Anyone crossing from the train station in Ljubljana in Slovenia to the other side of the road will stumble across “Teren”. Young people perform gymnastics on horizontal bars, children play hide and seek, a gumbo stew steams on the homemade clay cooker, some people scamper over pallet furniture, others are making briquettes out of sawdust at a workshop.

From workshops to ordinary picnics, everyone can use the space free of charge. “Teren is a place of experimentation that is open to everyone,” explains architect Nina Savič. She is a member of the prostoRož cultural association that has turned this disused construction site into a meeting place.

Urban life in the Vinschgau region

In the middle of the Italian municipality of Schlanders stands the Drusus barracks, once a military outpost, which the BASIS Vinschgau Venosta project is now converting as a venue for new forms of events. “I live an urban lifestyle in the country,” says project initiator Hannes Götsch. He and his team hope that the barracks will become a space for business, education, culture and social affairs, a meeting place for the creative scene.

Buying free space

“We want to use crowdfunding to keep strategically important areas permanently free and accessible by purchasing them or acquiring rights to them,” says Martin Strele, chairman of the Bodenfreiheit association in the Austrian federal state of Vorarlberg. The association has successfully bought its first plots of land and acquired walking rights, public pressure has prevented planned expansions of settlements. In addition the approach to land and soil in Vorarlberg has become an important topic.

Picnic at the construction site

Urban life in the countryside

Keeping free spaces free