Understanding and Evaluating Bottom-up Urban Regeneration – Alberto Squizzato

In the last two decades, citizens have demonstrated that they are able to intervene directly in the design of the urban environment, to promote ‘bottom-up’ projects, which are currently sustained also by public authorities. Particularly relevant for their high transformative potential are the ‘bottom-up urban regeneration’ projects whose main goal is the redistribution of benefits to the local community. However, a cause-effect link between ‘bottom-up’ practices and ‘urban regeneration’, claimed by some authors, has not been demonstrated in the academic literature. This research attempts to address this question, to evaluate the claimed existence of this link through the multiple case study method.

Wouter Van Acker

Wouter Van Acker is Associate Professor of Architectural History and Theory at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He is co-director of hortence, ULB’s research centre for architectural history, theory and criticism. His research focus is the history of epistemology and aesthetics in architecture in the twentieth century.