Description
KÉK’s aim is to empower civil society by creating a framework for the use of vacant properties through temporarily discounted lease. Besides the large number of long-term vacant properties many groups with social/art activities lack space. Connecting them will serve as a catalyst. KÉK elaborates and demonstrates through managing the partners into a legal and economic framework for renting and operating spaces. This opens perspectives for civil society, real estate owners in creating new uses for properties. Activities: identifying community organizations in need of space; developing their projects, mapping empty properties and current state of rental legislation; elaborating models of sustainable use; negotiating with owners; organizing professional and public events and campaigns. The Oslo School of Architecture and Design supports the program with experiences from Oslo in form of a workshop, field trip and an exhibition. http://toltsdujra.hu/en/, http://lakatlan.kek.org.hu/en/.
Summary of project results
Civic City,a program by KÉK addressed the problem of vacant properties and the lack of available spaces for the civic sphere.The program’s objective was to establish a streamlined process that enables social and cultural initiatives access unused spaces for affordable rents, thus improving their visibility, productivity and resilience. While the program managed to find work- and community space for a dozen initiatives, it did not fully achieve to create a framework providing fast and simple access to vacant spaces for civic initiatives.However, through a series of public and professional events, the program engaged in building on existing practices (including the experience of the Oslo Architecture School), analysing community-generated data, and testing new organisational and economic models. It also brought together civic initiatives, public officers and private developers to establish a joint effort for the community-led urban regeneration through the reuse of vacant properties.
Summary of bilateral results
The Oslo School of Architecture and Design was the name of the norvegian partner Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre (KÉK) . During this project the cooperation with the norvegian partner was quite deep and helpful, and useful for the hungarian bilateral partner as well. They shared or the norvegian partner shared architectural interferences és buisness models for the recycling of vacant places. They visited to Hungary and they had sightseeing tour in Budapest and help to achieved the best models in order to be used by the hungarian ngo's in the future. KÉk visited to Oslo as well during the project in 2015 to get some good practices and models which inspirated KÉK to use the experiences of these models in Budapest. Visit of the norvegian partner to Budapest helped for KÉK to see the hungarian context from distance and discovered new opportunities for the project itself.