News
Something is cooking in the societal infrastructure kitchen
29. Apr 2025
After we presented the learning lessons of the project call “Breeding Places in Brussels” to the public at the beginning of last year, we regularly had the pleasure of sharing our experiences within other fascinating networks, such as the policy trajectory Community Infrastructure of De Ambrassade and De Federatie, the meeting day Op/HEF hosted by Cultuur OP/TIL, the Symposium Zorgzame wijken (Caring Neighbourhoods) or during the Woonacademie Limburg at the invitation of Welzijnsbouwers (Wellbeing Builders).
Since the beginning of this year, we have continued to engage with experts and policymakers and visit fascinating places in Flanders and Brussels, as part of an exploratory design workshop on social infrastructure. A first open workshop took place on Wednesday 26 March 2025, during which we brought together a group of practices and experts in the morning to hone our thinking structure. In the afternoon, we tested our working hypothesis with a steering group of policy actors, infrastructure funds and centres of expertise, which we will need to facilitate and support the right innovations for community infrastructure in Flanders and Brussels.
Time and again, we meet driven people and organisations: investors and building owners, infrastructure managers or users, local actors and organisations looking for affordable space, experts and policymakers. All are looking for a more inclusive and sustainable handling of community infrastructure. You sense that something new and important is in the air. People want to recreate underused churches into new meeting centres; they are going to share space with young and old; they are offering care and opportunities to people in difficulty in caring neighbourhoods; they are supporting citizens who want to help build the future of their own neighbourhood; they are making cultural places more future-oriented... Lots of great community-building places are in the pipeline.
If we cooperate more intersectorally and share (underused) space, if we work in a neighbourhood-oriented way and with an eye to the future, we will together build the social infrastructure we need. That way, we can make spatial gains as well as create social added value. But how can we do this? What alternative models exist for financing, developing and managing these places? What are the obstacles in the current regulations and how can policy better support these dynamics? How do we join forces in public-private-civil partnerships?
We, along with many exciting practices and experts, want to know more about that. So that we hopefully contribute to more, better, and more accessible community infrastructure. You read it: Something is cooking in the societal infrastructure kitchen. Stay tuned, soon more!
