Renew Adelaide
Renewing the West end Precinct
Is an urban renewal project that takes empty, unused buildings and arranges a deal with the land owner so that young people with a business or creative idea can move in there, paying minimal or no rent until the landlord is ready to use the building again. Renew is an Australia wide initiative with projects under way in Newcastle, Townsville, Adelaide & Geelong. (note that Melbourne probably doesn't need to be renewed because it's already awesome!)
"....It’s a win-win situation. Social enterprises and community groups access and maintain space for little or no cost while property owners get caretakers for their buildings and increasing viability of their properties as areas are renewed and towns and cities regain their bustling, beating hearts.
Renew Australia is a collaboration between Renew Newcastle, Renew Townsville and Renew Adelaide to produce a national model and toolkit for community driven urban renewal."
Our 2 renew projects just near the corner of Hindley & Morphett st.’s in town are on the forefront of this revolution! Now that we have a semi-enlightened national government (and a fully enlightened local lord mayor!) it is time to establish a foothold in our own society that we as creative, young and poor individuals have been barred from in past models of government/society.
We as creators and designers are the ones who supply the goods that capitalist piggies crack the whip and exploit to build themselves their high society towers and bar us out, keeping us on the streets. It's time to remodel this capitalist model of society and turn it into a reflective celebration of the creative energies that are the backbone of our local economies.
I have had friends that perhaps would have benefited immensely from (not be dead or in jail if it were for) actual social establishments such as this. Friends who roamed the streets getting arrested and abused by cops because they had no accessible actual outlet for the immense amount of creative energy inside them and had to resort to drugs and alcohol on the cold dark streets, trying to find the warmth of an accepting community that they were looking for. Renew projects offer a real opportunity and therefore incentive to take your art to the next level and even to make a living from it! what artist would steal to feed themselves when they could feed themselves through their art?
_
"...Renew Australia works to find short and medium term uses for buildings that are currently vacant, disused, or awaiting redevelopment. Using flexible license to access agreements, they find artists, cultural projects and community groups to activate and maintain these buildings until they become commercially viable or are redeveloped."
_
Funding comes from the Australian Centre for Social Innovation (T.A.C.S.I) which is actually based in Adelaide on Victoria square! ;
TACSI Mission Statement
"The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) exists to identify and support the innovative ideas, methods and people that will contribute to and accelerate positive social change.
To turn bold ideas into better lives.
Basically, we are a social innovation laboratory (more a 'do-tank' than a 'think tank') with the twin roles of testing ideas, methods and projects and brokering partnerships (developing relationships) between all the different players in the social innovation space (from individuals to community groups, companies to government).
We will bring together all sectors of society to find ways for it to become more resourceful, adaptive and resilient in tackling the big economic, social, environmental and cultural challenges of this century. To find better ways of addressing unmet social needs and better methods for innovation in the social sphere.
We will demonstrate that experimentation and learning is the only way to reinvent or create anew the institutions that support our society’s objectives. We will create a safe space for that experimentation to occur.
We will be agents of change. We will boldly explore better alternatives to the status quo and help make them a reality. We will unlock public value.
This vision will take time to realise so join us as we take our first steps on this important journey._"
Operating on the premise that "...The people and communities affected by a particular social issue are often the best architects of possible solutions." Tacsi has just (***) funded 8 projects around Australia to engage positive change in 8 separate strata of our society, of which renew Australia is just one project!
"...The Bold Ideas Better Lives Challenge aimed to put that resource to the test – searching for community-identified social issues and community led innovations that respond to those issues.
TACSI asked Australia “what do you think the big problems are facing our society and how do you think we can solve them?”
The offer$1 million dollars of investment, to be shared between the winning projects, and the support of TACSI and our network of mentors and capacity builders to test out those solutions in practice.
The journey from the 258 initial entries to our 8 winners has been an exciting one and we’re delighted to share these great ideas with you. Now that we’ve found them, we want to celebrate but soon we’ll all be rolling up our sleeves and getting down to the work of testing the ideas to see if they work – we’ll keep you posted.
On the board of TACSI is an astonishing array of highy qualified and accomplished individuals from all realms of society and the agenda at tacsi is reflected by the diversity of this group.
Innovative, impactful and implementable solutions that address Australia’s most pressing social needs.
Renew Australia builds upon the success of Renew Newcastle, which took a city centre with a high proportion of boarded up and vandalised buildings, limited foot traffic and low commercial prospects, and harnessed the creative energy of the local community to bring entire streets back to life.
The issues facing Newcastle are not unusual. Many Australian cities and towns have been negatively impacted by the spread of the suburbs, the competition of outlying malls and their declining place in people’s daily lives.
Renew Australia believes city and town centres play an integral part in bringing together diverse communities, offering an alternative to unsustainable urban sprawl and providing a real sense of publicspace.
