Impermanence and the Mechanics of Urban Regeneration
When? Wednesday, January 21st | 1 PM CET, online
With? Vassilis Charalampidis, Andreea Iager-Tako, Aleksi Lohtaja, moderated by Dario Marmo (LAMA)
Impermanence has moved from the margins of urban discourse to the core of how cities are planned, governed, and experienced. Temporary uses, flexible regulations, and adaptive regeneration practices are increasingly presented as tools for innovation and sustainability. At the same time, these same mechanisms often intersect with dynamics of gentrification, displacement, and uneven power relations. This webinar explores impermanence not as an abstract condition, but as a designed and governed choice: who defines what is temporary, for how long, and to whose benefit. By looking at urban regeneration practices through the lens of impermanence, the discussion aims to unpack how adaptability, governance models, and community formation shape — and are shaped by — contemporary urban change.
Guiding questions
- When is impermanence a tool, and when is it a strategy?
How do temporary interventions, flexible uses, and experimental projects operate within broader urban regeneration processes, and how do they relate to longer-term dynamics such as gentrification and displacement? - Who governs the temporary?
What governance models, regulatory frameworks, and institutional arrangements define impermanence in cities, and how do these affect power relations between public administrations, private actors, and local communities? - Can communities take root in temporary conditions?
How do forms of community engagement, belonging, and collective agency emerge in impermanent spaces, and what social or institutional supports are needed to prevent precarity from becoming the default outcome?
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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Creative Europe. Neither the European Union nor Creative Europe can be held responsible for them.
