NEBULA organised its first workshop at the Sustainable Places Conference 2023 in Madrid, on the 14th of June. In line with the project objectives, the session aimed to create bridges between EU funded projects from the Built for People (B4P) Partnership and the New European Bauhaus (NEB) Initiative.

The workshop opened with a presentation of the B4P project NEBULA by Karine Laffont-Eloire (Dowel Innovation). NEBULA aims at activating and nurture a network of Innovation Clusters, connecting and scaling innovations across Europe.

It will thus:

• Spread a trans-disciplinary and participative approach to innovation, through peer learning activities, including the development of guidelines on the NEB concepts
• Facilitate networking and collaboration between innovators through open innovation activities, trainings for innovation clusters, identification and promotion of innovations with high market potential, and the access to the Metabuilding platform
• Improve access to public and private funds for innovators through the set-up of a finance toolbox that will identify funding opportunities and provide training materials on how to access these funds.

Giorgia Spigliantini (RINA Consulting), Anastasia Garbi (European Dynamics), Silvia Urra Uriarte (Tecnalia) and Alessia Peluchetti (RINA Consulting) then presented their inspiring projects at the forefront of innovation and citizen engagement: CHRONICLE, RINNO, FORTESIE, drOp and EHHUR/ EYES HEARTS HANDS.

• CHRONICLE, which focusses on Building Performance Digitalisation and Dynamic Logbooks for Future Value-Driven Services, will deliver efficient renovation procedures and investment decision-making processes.
• RINNO will provide an operational interface with augmented intelligence and an occupant-centered approach that will streamline and facilitate the whole lifecycle of building deep energy renovation (planning-design, retrofitting, monitoring)
• FORTESIE (Smart performance contracts for Efficiency, Sustainable, Inclusive, Energy use) will demonstrate innovative renovation packages in the building industry with Smart Performance-Based guarantees and financing. The renovation packages will combine state-of-the-art construction materials and technologies components (prefabricated facades, BIPV, heat pumps, etc.), innovative digital technologies for measurement and verification, and attractive financing.
• drOp (Digitally enabled social district renovation processes for age-friendly environments driving social innovation and local economic development) will develop an integrated renovation methodology aiming to transform social housing districts into inclusive smart neighbourhoods.
• EHHUR (EYES HEARTS HANDS Urban Revolution) will develop and test a co-designed methodological structure to support cities in their built environment transformation by using already existing good practices and complementing them with the New European Bauhaus and EU Missions principles.

In the second part of the workshop, the panel discussion was the opportunity to share good practices and lessons learnt.

The first recommendation was related to increasing citizens acceptance and engagement: “Start early with citizens engagement!” said all panellists. Involve citizens and users from the start. Engagement and empowerment are key and a mentality shift is required. “If you have no engagement, you have no project” stressed Silvia Urra. EHHUr is currently mapping co-design approaches to foster engagement, which will soon be available as a public project deliverable.

The second discussed topic was the needed acceleration of market uptake of innovative renovation packages and approaches. According to the panellists, capacity building of local stakeholders and workers of the construction value chain as well as education of users are critical. Projects have to make the users/ building owners aware of the benefits and impacts of each solution: lighthouse actions and peer-learning activities have a key role to play.

During the Q&A session that followed, participants and speakers exchanged about different kinds of actions to engage users and citizens while guaranteeing inclusiveness (e.g. community trainings and social and cultural activities in EHHUR, door-to-door communication in drOp) and on the mentality shift needed to accelerate renovation.

The workshop ended with closing words from Alain Zarli (ECTP, representing the B4P partnership). Alain emphasised the importance of a user-centric approach to overcome the acceptance issue related to renovation and district transformation, but also recognised its complexity (especially at district scale). New spaces of exchange are needed to develop communities of interest, and that is where NEBULA is trying to make an impact. Clustering activities with B4P and NEB projects are being supported by NEBULA to share good practices, so watch this space!

The session's recording is published here.