SpaceUp

SpaceUp aims to develop, test, and validate comprehensive policy mixes guided by the sufficiency principle to transform under-utilised spaces and optimise resource use in neighbourhoods facing challenges from economic change. This will be achieved by implementing and assessing the policy mixes in diverse rural, peri-urban, and urban settings in Lille Metropole, Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona, and North-West Croatia, focusing on nieghbourhoods that need repurposing. SpaceUp will set the course to turn them into beautiful, sustainable, and inclusive mixed-use places that integrate spaces for living, working, caring, playing and providing services. The outcome of SpaceUp will be to share and mainstream validated methodologies and approaches to achieve such transformative change and we will make this knowledge available to built environment professionals, policymakers, academia and civil society. 

SpaceUp addresses the need for improved space use by introducing systemic social innovation through new ways of thinking, doing, and organising space. It applies sufficiency as a transformative principle to reduce the demand for energy, materials, land, and other resources while delivering well-being for all. By integrating ecological, spatial, economic, and societal dimensions, SpaceUp promotes socially legitimized structural change in the built environment. SpaceUp adopts a unique regional approach: 3 partners, the European Metropolis of Lille (MEL), the Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona (AMB), and the North-West Croatia Regional Energy Agency (REGEA), act as sufficiency orchestrators. They integrate decision-making in spatial planning, housing, mobility, and energy with the ability to mobilise municipalities, data and governance tools. They will guide the implementation of sufficiency policy mixes and selected measures in urban, peri-urban, and rural neighbourhoods which experience economic change. SpaceUp aligns with the New European Bauhaus initiative, intertwining aesthetics, sustainability, and inclusivity. Thus, the project contributes to EU goals, delivering reduced resource consumption, enhanced social cohesion, and responsible space use within planetary boundaries. 

Co-funded by the European Union under project ID 101308785. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.