Ziepju Street 11, Riga, Latvia

Source: Desire site experience and future plans, AAU, page 23-

As part of Desire, Riga municipality is focusing on the renovation of the Ziepju 11 housing block, a municipally owned Soviet-era apartment complex. 

Built in 1970 as a service hotel and later used as a shared house for different socially challenged people, the five-story brick and panel building has been empty since 2018.

In 2018, the decision was made to rebuild it into a multi-apartment residential building. 

The project aims to transform a neglected building into an attractive, green urban space, serving as a model for the renovation of approximately 6,000 similar housing blocks in Riga, most of which are privately owned and in poor condition. 

The refurbished building is supposed to house families with physical and mental disabilities, and the ground level will host various social services and community centres, forming a symbiotic relationship between different groups. 

Within Desire, the site’s representatives chose to focus on the principles of aesthetics,
biodiversity and belonging.

FILM: In Riga, the Desire an Irresistible Circular Society project is facing the biggest challenge we have here: Changing the mentality of the people that they are not only users living with a central system that deals with everything but that they are users that can actively engage in and create their own city – their own home.

Have a look at the new Desire film with our partner Riga municipality, Rudis Rubenis and Ieva Zībārte, Representative of the municipalities department Rigas Buildings. The filmmaker is Benjamin Hesselholdt. The Desire project is a part of the EU initiative New European Bauhaus.

The renovation process involves active citizen participation, which is a novel approach for Riga. In August, the municipality organised workshops for the residents of the neighbouring apartment block to ask them for ideas on how to transform the outdoor area into an attractive, green urban space where people can be together. Children, young people, adults and older people all took part.

The participatory approach is intended to change the community’s mentality from reliance on centralised systems to active engagement in creating their own living environment. These workshops have demonstrated that residents are willing to participate and contribute valuable insights when given a voice, fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility. 

In addition, a procurement process was initiated to engage designers for the redesign of the building and surrounding areas. Six designers applied, expressing interest in revitalising the complex.

However, the process has faced delays and communication challenges, particularly in conveying the intricacies of the procurement format to various stakeholders such as legislative entities, lawyers, and designers. Furthermore, project partners aimed to kickstart an urban gardening initiative as a means of fostering community engagement prior to the official renovation. 

This initiative sought to utilise existing urban spaces for gardening activities, providing residents with a proactive role in shaping their environment. 

However, discussions with stakeholders, including workers from a local daycare centre for disabled individuals, revealed concerns regarding accessibility. Issues such as uneven pavement posed barriers to wheelchair users, while the need for consistent environmental arrangements was critical for residents with mental disabilities. Instead, territory concept plans were developed as part of the ongoing efforts.

This mapping practice involves extensive analysis and engagement with users to envision outdoor spaces within each neighbourhood context. These plans were crafted based on the discussions and workshops with the various stakeholders to ensure that their diverse perspectives – ranging from children to seniors – are considered.

Stories

What makes a desirable courtyard to support social and inclusive housing? Workshop in Riga, August 2023: In Riga, the municipality plans to renovate an old block of flats. Through the Desire project, the municipality involves the citizens in the process of creating green surroundings, where nature plays a major role. Click on the link to read the story

Green transition in Riga: Citizens must learn to get involved and take responsibility for their own housing: As something completely new in Latvia, the Desire partner Riga Municipality involves citizens in the renovation of a Soviet era apartment block and its outdoor area. The hope is that it will become the first really good example of Soviet housing block renovation in Riga and that others join forces to follow the example. Read the article

The project has highlighted several key learnings and reflections. Overcoming initial scepticism required persistent engagement and demonstrating the tangible benefits of the renovation. The active involvement of residents in the design process led to innovative ideas and a stronger sense of community ownership. 

Clear, consistent communication was essential to build trust and encourage resident participation, addressing concerns and providing regular updates on the project’s progress. Changing the deeply ingrained mindset of reliance on centralised services to one of proactive community involvement was challenging but
achievable with persistent effort. 

Additionally, challenges emerged when trying to communicate the new procurement format to different stakeholders such as municipality departments, lawyers, and designers.

Materials and helpful links

To facilitate this process, several tools were employed. Outdoor space mapping workshops were held to collect visual and auditory resident input and facilitate discussions about the renovation plans.

Workshops and meetings, surveys and questionnaires were used to gather detailed feedback, while visual aids such as maps helped residents visualise the proposed changes and contribute with ideas. 

Additionally, community engagement platforms were used for continuous communication with residents throughout the project.

Find links below and at the top of the page.

• Transformation theme: Embrace and enable inclusion
• Tool: Co-creation workshops
• Tool: Outdoor Space Mapping

Territorial transformation plan

While the buildings Ziepju Street 11, form the central focus point for the future renovation work, an outdoor space was chosen for the activities within the Desire framework. 

Two significant outcomes from these processes were a co-creation methodology and concept plan on which this territorial transformation plan rests. 

The concept plans feature icons and different layers that illustrate the overlapping interests of different user groups, showing where their needs intersect and how the space could look in the future. The methodology was developed through cooperative workshops with user groups like children, social housing residents, neighbours from the daycare centre and individuals with mental disabilities. 

It builds on learnings from driving participatory processes with citizens with no prior experience in becoming involved directly in matters that concern the transformation of the place where they live but also on experiences with initiating and supporting collaboration across different departments of the Riga City Council. 

A third potential outcome is a new procurement format that incorporates different innovative approaches for developing the physical spaces and infrastructure, for instance performing procurement through dialogues. This outcome is included in the territorial transformation plan although it needs to be taken into account that it is still highly uncertain whether it proves a realistic and valuable approach to future procurement processes.

The plan for this part concerns activities to complete the procurement procedures as designed in the experimental new format.  

The long-term vision 

The long-term vision for Ziepju Street 11 is to build a community driven neighbourhood based on citizens' engagement and self-government, and that this will be a scalable model for residents’ care in their common outdoor spaces also in other parts of the social housing area, where Ziepju is located. 

A significant part of achieving this vision is to foster a culture of using and sharing space and knowledge and to establish trust through relationships and trust the capacity of local citizens to bring in new ideas and practical focus.