Urban regeneration

Innovation Portfolio Approach (IPA) este o metodă inovatoare care gestionează tranzițiile urbane prin portofolii de proiecte interconectate, în locul sprijinirii proiectelor izolate. Conectând creativitatea culturală cu sustenabilitatea existențială, IPA facilitează colaborarea între autorități, organizații culturale, universități și comunități, generând soluții integrate pentru provocări urbane complexe. Prin abordarea IPA, transformările urbane devin mai reziliente, adresând atât nevoile exterioare (tehnologie, mediu), cât și cele interioare (valori, viziuni colective). Este o invitație la co-creație și implicare, redefinind succesul prin impact comunitar și sustenabilitate pe termen lung​.

Future DiverCities is a four-year project funded by the European Commission through the Creative Europe program. Within this project, organizations from eight European cities are leading ecological and cultural regeneration initiatives for unused urban spaces. In Timișoara—one of the eight participating cities, alongside Berlin, Zagreb, Liepaja, Kuopio, Marseille, Florence, and Athens—we developed the GreenFeel Pavilion as part of the Future DiverCities project. GreenFeel is a temporary and adaptable space designed to celebrate and protect nature. The project exemplifies collaborative resource management and community engagement. The land where GreenFeel is located is privately owned, but we transformed it into a community meeting space. Here, different generations explore and nurture their creativity and civic engagement by learning through gardening and building with natural materials. This innovative approach addresses the needs of Timișoara’s residents while promoting a model for impactful and temporary community spaces. GreenFeel thus becomes an example of how cities like Timișoara can inspire new ways of thinking about urban spaces and their role in fostering community cohesion.

Urban regeneration has been one of our main areas of focus from the very beginning and remains a subject close to our hearts. We strongly believe that a city can offer much more than we imagine, without the need to crowd it with new buildings. The story of FABER is one of preserving and repurposing the city's industrial heritage. Since 2018, we have co-owned, together with our partners at Faber.community—Cristina and Valentin Mureșan, the FOR team, and Adrian Erimescu—the former Azur paint factory. Alongside friends and collaborators, we transformed it into FABER: a new space for creation and connection, dedicated to the communities of Timișoara. Here, we also relocated the headquarters of AMBASADA, which had previously operated for its first five years in Paltim, the former hat factory. FABER now stands as a testament to the potential of urban regeneration, breathing new life into old spaces while serving as a hub for collaboration and innovation.

Cultural Creative Spaces and Cities was a transdisciplinary initiative that explored innovative ways to engage communities in urban development. With AMBASADA as the central hub for this project in Timișoara, we created a space for dialogue and collaboration where representatives of local administration, cultural and youth organizations, and community members came together to shape the future of the city. Over six months, through an urban laboratory, we hosted workshops, interviews, field visits, and co-creation sessions aimed at mapping opportunities for Timișoara residents to participate in urban development processes. The project resulted in proposals for local policies, tools for evaluating social impact, and strategies for transforming neighborhoods in sustainable and inclusive ways. This initiative demonstrated the power of collaboration between creative spaces and communities, highlighting AMBASADA’s role not just as a physical venue but as a platform for exchange and innovation. It became a place where ideas for more equitable and participatory cities came to life.

AMBASADA is a social economy structure founded by the PLAI Cultural Center in 2015, with the aim of supporting local communities focused on positive impact in the creative and non-profit sectors. As an independent cultural center, AMBASADA is the first of its kind in Romania and part of the international network TransEurope Halles. Recently, it also became the founder of a new entrepreneurial structure, Faber, which continues the mission of preserving and valuing the local industrial heritage. In 2020, as part of the Cultural and Creative Spaces and Cities project, AMBASADA launched a community garden in the Azur yard. Responding to feedback from its active community, it later transformed this space into a hybrid work and meeting area: building.a.community.