DARE, Ravenna

The UIA project DARE focuses on Ravenna’s former harbour area, the Darsena district, to transform this abandoned, neglected, static area into an attractive and innovative ecosystem. In the past decade the Darsena area has experienced a set of socio-economic challenges, and most regeneration projects failed to bring about change.

Unlike earlier revitalisation projects that focused uniquely on the renewal of the physical environment, DARE invested in the skills of its inhabitants and the digital knowledge infrastructure of the area. Over the project’s three years, DARE cooperated with Darsena's residents, businesses, initiatives and institutions to create an inclusive, accessible digital framework for collecting data, information and stories, inviting citizens to share their own ideas and visions of the neighbourhood.

In a complex procedure that lasted several years, the Ravenna municipality mapped out and stimulated the aspirations of local stakeholders, citizen initiatives, associations, universities, companies and property owners to develop projects in the city’s former port district.

The DARE partnership rethought the concept of urban development competitions. Instead of forcing initiatives to compete with each other, the DARE process encouraged synergies and cooperation in order to lead the way towards a more participative, shared development. These synergies were not an end in themselves: they were part of an ambition to define an overall tactic for the area’s future development instead of making proposals for individual buildings.

DARE turned the problem of vacant buildings and the former port’s industrial heritage into a potential for urban regeneration. Through initiatives like the RADAR Real Estate Forum, the project connected the top-down and bottom-up approaches of urban regeneration, linking up initiatives to reuse vacant buildings and unused land together with property owners and financiers. In this process, the Ravenna Municipality’s goal was to act as a process enabler, helping its partners and communities to co-design the future of the Darsena.

The project also used a co-governance approach in its communications efforts. Telling the story of Darsena’s transformation was coordinated by DARE Redazione, the governance body of DARE’s communication activities. Involving all partners of DARE, an editorial board connected stories, content and narration, in order to create a new narrative of Darsena’s transformation. This was created by local communities, allowing individuals and groups to find their place in the area’s broader regeneration framework.

Several elements here can be replicated and scaled up in other cities that have underused areas, active civil society organisations, and available knowledge infrastructure to support a digital transition. The methodologies of: 1) Collaborative urban regeneration; 2) Data management and digital facilitation; and 3) Storytelling and communication, are being transferred to six cities across Europe through the URBACT Innovation Transfer Network DARING Cities.