What happened?

The past 15 and 16 November, ENoLL was invited to La Marina de Valencia, Spain for the Place-making for Innovation event, a three-day international co-creation workshop were urban practitioners and innovators from all across Europe and beyond came together to explore the role of that Living Labs and place-making can have in the historic harbour of the city of Valencia. 

The event was part of the broader La Marina Living Lab (LMLL) initiative, an urban Living Lab that seeks to engage citizens in the transformation of the public space. LMLL was born in collaboration with our fellow Australian colleagues from ALLIN.

The host organisation of LMLL is La Marina of València, the historic harbour of the city that is managed by a consortium set in 2007 between the Government of Spain, the Regional Government and the City Council. La Marina was marked by the legacy of a few white elephant projects strategic mismanagement since the early 2000s. The old harbour was used to host several editions of America’s Cup and F1 Grand Prix Race which fuelled rapid infrastructure growth, but left behind a long list of idle installation with no future plans for exploitation. Today, La Marina de València is once again reclaiming its identity through a new strategic plan that includes the establishment of a Living Lab to make turn the old harbour into an innovative public space through the principles of place-making.

ENoLL Chair Fernando Vilariño opened the three-day session by introducing the ENoLL Community and its vision to La Marina to support LMLL on its Living Lab journey.

The main output of the workshop was a joint manifesto on how to make innovation and public spaces meet. 

A reflection article on the Living Lab approach and place-making will be provided shortly to the ENoLL community.

You can watch a summary video of the working sessions here.