City and citizen speed dating

POC REFILL Match Making, Cluj- RO

City and citizen speed dating

A service of co-design of public space imagined by the group of urban artists Somes delivery in collaboration with the Office of Road Safety and Highways in the city of Cluj. 

Informal education outside the walls co-designed by Zaklad Maker Space with the departments Education, Culture, Town Planning and the Mayor’s Office in Poznan. The Nest”, a giant socio-cultural incubator of 6700 m2 developed for 12 months by temporary use of the former building of the Central Library of the city by the collective with “Stadslabo” (Urban Lab) formed of 30 local citizens initiatives in collaboration

Designing a matchmaking methodology

All these cases are the result of the progressive design of the REFILL matchmaking approach, a way to connect temporary use candidates with different departments of the municipal administrations. They get to know one another, find out about each other’s needs and maybe kick off new collaborations. 

Mapping the citizens’ initiatives of the city and identifying a first sample to invited for the pilot; in the same way, identifying among the departments of the administration of the city which are likely to be interested by the invited initiatives; organizing a first meeting between the two to get to know one another; deepening this mutual knowledge through cross-group visits; finally, a very structured matchmaking workshop: two-to-two initiative-department meeting in “speed-dating” mode, building an hypothetical collaboration scenario, assessing its likelihood of occurrence and pertinence for both parties REFILL city partners co-developed this methodology, which was piloted and improved in Cluj, Poznan and Ghent.

REFILL the city 

REFILL the city is an URBACT Action Plannig network of partnering cities including Amersfoort, Athens, Bremen, Cluj, Ghent (Lead partner), Helsinki, Nantes, Ostrava, Poznan and Riga. Its goal for 3 years between 2015 and 2018 was to unite experimented cities with temporary use and developed tools accordingly, such as legislation, funds, financial tools, agencies, networks, digital platforms and so on.

  • Porteurs de projet/Project holders : REFILL The City network
  • Acteurs/Stakeholders : Ce cas provient du réseau REFILL The City cofinancé par l’Union européenne dans le cadre du programme URBACT / This case comes from the REFILL The City network co-financed by the European Union through the URBACT programme 
  • Crédits photo / photo credits : Strategic Design Scenarios