It's not just cool to get involved, it's important! We need to demonstrate our abilities to produce top notch creative works be they art, fashion, photography, music, bicycle mechanics...
Adelaide's Renew project is operating out of format magazine collective office on Peel street. Our project is modeled on Newcastle's Renew which is the original and most established project running in Australia at this time. Townsville and Geelong are just starting out with this developmental process.
During the fringe festival 2010 there was a forum held to present the project and to discuss possible ideas for renew Adelaide projects. Recently elected lord mayor Stephen Yarwood, Christie Anthony & a representative from the city west traders were among members of the discussion panel.
Mayor Yarwood helped the forum understand how the project would be seen from the councils perspective and gave them advice on how to relay & present the information to the council and advised to people heading the Renew Adelaide project on how to organise the plan so that it would not be rejected. It would appear that (then) councillor Yarwood appeared at the meeting on his own initiative. Yarwood stated he wasn't there out of council interests but his own.
The idea of Renew is to bring retail opportunities to dead space and gives the young public opportunities for space to use for creativity and productfulness where they can use their initiative while socialising, rather than just hang out and get drunk. Sewing & reading rooms are the first and currently only renew projects in Adelaide
From the forum a number of potential ideas were proposed for the initial renew projects around Adelaide, eventually they were narrowed down to the idea of a young lass named Becci who proposed the reading room and the sewing room respectively and have now moved into Hindley st. and have been operating successfully for about 8 months.
There was also meant to be a group of web designers called Radelaide who were looking for office space (website) to make computer games. The landlord liked the idea of the Reading Room the most out of the proposed projects
Renew spaces are allowed to run at a profit and most likely you won’t pay rent. Serious applicants need to have a feasible idea, the space needs to be open as much as possible, need to devote time to it and to be able to be available at short notice. The point is to be adding to the street and preferably to involve the community. It will also help your application if you are doing something that isn’t being done already.
Contact Renew; [email protected]
Renewadelaide.wordpress.com
Facebook: renew adelaide
Renew Adelaide Flyer (in their own words…)
Ever had a great idea for a business, art or community space but couldn’t get past the prospect of longterm leases and major financial commitment? Ever walked around the city and wondered what could be done about all the empty shop fronts, warehouses and office spaces??
Enter renew Adelaide, a volunteer run, urban renewal program that places community projects and creative initiatives into empty or underused space at low cost via a licence to access agreement.
Renew Adelaide follows on from the successful renew Newcastle model and is supported by the Kambitsis group, Adelaide west end association and Adelaide city council along with a large amount of invaluable community support.
I’m a property owner, what’s in it for me?
We’re all bout renewal so if you’ve a property that is struggling to attract commercial tenants, how about giving our participants a try? Renewed spaces can attract people back into under used streets, protect empty buildings from vandalism and general decay and maintain existing use licenses – all great selling points should a paying tenant come along later down the track.
We work on a rolling 30 day licence to access agreement which means that you or we can pull out with 30 days notice plus there are no tax implications for you because we don’t hold an actual lease
I have an idea, where do I sign up!?
Get a registration of interest form from our website ( http://www.box.net/shared/30m3v7mks1 )and follow the prompts. Its ok if your idea isn’t fully formed or you don’t have all the furniture ready to move in tomorrow – but it’s definitely a good idea to let us know what stage you are at with your planning.
Please note that unfortunately renew can’t help you with putting on a one night only exhibition or give access to specific spaces as we work by matching available spaces to appropriate participants for a minimum of 30 days.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Footnote
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation was born out of the work of Adelaide Thinker in Residence, Geoff Mulgan, Director of The Young Foundation (a full report on his work while in residence can be found here).
He believed that the time was ripe for a centre of excellence in social innovation in Australia and that South Australia was a natural base for this kind of work due to a unique combination of factors such as a history of 'punching above its weight' in social innovation (South Australia was the first state in the world to allow women to stand for parliament, it addressed disadvantage in housing with the South Australian Housing Trust and introduced the Prohibition of Discrimination Act in 1966 - to name a few) and being the right size to experiment, test and upscale socially innovative projects.
Premier Mike Rann and the Government of South Australia agreed with Geoff Mulgan's vision and have provided seed-funding for an initial three year period for a national centre of excellence in social innovation.
Our strong and diverse Board of Directors, inaugural CEO Brenton Caffin and a dedicated group of staff and partners are all focused on making the most of this opportunity to deliver positive social change in Australia.
In 2010, The Australian Centre for Social Innovation launched its inaugural program of work.
