Rock – Regeneration and Optimisation of Cultural Heritage in Creative and Knowledge cities

WHEN
2017-2020

WHERE
Europe

PARTNERS/CLIENTS
32 partners from 13 countries

REFERENCE ACTIVITY
International Cooperation

THEMATIC SCOPE
Place-based development

ROCK explores how historic city centres can serve as extraordinary living laboratories that demonstrate how cultural heritage can be a powerful driver for regeneration, sustainable development and economic growth for the whole city.

Rock – Regeneration and Optimisation of Cultural Heritage in Creative and Knowledge cities

ROCK explores how historic city centres can serve as extraordinary living laboratories that demonstrate how cultural heritage can be a powerful driver for regeneration, sustainable development and economic growth for the whole city.

WHEN
2017-2020

WHERE
Europe

PARTNERS/CLIENTS
32 partners from 13 countries

REFERENCE ACTIVITY
International Cooperation

THEMATIC SCOPE
Place-based development

Abstract

The project explores the transformation of historic town centres that have experienced physical decline, social conflict and poor quality of life in Creative and Sustainable Neighbourhoods. Change is effected by sharing new environmental, social and economic interventions.

The approach has proved highly effective, with potential for replication, and the ability to be both adaptable to different needs of city centres and easily integrated with city management plans and associated financial support. It has been piloted in three cities: Bologna, Lisbon and Skopje.
The project, secured the first position in the European Horizon 2020 call under the Climate – Greening the Economy axis, responding to the call “Cultural Heritage as a driver for Sustainable Growth.”

Goals

The goal was to demonstrate how the historic centres of European cities could serve as extraordinary living laboratories to experiment with new models of urban regeneration guided by cultural heritage (tangible and intangible). Additionally, the project aimed to activate innovative and unconventional financing mechanisms within a circular economy perspective.

ROCK aimed to develop an innovative, collaborative and systematic approach to promote effective regeneration and reuse of historic centres. This was based on implementing a toolkit of successful heritage regeneration initiatives drawn from 7 model cities: Athens, Cluj-Napoca, Eindhoven, Liverpool, Lyons, Turin and Vilnius.

Project website

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Toolkit and Placebranding

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Our role

Fondazione Fitzcarraldo, as a member of the Steering Committee, primarily focused on analysing the financing processes used in Europe to support urban redevelopment projects through the enhancement of cultural heritage.

In the ROCK project, Fondazione Fitzcarraldo supported mapping activities by sharing data related to existing practices and successful cases in the field of cultural heritage. This data was accumulated over the last 20 years of work at national and international level. The Foundation played a crucial role particularly in the case study of Turin,, through its leading role in the Cultural Observatory of Piedmont.

Leveraging its expertise in mentoring and providing technical support to cultural and creative enterprises, Fondazione Fitzcarraldo also led activities aimed at promoting horizontal cooperation and a mix of top-down and bottom-up initiatives involving different stakeholders from the public and private sectors and civil society.

Through the study and analysis of urban regeneration processes initiated by the ROCK project in the Replicator Cities, Fondazione Fitzcarraldo and its partners also produced a set of guidelines, tools, and methodological indicators for the development of business models suitable for different urban contexts.

Partners

The ROCK consortium is composed of 32 partners from 13 countries, including municipalities, universities, SMEs, companies, associations, data managers, developers, dissemination and networks among EU cities, development groups, and consultants, etc.