Revitalising forgotten spaces: EU-funded project SpaceUp takes off, turning vacant buildings and areas into beautiful, sustainable, inclusive communities.
EU-funded project SpaceUp takes off to turn vacant buildings and areas into beautiful, sustainable and inclusive communities. Over the next three years (2026–2029), SpaceUp, bringing together eight partners and coordinated by Fraunhofer ISI (Germany), will develop circular solutions to Europe’s urban, peri-urban and rural space-related challenges, piloting sufficiency-driven urban regeneration across Europe. The project will focus on three pilot regions: Lille in France, Barcelona in Spain and North West Croatia. SpaceUp will improve the mapping of under-used spaces to understand what transformation opportunities exist in each area.
Vacant and under-used spaces represent significant untapped potential in Europe’s built environment. While many cities face housing shortages and some rural areas experience depopulation, over 30% of EU buildings are estimated to be under-occupied. At the same time, competing demands for environmental protection, climate adaptation, water management, housing, economic activities and social infrastructure are placing increasing pressure on limited land and space.
SpaceUp seeks to address these challenges by improving how under-used spaces are identified and assessed, helping public authorities understand where opportunities for transformation exist. The project will develop methodologies to map and quantify these spaces, test sufficiency measures in different neighbourhoods and address barriers to their implementation.
The project builds on sufficiency-related objectives linked to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and the Circular Economy Action Plan by developing innovative methodologies to map and quantify under-utilised spaces, testing and validating sufficiency measures in diverse neighbourhoods, and overcoming non-technical barriers. Current approaches have largely focused on technological and procedural optimisation, achieving incremental improvements but leaving the underlying systemic challenges unresolved. SpaceUp will address the gap by transferring this knowledge into practical, real-world applications that enable local administrations and planning agencies to implement sufficiency measures effectively.
On-the-ground research will take place in Lille Métropole, North West Croatia and the Barcelona Metropolitan Area, where regional partners will co-design neighbourhood pilot activities within diverse governance models, spatial typologies and socio-political contexts. The pilots will target outdated industrial zones, underused urban areas and vacant rural and peri-urban spaces, transforming them into beautiful, sustainable and inclusive neighbourhoods that integrate spaces for living, working, caring and playing.
The pilots reflect various challenges found in many European areas: urban sprawl, car-dependent areas, ageing populations, abandoned buildings and former industrial areas, as well as a need for housing and revitalisation to attract workers, organisations and families.
SpaceUp is prioritising sufficiency at various levels: at the research level with sufficiency principles and the circular economy in the built environment by delivering new conceptual frameworks, comprehensive datasets and innovative methodologies; at the planning level by developing and validating multi-layered mapping tools and sufficiency-scoring systems that allow municipalities and planners to identify, assess and optimise under-utilised spaces; as well as at the social level, by focusing on inclusive, beautiful neighbourhoods that aim to increase public familiarity with and acceptance of sufficiency concepts, embedding well-being at the heart of regeneration efforts. It is essential to ensure that sufficiency measures promote equity and do not exacerbate existing social disadvantages.
