CENTRINNO: Heritage as a catalyst for a new industrial revolution
Post-industrial sites as testbeds for circular and inclusive production in nine cities across Europe
Over the course of four years, CENTRINNO will develop solutions for sustainable urban regeneration of post-industrial districts in nine European cities. Metabolic Institute will map each urban ecosystem along with its key resources. These local ‘cartographies’ will help pilots to transform urban brownfields into citizen-driven, socially inclusive hubs that serve as test sites and innovation spaces for circular production.
- Funder: EU Horizon 2020
- Grant Agreement: N°869595
- Partners: Comune di Milano, IAAC, WAAG Society, Fab City Grand Paris, Volumes, Danish Design Center, European Creative Hubs NetworkTalTech, Fab Lab Onl’fait, Fab Lab Barcelona, Pakhuis de Zwijger, Generalitat de Catalunya, Kobenhavns Kommune, Cooperatives Ressources Urbaines Cooperative, Icelandic Textile Center, Reinwardt Academy, HMC, Sony Europe, Poblenou Urban District, MD NEMA, City of Tallinn, University of Iceland, Fab Lab Zagreb, University of Zagreb, Au FIl du Geste
- Participating Cities: Milan, Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Zagreb, Geneva, Tallinn, Blönduos
- Date: September 2020 – February 2024
New, inclusive regeneration approaches
Once centers of industrial activity, globalisation has transformed Europe’s urban areas, their economies and their labor force. Industrial sites are increasingly turned from places of production into places of consumption that rely on linear and extractive supply chains. At the same time, regeneration strategies that neglect to consider the local context of post-industrial neighbourhoods result in social displacement and loss of traditional manufacturing knowledge. CENTRINNO works on new, inclusive regeneration approaches that combine traditional knowledge on ‘making’ with innovative, circular, and digital production skills.
Mapping urban ecosystems around post-industrial sites
Metabolic Institute‘s role in the consortium is to develop an integrated approach that allows city pilots to map (waste) resources, tools, skills, and stakeholders present in urban ecosystems surrounding (post)-industrial sites. Our approach leverages an extended urban metabolism concept that combines material flow analyses with geospatial mapping activities. At the center of this approach is a spatially explicit analysis of each city’s local municipal waste system, allowing pilots to innovate on circular production processes. This waste-based analysis will be juxtaposed with additional elements of each city’s urban ecosystem, such as geodemographics, environmental conditions and stakeholder networks.
Circular and inclusive production in post-industrial neighbourhoods
Through the integration of urban metabolism tools, new cartographic approaches, ethnographic mapping and bottom-up data collection, CENTRINNO will empower pilot cities to create an interactive map that spatially visualizes urban ecosystems and their key resources. This spatial understanding will be central for CENTRINNO pilot hubs to develop programming and events around their sites that anchor city-wide activities around circular and inclusive production in post-industrial neighbourhoods.