It is up to us now to take advantage of this opportunity and show everyone what we're worth so that the project can continue
Contact
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation
+61 8 8110 9957
[email protected]
Torrens Building, 220 Victoria Square/Tarndanyangga, Adelaide SA 5000
Media Liaison: Erin Green (+61) 0421 987 327
Is an urban renewal project that takes empty, unused buildings and arranges a deal with the land owner so that young people with a business or creative idea can move in there, paying minimal or no rent until the landlord is ready to use the building again. Renew is an Australia wide initiative with projects under way in Newcastle, Townsville, Adelaide & Geelong. (note that Melbourne probably doesn't need to be renewed because it's already awesome!)
"....It’s a win-win situation. Social enterprises and community groups access and maintain space for little or no cost while property owners get caretakers for their buildings and increasing viability of their properties as areas are renewed and towns and cities regain their bustling, beating hearts.
Renew Australia is a collaboration between Renew Newcastle, Renew Townsville and Renew Adelaide to produce a national model and toolkit for community driven urban renewal."
Our 2 renew projects just near the corner of Hindley & Morphett st.’s in town are on the forefront of this revolution! Now that we have a semi-enlightened national government (and a fully enlightened local lord mayor!) it is time to establish a foothold in our own society that we as creative, young and poor individuals have been barred from in past models of government/society.
We as creators and designers are the ones who supply the goods that capitalist piggies crack the whip and exploit to build themselves their high society towers and bar us out, keeping us on the streets. It's time to remodel this capitalist model of society and turn it into a reflective celebration of the creative energies that are the backbone of our local economies.
I have had friends that perhaps would have benefited immensely from (not be dead or in jail if it were for) actual social establishments such as this. Friends who roamed the streets getting arrested and abused by cops because they had no accessible actual outlet for the immense amount of creative energy inside them and had to resort to drugs and alcohol on the cold dark streets, trying to find the warmth of an accepting community that they were looking for. Renew projects offer a real opportunity and therefore incentive to take your art to the next level and even to make a living from it! what artist would steal to feed themselves when they could feed themselves through their art?
_
"...Renew Australia works to find short and medium term uses for buildings that are currently vacant, disused, or awaiting redevelopment. Using flexible license to access agreements, they find artists, cultural projects and community groups to activate and maintain these buildings until they become commercially viable or are redeveloped."
_
Funding comes from the Australian Centre for Social Innovation (T.A.C.S.I) which is actually based in Adelaide on Victoria square! ;
TACSI Mission Statement
"The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) exists to identify and support the innovative ideas, methods and people that will contribute to and accelerate positive social change.
To turn bold ideas into better lives.
Basically, we are a social innovation laboratory (more a 'do-tank' than a 'think tank') with the twin roles of testing ideas, methods and projects and brokering partnerships (developing relationships) between all the different players in the social innovation space (from individuals to community groups, companies to government).
We will bring together all sectors of society to find ways for it to become more resourceful, adaptive and resilient in tackling the big economic, social, environmental and cultural challenges of this century. To find better ways of addressing unmet social needs and better methods for innovation in the social sphere.
We will demonstrate that experimentation and learning is the only way to reinvent or create anew the institutions that support our society’s objectives. We will create a safe space for that experimentation to occur.
We will be agents of change. We will boldly explore better alternatives to the status quo and help make them a reality. We will unlock public value.
This vision will take time to realise so join us as we take our first steps on this important journey._"
Operating on the premise that "...The people and communities affected by a particular social issue are often the best architects of possible solutions." Tacsi has just (***) funded 8 projects around Australia to engage positive change in 8 separate strata of our society, of which renew Australia is just one project!
"...The Bold Ideas Better Lives Challenge aimed to put that resource to the test – searching for community-identified social issues and community led innovations that respond to those issues.
TACSI asked Australia “what do you think the big problems are facing our society and how do you think we can solve them?”
The offer$1 million dollars of investment, to be shared between the winning projects, and the support of TACSI and our network of mentors and capacity builders to test out those solutions in practice.
The journey from the 258 initial entries to our 8 winners has been an exciting one and we’re delighted to share these great ideas with you. Now that we’ve found them, we want to celebrate but soon we’ll all be rolling up our sleeves and getting down to the work of testing the ideas to see if they work – we’ll keep you posted.
On the board of TACSI is an astonishing array of highy qualified and accomplished individuals from all realms of society and the agenda at tacsi is reflected by the diversity of this group.
Innovative, impactful and implementable solutions that address Australia’s most pressing social needs.
Renew Australia builds upon the success of Renew Newcastle, which took a city centre with a high proportion of boarded up and vandalised buildings, limited foot traffic and low commercial prospects, and harnessed the creative energy of the local community to bring entire streets back to life.
The issues facing Newcastle are not unusual. Many Australian cities and towns have been negatively impacted by the spread of the suburbs, the competition of outlying malls and their declining place in people’s daily lives.
Renew Australia believes city and town centres play an integral part in bringing together diverse communities, offering an alternative to unsustainable urban sprawl and providing a real sense of publicspace.
