Lifehouse - The Case for Community Led Property Development

Community Led Property Development

For over twelve years, City in the Making (Stad in de Maak) has set up temporary sites in Rotterdam that act as focal points for communities – places where people can gather, live, work, support each other, and feel rooted. To casual visitors, these sites often appear both refreshing and somewhat puzzling: a blend of inventive hacks, upcycled materials, and abundant community activity gives them unexpected charm and vitality. They give something many have longed for: a renewed sense of community and belonging. If only these spaces could withstand the pressure of time...

Now, City in the Making is seeking to set up their first permanent site. No longer on borrowed time, or in borrowed property, but secured for times to come! 

To make this work, City in the Making needs access to unusual buildings: properties that are too run-down, too entangled, or too stuck to be claimed by today’s overheated property market. Properties where no one, except perhaps you, will find a way to make them work. Can these places become safe havens—sites where one dares to imagine and experiment with a different reality on which to build a life? Places that help endure an abrasive, exhausting present and face the storms to come: some already visible, such as the climate crisis, others still unknown. Fragile for now, they nevertheless hold the promise of persistence and mutual care.

Course Structure

In this workshop we aim to gather a group of participants to help City in the Making with an actual case study: an abandoned warehouse in the Koningin Wilhelminahaven in Vlaardingen. Together we'll explore if and how this building could be transformed into what Adam Greenfield calls 'a Lifehouse' - an institution or place at the heart of a neighbourhood for solidarity and support. This could be a modest yet daring space where a messy workshop meets an open floor, community kitchen, workspaces, a neighbourhood survival pack, and – who knows – even living spaces. Together we'll be looking for ways to get this started, designed and financed and, moreover, to keep it going, even when the lights around us go out. More info soon

About City in the Making

City in the Making ia a foundation that enables new, socially inclusive forms of urban living since 2013. The organisation activates vacant buildings, encourages collective self-management, and works towards a more inclusive city. It manages properties where diverse groups live collectively, with 30 per cent of the space dedicated to commons: shared facilities and spaces managed for residents, the neighbourhood, and social organisations. Its approach is based on taking properties off the market, providing affordable living and working spaces, collective ownership or use, rent-free commons, and economic, social, and ecological sustainability. The organisation operates democratically, is largely self-organising, and runs its own revolving investment fund.