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

Kalnciema Quarter and Āgenskalns Market in Riga offer a living and working urban environment where ideas are tested in real time, with the historical food market as the central platform for spatial, social, and economic innovation.

What 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 network of communities to support research on neighbourhood experience, social cohesion, and well-being.
• Hands-on experience in regenerating 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 the 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