This scheme provides two million Norwegian crowns in financial support to non-commercial meeting places in vacant structures in city and town centres. Sixteen applications have been received and the committee evaluating them has now decided that six of them will receive between NOK 150,000 and NOK 400,000 each to develop such meeting places.
“We are very pleased with the projects selected, which challenge the concept of the urban meeting centres of the future and their users in a variety of ways. The project in Risør, for example, explores how a test centre for welfare technology can be combined with a multi-generational social meeting place, while the Municipality of Hamar is using a vacant building to facilitate job training, social entrepreneurship and activities for young adults. In Fredrikstad, the municipality is exploring the role of the library of the future in the city centre by creating a temporary lab,” explains Marte Marstrand, Project Manager for Sparkling Spaces.
Outsiderness and social entrepreneurship
Senior Advisor at DOGA Matti Lucie Arentz is a member of the committee evaluating the applications. She explains that there are several general trends apparent in the projects submitted.
“Many of them focus on employment measures, young people, outsiderness and social entrepreneurship. The desire to include marginalised groups in municipal city centre development is a recurrent theme in the applications,” she says.
The subsidy scheme is part of DOGA’s Sparkling Spaces urban development project. The scheme was announced this May with a total funding amount of NOK 2 million for the pilot and network municipalities in the project. Funding is provided by the Savings Bank Foundation DNB.
Linn Catrine Lunder, Donor Advisor at the Savings Bank Foundation DNB, agrees that the applications included numerous interesting projects from around the country.
“It’s great to see the amount of energy and interest devoted to creating meeting places in city and town centres. We at the Savings Bank Foundation DNB look forward to seeing the efforts and partnerships that this funding will prompt and how this will affect ownership of urban centres,” says Lunder.
Committee members:
Linn Catrine Lunder, Savings Bank Foundation DNB
Arild Eriksen, Architect at Eriksen Skajaa Architects
Anita Cecilie Drabløs, Senior Advisor at DOGA
Alexander Kielland Krag, Advisor at DOGA
Siri Holmboe Høibo, Advisor at DOGA
Matti Lucie Arentz, Senior Advisor at DOGA
