, this borough of East Berlin was part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Tesserae has developed participatory workshops with local residents on topics related to issues of a memory culture being documented by residents of the district themselves, promoting activities of community storytelling.
WHERE AND WHEN? Mildmay, Islington, London, UK. From 2018. Involvement in the Comensi project. WHAT’S GOING ON? Mildmay has recently become a preferential target for real estate investment, and it has seen a rapid increase in the number of affluent peope decidig to move in the ward. The new inbalance between housing supply and demand has broght […]
The Bairro Ajuda is one of the 25 local municipalities/parishes that constitute the city of Lisbon, belonging to the Western Zone of the capital, with 2.88 km² of area and 15 617 inhabitants.
In 2012-1015 Laura Colini participated at IRS Leibnitz Institut in a research on Halle-Neustadt directed by Matthias Berndt and Daniel Först. This former East-German city has experienced two waves of privatization, leading to a complete change of ownership structures, marked by the rise of financial investors. Cuts have put increasing pressure on welfare recipients to live in […]
Starting from an urban gardening project, the experience of Prinzessinnengarten extended to a wide range of innovative practices, political stances and networking activities fostering a DIY integrated approach. Since 2020, the gardens occupy two distinct areas, both organized on principles of self-sufficiency, food-independence and social inclusivity: the original site located in Moritzplatz (Berlin-Kreuztberg) and the recent acquisition of San Jacobi cemetery (Berlin-Neukölln). The Prinzessinnengarten project promotes gardening as a practice of community building and social emancipation from urban neo-liberal dynamics, while also offering its visitors and members a wide range of cultural and educational activities aimed at sharing different forms of knowledge and skills and at raising consciousness on current ecological issues and social challenges.
Suffering from its marginalized position during the years of the German division, the neighborhood was recognized and labelled as a deprived area in 2005 due to its low standards of economic development, its poor social integration and quality of life. These characteristics made the territory of Südliche Friedrichstadt a periphery in the centre of Berlin, as the area is located in the proximity of some of the city’s main attractive spots, such as the lively Mitte and the creative Friedrichschain-Kreutzberg. In a twenty-year time-span, a set of policies of local urban renewal has been gradually implemented to re-centralize the neighborhood, starting from the very re-centralization of the role of its residents in directly participating in small decision-making processes. This served to acknowledge, create and institutionalize their identity as a geo-social collectivity. Commercial, leasure and creative initiatives have begun to flourish in the area, projecting it as an emblem of juxtapositions and contradictory tendencies characterizing modern urban contexts, whereby transitions to new lifestyles are mediated by old identites and latent risks of gentrification, displacement and social conflicts.
Once an unattractive place, formerly on the East-West border and at the periphery of public discourse, it has recently become an area of new interest for different social groups. Over the years it has welcomed a mainly Turkish community, but now young people from all over Europe are attracted to Neukölln by its affordable rents, and new bars, art galleries and trendy shops are appearing. However, rents are increasing dramatically, and Neukölln is showing signs of gentrification, which raises debates about the future of the district and its low-income inhabitants.
