Name: Revitalising Rural and Smaller Communities
Start: 2026-09-23T16:15:00+0200
End: 2026-09-23T17:30:00+0200

Creating better cities together.

Revitalising Rural and Smaller Communities

Wednesday September 23, 2026 4:15pm - 5:30pm CEST

Plenary Room - Wroclaw Congress Center (RCTB)

Rural areas and smaller communities often carry rich identities, histories, local knowledge and untapped potential. Yet conversations about their future frequently begin with what they lack: services, investment, connectivity, opportunities, or people. This session explores how different ways of seeing a place influence what we value in it and the kinds of transformations we consider possible. In this context, smaller communities may be rural villages and landscapes but also overlooked neighbourhoods and pockets within larger cities that function as close-knit communities with their own identities, relationships, and ways of using and valuing place. Taking the form of a World Café, this session brings together insights and practical experiences from different projects and initiatives working with different forms of place-based transformation across different rural, and small-scale contexts. After a series of short project pitches, participants choose the perspective they would like to explore further in smaller, interactive conversations. Through lenses such as beauty, belonging, heritage and tradition, tourism and economic value, local potential, nature, and community knowledge, the tables will explore the opportunities and tensions that emerge when places are revitalised. At the centre of the session is a broader question: how can placemaking support the future of rural and smaller communities while remaining attentive to the identities, relationships and everyday knowledge that already shape them? The session creates space for an open and layered conversation about change, belonging and local potential. It invites participants to compare experiences, make connections across different contexts and consider how placemaking can respond more carefully to the particular character of each place.

Speakers

Iris Perouliou Sergaki

Co founder, STIPO GREECE

I’m an architect and placemaker, and co-founder of STIPO Greece, working at the intersection of public space, culture, community and participatory urban development. My work explores how places can become more inclusive, meaningful and connected to the people who use and shape them.Come... Read More →

Ruby van den Munckhof

STIPO

Ewa Szymczyk

Urban Researcher, AIT

Ewa Szymczyk is an urban researcher and qualified architect with a PhD in Urban Studies from Cracow University of Technology. Her work explores urban shrinkage, urban form, spatial justice, and sustainable urban development, bridging architectural thinking with spatial analysis, statistical... Read More →

Cornelis Uittenbogaard

Urban Planner, Övertorneå Municipality

Cornelis works as a town planner at the municipality of Övertorneå in the far north of Sweden. He has a long experience of working with public spaces and place development. His interests are placemaking, community development as well as photography with the aim to contribute to... Read More →

Roosmarie Stavenuiter

Urban Advisor, STIPO

Roosmarie is an urban advisor at STIPO and a real city maker. She brings experience from the world of area development and real estate, social work, programming and placemaking. In her own neighborhood she is actively involved in creating meeting places and social initiatives, always... Read More →

Milana Mijatović

Associate, Placemaking Western Balkans (PWB)

Milana is a landscape architect and placemaking practitioner from Serbia, working across public space, spatial identity and community-led activation and green infrastructure. Her work connects spatial analysis with practical formats such as typologies, workshops, case-study research... Read More →

Arianna Rivolta

Founding member of STIPO Italy Cooperative, STIPO Italia

Arianna is a founding member of STIPO Italy Cooperative. She is an architect and urban planner, with a master's degree in Architecture and Urban Design from Politecnico di Milano. After spending a year in Sydney, she returned to Milan, where she focuses on public space — that in-between... Read More →

Wednesday September 23, 2026 4:15pm - 5:30pm CEST
Plenary Room - Wroclaw Congress Center (RCTB) Wystawowa 1, 51-618 Wrocław, Poland

Building Belonging, workshop

global Y

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Placemaking Week Europe 2026