Apply for Rebuilding to Last Hackathon in Berlin

The Rebuilding to Last Hackathon is a gathering for cultural organisations striving to implement environmental future-proofing solutions in their spaces and/or neighbourhoods. It is part of the Rebuilding to Last project (RTL), led by Trans Europe Halles (TEH) in partnership with twelve organisations, and co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme.

ABOUT THE EVENT

Between 19-20 January 2023 the RTL partners will be hosting a Hackathon event for grass-roots cultural and creative organisations based in (or willing to be based in) repurposed buildings, spaces or areas, who are looking to transform their organisations for a more sustainable future. Through the Hackathon event we hope to enable the selected participants to reflect on their projects as regenerating, rethinking, renovating and restructuring of cultural, community and social/physical spaces, in a lasting manner that is in balance with the ecosystem.

The event will take place in Berlin at ufa Fabrik and will bring together up to 15 cultural organisations to compete for one of three pilot project grants for participatory architecture interventions. Through the Hackathon event three projects will be selected to receive funding, training and mentorship. The funding will cover three different scales of projects – 1 small, 1 medium and 1 large scale – and the recipients will have to co-fund the interventions. The Hackathon participants will be pre-selected during an open call that will take place in September-October 2022.

The RTL project aims to research how cultural spaces are implementing sustainable solutions in their buildings and practices, and test fit-for-purpose ideas that are in line with the local cultural, social and economic context. It also aims to provide capacity building for cultural leaders to be able to address the sustainable transformation of their organisations and include communities in the process.

The project will also build the capacity of cultural spaces leaders to address the sustainable renovation of their buildings and champion sustainable transition among their teams, audiences, communities and cities.

EVENT TIMELINE

• 20 September 2022 – Call for applications published 
• 30 October 2022 – Deadline for applications 
• 31 Oct – 9 Nov 2022 – Review of application and pre-selection 
• 10-18 November 2022 – Pre-selection results and invitations to Hackathon 
• 18-30November 2022 – Book flights to Berlin 
• 19-20 January 2023 – Hackathon event in Berlin 
• February 2023 – May 2024 – Participatory Architecture Interventions 

About the participatory architecture interventions

Through the three participatory architecture interventions, RTL and its partners are looking to enable cultural organisations and their audiences to enable cultural organisations and their audiences to reflect on regenerating, rethinking, renovating and restructuring of cultural, community and social/physical  spaces, in a lasting manner that is in balance with the ecosystem. This is an opportunity to experiment with new and old sustainability methods to address building-related and urban-related issues in line with circular economy principles.

The three awarded projects will run between February 2023 and May 2024. The total available seed-funding is 60.000 EUR, to be divided among the three projects, depending on their scale. The grants are not intended to cover the whole budget of the local projects, so applicants will have to consider their projects carefully and describe how they envisage managing their budget in their application.

Each of the three centres awarded funding, will receive mentorship from an architectural team according to a plan agreed with the team. They will also be able to build their capacity and network by:

• Receiving 1x 1 day training by Eurecat (RTL partner)
• Hosting 2x 3-5day workshops by Manifatture Knos and other RTL partners
• Travelling to visit the other 2 participatory architecture interventions (up to 2 people from each centre)
• Travelling to the RTL final event in Helsinki in May 2024 (TBD) (up to 2 people from each centre).

They will also be part of an ongoing action research exercise led by the Faculty of Architecture of the Université de Liège (RTL project partner), which will run in several stages. The research will explore the experiences of cultural centres that have been experimenting or are currently integrating sustainable practices in the renovation of their buildings and open spaces and their overall operations and, conversely, to identify the inhibitors/potential of such processes for cultural organisations.

Applications

We invite all cultural centres and organisations across Europe interested in taking part in the challenge, to submit a project proposal covering:

1. Organisation name and contact details: name of project lead, contact email and phone number.
2. Background info touching on:
   1. specificities of the place of the intervention
   2. the socio-economic context of its localisation
   3. your legal and governing structure
   4. the introduction to the team working on the project,
   5. experience with similar projects and with ecological and sustainability processes
   6. other specific expertise (e.g. innovation, local collaborations, etc.).
3. Challenge you would like to tackle, with consideration to the criteria described under Pre-selection criteria below.
4. Approach (project description) describing preliminary ideas and experimental methods you would like to apply, both physical and organic (i.e. involving local community in the process)
5. Indicative budget for the project, including a short breakdown of existing resources, expected seed-funding from the RTL project, expected fundraising/co-funding etc.
6. Any other relevant information (e.g. current stage of the project’s progress if already started, your means of engaging local partners, pre-existing authorisation to transform the area/space/building, etc.)

Your proposal should be a pdf document, no longer than 10 pages. It may include photos and sketches and plans, and links to videos, but please make sure the full document is no larger than 5MB (mailbox limit).

Deadline to apply

Please send your proposal via email to rtl@teh.net by Sunday 6 November 2022 (23.59 CET).

Eligibility criteria

• Applicants may be a non-governmental cultural and creative organisation acting in repurposed / formerly-abandoned / industrial building/s or areas across Europe.
• Applicants may or may not be members of Trans Europe Halles, but extra consideration will be given to TEH members.

Pre-selection criteria

A panel composed of representatives of the project partners, covering profiles such as researchers, community leaders, architects and engineers, cultural workers will analyse the applications submitted for participating in the Hackathon.

A series of objective criteria will be applied when analysing applications – looking at geographical spread and location of applicants and their project interventions, the socio-economic context, the historic and cultural context, the current stage of the project’s progress (if already started) and the scale of the projects.

The selection panel will also consider themes emerging from the project proposals, such as: involvement of the local community/ies, experimental ideas, access to intervention space, etc.

For any questions regarding the application process and the project, you can contact rtl@teh.net .

Funders

This event is implemented within The RTL project funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

Photo credits

Photo is by Daniel Funes/ Unsplash