It's not just cool to get involved, it's important! We need to demonstrate our abilities to produce top notch creative works be they art, fashion, photography, music, bicycle mechanics...
Adelaide's Renew project is operating out of format magazine collective office on Peel street. Our project is modeled on Newcastle's Renew which is the original and most established project running in Australia at this time. Townsville and Geelong are just starting out with this developmental process.
During the fringe festival 2010 there was a forum held to present the project and to discuss possible ideas for renew Adelaide projects. Recently elected lord mayor Stephen Yarwood, Christie Anthony & a representative from the city west traders were among members of the discussion panel.
Mayor Yarwood helped the forum understand how the project would be seen from the councils perspective and gave them advice on how to relay & present the information to the council and advised to people heading the Renew Adelaide project on how to organise the plan so that it would not be rejected. It would appear that (then) councillor Yarwood appeared at the meeting on his own initiative. Yarwood stated he wasn't there out of council interests but his own.
The idea of Renew is to bring retail opportunities to dead space and gives the young public opportunities for space to use for creativity and productfulness where they can use their initiative while socialising, rather than just hang out and get drunk. Sewing & reading rooms are the first and currently only renew projects in Adelaide
From the forum a number of potential ideas were proposed for the initial renew projects around Adelaide, eventually they were narrowed down to the idea of a young lass named Becci who proposed the reading room and the sewing room respectively and have now moved into Hindley st. and have been operating successfully for about 8 months.
There was also meant to be a group of web designers called Radelaide who were looking for office space (website) to make computer games. The landlord liked the idea of the Reading Room the most out of the proposed projects
Renew spaces are allowed to run at a profit and most likely you won’t pay rent. Serious applicants need to have a feasible idea, the space needs to be open as much as possible, need to devote time to it and to be able to be available at short notice. The point is to be adding to the street and preferably to involve the community. It will also help your application if you are doing something that isn’t being done already.
Contact Renew; [email protected]
Renewadelaide.wordpress.com
Facebook: renew adelaide
Renew Adelaide Flyer (in their own words…)
Ever had a great idea for a business, art or community space but couldn’t get past the prospect of longterm leases and major financial commitment? Ever walked around the city and wondered what could be done about all the empty shop fronts, warehouses and office spaces??
Enter renew Adelaide, a volunteer run, urban renewal program that places community projects and creative initiatives into empty or underused space at low cost via a licence to access agreement.
Renew Adelaide follows on from the successful renew Newcastle model and is supported by the Kambitsis group, Adelaide west end association and Adelaide city council along with a large amount of invaluable community support.
I’m a property owner, what’s in it for me?
We’re all bout renewal so if you’ve a property that is struggling to attract commercial tenants, how about giving our participants a try? Renewed spaces can attract people back into under used streets, protect empty buildings from vandalism and general decay and maintain existing use licenses – all great selling points should a paying tenant come along later down the track.
We work on a rolling 30 day licence to access agreement which means that you or we can pull out with 30 days notice plus there are no tax implications for you because we don’t hold an actual lease
I have an idea, where do I sign up!?
Get a registration of interest form from our website ( http://www.box.net/shared/30m3v7mks1 )and follow the prompts. Its ok if your idea isn’t fully formed or you don’t have all the furniture ready to move in tomorrow – but it’s definitely a good idea to let us know what stage you are at with your planning.
Please note that unfortunately renew can’t help you with putting on a one night only exhibition or give access to specific spaces as we work by matching available spaces to appropriate participants for a minimum of 30 days.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Footnote
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation was born out of the work of Adelaide Thinker in Residence, Geoff Mulgan, Director of The Young Foundation (a full report on his work while in residence can be found here).
He believed that the time was ripe for a centre of excellence in social innovation in Australia and that South Australia was a natural base for this kind of work due to a unique combination of factors such as a history of 'punching above its weight' in social innovation (South Australia was the first state in the world to allow women to stand for parliament, it addressed disadvantage in housing with the South Australian Housing Trust and introduced the Prohibition of Discrimination Act in 1966 - to name a few) and being the right size to experiment, test and upscale socially innovative projects.
Premier Mike Rann and the Government of South Australia agreed with Geoff Mulgan's vision and have provided seed-funding for an initial three year period for a national centre of excellence in social innovation.
Our strong and diverse Board of Directors, inaugural CEO Brenton Caffin and a dedicated group of staff and partners are all focused on making the most of this opportunity to deliver positive social change in Australia.
In 2010, The Australian Centre for Social Innovation launched its inaugural program of work.
It is up to us now to take advantage of this opportunity and show everyone what we're worth so that the project can continue
Contact
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation
+61 8 8110 9957
[email protected]
Torrens Building, 220 Victoria Square/Tarndanyangga, Adelaide SA 5000
Media Liaison: Erin Green (+61) 0421 987 327
