Riga Market Living Lab for Community-Driven Heritage Regeneration – Seeking NEB 2026 Consortium

By joining a NEB 2026 consortium, Kalnciema Quarter and Āgenskalns Market in Riga offer not a concept, but a living, working urban environment where ideas are tested in real time with the food market as the central platform for spatial, social and economic innovation. We can contribute:

• Demonstration spaces for participatory spatial design, circular material reuse, climate-responsive maintenance approaches and inclusive public space prototyping within active heritage sites.
• Rich case-study data and engaged communities to support research on neighbourhood experience, social cohesion and well-being.
• Hands-on experience in regenerating vacant heritage buildings through public–private partnership, social entrepreneurship and community co-creation, with clear replication value for other European neighbourhoods.
• Strong local ecosystems, including producers, artisans, cultural actors and residents, as well as the Latvian market network (tirguscelvedis.lv), enabling cross-disciplinary pilots and meaningful dissemination.
• Long-term scientific collaboration with Baltic Studies Centre our research partner in EU projects we co-develop and implement together for more than 15 years, ensuring methodological depth and credible impact assessment.
• Flexible partnership formats we can participate both as NGO and SME partner, depending on consortium structure and funding logic.

To give you a clearer idea, here's our online presence:
Kalnciema Quarter:
http://www.kalnciemaiela.lv/en/
https://www.instagram.com/kalnciemaiela/

Agenskalns market (our latest project):
https://www.instagram.com/atirgus/IG,
https://www.agenskalnatirgus.lv/en