Prague Urban Lab for Skills (PULS)

Across Europe, cities face the parallel challenges of underused urban spaces, declining practical technical skills and limited cooperation between public authorities, educational institutions, experts and residents. In Prague, these challenges are visible in the decreasing interest in technical fields, the risk of losing know-how as experienced professionals retire, and the lack of shared infrastructure where citizens, students and institutions can jointly develop practical solutions to urban challenges.

Prague Urban Lab for Skills will transform an underused non-residential space in Prague 6 into an open Urban FabLab combining technical education, prototyping, repair culture, student innovation and participatory urban problem-solving. Located close to the Dejvice Campus, the space will become a living laboratory where secondary school students, university students, young adults, technically skilled elders, experts, public institutions and residents can meet, learn, design and test solutions together.

The project will use the FabLab not only as technical infrastructure, but as a city-led cooperation platform. It will support hands-on skills development, intergenerational mentoring, circular economy activities, urban challenge prototyping and the testing of new forms of collaboration between the city, municipal districts, educational institutions and communities.

As a flexible and replicable model, PULS will demonstrate how vacant or underutilised urban spaces can be activated for public value, skills development, inclusive innovation and long-term urban resilience, in line with the values of the New European Bauhaus.