The DumBO Space as an Example of a Dynamic Change and Social Innovation in Bologna

This contribution aims to expose the challenges for collaborative workspaces and their potentialities. The DumBO space in Bologna promotes a local identity that celebrates the urban landscape and engages professionals, artists, and society in a collaborative effort to regenerate abandoned spaces. The name stands for Distretto Urbano Multifunzionale di Bologna (Bologna Multifunctional Urban District), and it is a place where creativity, culture, and community collide, placed on the old rail yard. The wide area of almost 40,000 square meters is under the property of Italian State Railways, which has the task of redeveloping and enhancing infrastructures that are no longer functional for railway operations. The open areas of DumBO have been partially renovated and transformed into innovative spaces for the cultural industry: the professionals can pay for a low-cost service to have a co-working office and use the place for exhibitions and other activities. Therefore, it is a place where associations, businesses, and citizens can collaborate and contaminate each other’s ideas, fostering new and innovative approaches to city development. It is a meaningful example of how a collaborative working space could be transformed into something more that integrates society and the neighbourhood. In other words, it is a project made for the community by the community. As a result, the question is: are collaborative workspaces really open to everyone? In the context of New European Bauhaus (NEB), the “CrAFt – Creating Actionable Futures” European project, funded by the Horizon Europe program, sees citizens as active contributors towards climate neutrality. The ongoing research of CrAFt represents how an area of collaborative workspace close to the city centre yet at the same time away from it, given the actual inaccessibility to the same location, could be a valuable example of a fully inclusive urban regeneration. Furthermore, the current research analysis is based on an empirical approach, public observation of space, surveys, and public alliances for a major public engagement. To examine these data, researchers in different countries have created a tool called the NEB Impact Model, which includes diverse indicators to assess the level of compliance with the NEB requirements of several urban contexts. In essence, the NEB principles of aesthetics, sustainability and inclusion shape the idea of the DumBO project, which encourages sustainability and economic development through the inclusive and alternative approach of the community. As such, it represents a collaborative workspace representative model of co-creation and co-design experiences in everyday life practices.