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Organizing, Promoting and ENabling HEritage Re-use through Inclusion, Technology, Access, Governance and Empowerment

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - OpenHeritage (Organizing, Promoting and ENabling HEritage Re-use through Inclusion, Technology, Access, Governance and Empowerment)

Reporting period: 2021-06-01 to 2022-09-30

OpenHeritage (OH) has addressed the need to develop more inclusive and sustainable models for adaptive heritage reuse, placing the idea of inclusive governance of cultural heritage sites together with the development of heritage communities at its centre. This means empowering the community in the processes of adaptive reuse, giving them the ability to influence how heritage sites are dealt with in their respective environments.

Openness is a central idea of the project, determining its operation on three levels: (1) an open definition of heritage, not limited to listed assets but also including those buildings, complexes, and spaces that have a symbolic or practical significance for local or trans-local heritage communities; (2) opening up the opportunity for actors interested to be involved in the management of heritage sites, and finally (3) keeping the processes open-ended with possibilities for change.
To achieve its goals the project analysed good practices of adaptive heritage reuse from across Europe (Observatory Cases) and tested new ways of site management in its six Cooperative Heritage Labs. Working together with residents, local businesses, higher education organisations and municipalities, OH explored diverse partnership arrangements, community engagement methods, business models and financial mechanisms. Enabling underrepresented, culturally/socially/economically marginalized groups to claim their heritage, to improve their living conditions and future prospects is a key element in the adaptive reuse models promoted by the project: the transformation of abandoned cultural heritage sites is seen as an opportunity to increase community cohesion and support social integration, to boost innovative bottom-up economic initiatives and to create new employment opportunities.

OpenHeritage had five main objectives as a framework for achieving its goals:

(1) Creating an in-depth evaluation of existing policies and practices;
(2) Promoting transferability of good practices;
(3) Developing and testing inclusive models of adaptive heritage reuse;
(4) Creating a toolbox to support the inclusive adaptive reuse of heritage assets;
(5) Sharing OpenHeritage’s model with the wider community of stakeholders and promote its uptake.
OpenHeritage was divided into two phases: diagnosis and innovation. In the diagnostic phase it applied a multi-layered methodological framework to assess and analyse how adaptive heritage reuse is regulated and practiced currently in Europe. The first step was a macro-level overview focusing on policies and institutions, followed by an in-depth study of practices at sixteen different adaptive reuse sites all over Europe. The prior consisted of a policy analysis, aiming to map the general context and the most important trends, the main actors, the relevant act and codes, policy directions, thematic programmes, strategic documents, and tools in adaptive heritage reuse, ranging from the national to the local level. Additionally, a European typology of the governance context for adaptive heritage reuse was created to conceptualise the similarities and differences in institutional and policy-contexts that facilitate or restrict adaptive reuse.

The latter meant a micro-level research of sixteen Observatory Cases, which focused on a contextualised understanding of how adaptive reuse works in practice, how the specific local circumstances interact with the larger institutional and regulatory frameworks, and how this interaction influences the outcome of the specific reuse projects. The reports were complemented with short videos, making the experiences more tangible, helping partners identify models and mechanisms that could potentially be transferred to other contexts.

Knowledge on policies and practices as it emerged from the macro- and micro-level analysis was assessed in a complex evaluation which created the basis for a transferability matrix. Additionally, using the analysis a database was developed, revealing some of the key components of successful adaptive heritage reuse and uncovering connections between the cases based on shared characteristics.

The innovation element of the project was represented by six Cooperative Heritage Labs and the connected toolbox development. The Cooperative Heritage Labs represented different types of heritage sites and were located in different countries, and operated within diverse legal, political, and socio-economic contexts. Using the living lab methodology these Labs became the places of co-creation and experimentation, where not only project partners were involved in the research, but an extensive group of local stakeholders too. Results of the research process in the diagnosis part found their way into the Lab’s daily work. In turn, the Labs influenced the way research was carried out and provided materials to study. Work in the Lab has contributed substantially to the toolbox development of the project as well, which was created to empower local communities to become fully involved in and engaged with the long-term and sustainable management of their heritage sites. The toolbox focuses on the 3 pillars of inclusion/integration emphasized by OpenHeritage. It provides tools for community and stakeholder involvement in the reuse and maintenance process (through the web-based Heritage Points, a refined crowdsourcing framework and developed guidelines for public-private-people partnerships), for resource integration involving new financial and economic models (with inclusive business models) and for the improvement of regional/territorial integration, working with the local social, environmental, administrative, and economic context of the heritage sites (a roadmap to enhance regional cooperation).
OpenHeritage has developed a strong impact on a variety of fields that range from urban transformation, capacity building to education and dissemination. In OpenHeritage, bottom-up adaptive reuse was investigated and documented in ways that made its underlying processes more “tangible” for practitioners and researchers. The social impact of OpenHeritage lies foremost in the collected knowledge and experiences about citizen involvement in heritage reuse which will continue to be made available to a wider audience of policymakers and practitioners in Europe and beyond.

During the project, the most tangible impact was felt in the six Cooperative Heritage Labs. These, while developing new spaces and experimenting with new models for community-led urban and rural property development, also opened up new opportunities in the form of new services, jobs or social welfare in their environments. What regards the studied Observatory Cases, they addressed the potential that adaptive reuse can bring to smaller or bigger localities, and especially to underdeveloped areas. Sharing these stories through various channels has given insights to a wider audience into practices that can steer the adaptive reuse of heritage spaces toward more sustainable and inclusive ways.
In the coming years, the experiences and products of OpenHeritage will be used to further investigate and put into practice the lessons of community-driven adaptive heritage reuse. Furthermore, the concepts and frameworks developed can be used for future projects on citizen involvement in other fields, such as inclusive agriculture and food systems, inclusive energy production and consumption, etc.