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PRECARE

USING VACANT BUILDINGS AS WORKSPACE

PRECARE is operating as an intermediator between property-owners of temporary vacant premises and artistic or social initiatives in need of workspace.
Since its origin PRECARE has been opening forteen buildings - for a period of six months to five years - and providing over a hunderd initiatives with a workspace.

The project PRECARE was discontinued in January 2010. This website serves as an archive.
PRECAREis a simple and efficient instrument to strengthen urban creative initiatives by reusing abandoned buildings as workspaces. PRECARE facilitates the 'intermediary use' of abandoned buildings. It not only provides a solution for the need for workspaces in the creative sector, it also creates a positive dynamic in neighbourhoods suffering from abandoned real estate.

After a first phase of informal support, (1999 - 2003 ), and a second more systematic laboratory phase in which instruments were designed, tested and disseminated ( 2003 - 2005 ), PRECARE has been working in a structural way on the actual use of a series of creative workspaces in empty buildings for almost two years.


With PRECARE City Mine(d) currently has workspaces in Brussels, London and Barcelona functioning as hubs offering accommodation to different creative initiatives. In addition to that it opens between four and five new buildings every year.
In 2008 - 2009 PRECARE plans pre-studies in Barcelona and London investigating to what extend the concept developed in Brussels is transportable to these cities.

To make the acquired knowledge accessible for a wider audience than just the users of buildings, a website and a single stop shop were developed.
This shop positions itself as a mediator between offer and demand for empty buildings, follows up developments in the buildings it puts at the initiatives' disposal, supports users legally and administratively, and promotes the project to a wider audience by means of exhibitions, open days, meetings and conferences.