Placemaking Week Europe 2025
I am reflecting back on an inspiring Placemaking Week Europe 2025 in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
I feel like this edition managed to give me the same sense of wonder and interest that I experienced four years ago at my first Placemaking Week in Pontevedra, Spain.
Getting there
This year we chose to travel by train from the Netherlands, first to Rome for a consortium meeting of our InclusiveCity project, then onwards to Reggio. I was traveling with Rana Habibi, a colleague from BUas and the project, and Emmi Bravo Palacios, my colleague in Urban Life & Placemaking.
Kristel Zegers from BUas was also in attendance, though she elected for a much more sensible travel schedule.
I might reflect on this in more detail in a future post, but if long-distance day-trains are to ever compete with flights in Europe, there really needs to be improvements to the punctuality and reliability of the service. That said, the trains themselves and staff offer very good hospitality.
One thing I love about Placemaking Week Europe is the community. Each year I am greeted by familiar faces, some who I see throughout the year, others that I only see in that context. The format of the event too, is relaxed and festival-like, with plenty of opportunity to make lasting connections with people on a personal level.
Connection to education
Suze, Tess & Vera, currently ‘Living in the City’ in Bologna
In the previous two editions we were able to bring our Urban Life & Placemaking students with us. This year, due to the semi-remote location, we chose not to, but happily, we were joined by three students, currently ‘Living in the City’ in Bologna.
I felt a lot of pride seeing them actively participating in workshops and hearing positive feedback from their supervisors, as well as supervisors of other students, currently in other cities.
In general, I received a lot of positive responses about Urban Life & Placemaking and the Living in the City course. Most of the responses came from people who heard about the programme a couple of years ago and it had stayed in their thoughts, others learned about it for the first time and seemed almost relieved that there was a programme like ours out there.
InclusiveCity
As I mentioned, our visit started with a two-day meeting in Rome with the InclusiveCity consortium. This was the mid-term event for the project and hosted by Danielle Patti. Unfortunately, the Rome (and Budapest) members of our five-city consortium have yet to receive funding from their national funding agencies. The Rome case don’t expect to ever be funded.
While this has meant they have had to hold back with the project, they have still been working on their activities in the Bastogi area of Rome, somewhere we were able to visit as part of our programme.
We were struck by how isolated the people and location of this residential area are. The Rome case is probably the one with the most possibility for positive impact on people’s lives, so the lack of funding is a tragedy.
Presentations & Workshops
Getting back to Placemaking Week, I visited a number of very inspiring talks from the likes of Savvas Verdis, Jenny Andersson and Charles Landry.
I was inspired by stories of events being used as placemaking tools, such as Kaya Kaya in Curacao, from Kurt Schoop. Luisa Bravo and Robin Abad presented a manifesto for Parklets, Abbas Sbeity left me full of inspiration with a demonstration of an inclusive placemaking toolkit.
A selection of photos from the week’s workshops
For our own part, the InclusiveCity team ran a session of ‘Reflective Pause’. This started with a guided meditation, inviting participants to reflect on questions posed, thinking about their own practice. It then focused on specific challenges in each city’s own cases and was a great success, with very good feedback. It also turns out I have a good voice for guided meditation recordings!
I come away full of ideas, with new connections and reinvigorated placemaking community friendships. I look forward to the next edition in Wroclaw, Poland.
Maybe I will see you there
