Urbid

"URBID is the official app of the URBID project - an innovative social initiative that addresses grassroots urban transformation and environmentally sustainable reuse of existing objects and spaces. It proposes a novel design and decision-making platform that enables citizens to identify derelict sites and artefacts in their neighborhoods, start a competition generating proposals for their transformation, and access a variety of funding options.

The project was initiated by socially-engaged professionals with different bacgkrounds (architecture, design, IT) in one of Europe's aspiring tech and creativity hub - Sofia, Bulgaria's capital. There were two main issues identified that had to be addresse urgently in order to improve the urban space in the city: 1. Due to limited public funds, the available resources are preferentially allocated towards large infrastructure projects like roads and highways. As a consequence, various urban spaces and objects (bus shelters, underways, etc) are abandoned for decades. This leads not only to poorer condition of the environment, but also affects issues like safety, real estate prices and quality of life. 2. There’s a lack of civic agency and initiative in shaping public space. In many big city residents rarely identify themselves with their neighbourhood, and lack the sense of belonging when it comes to common urban spaces.

URBID aims at empowering citizens through a platform enabling initiative and streamlining decision - making in the transformation of derelict urban sites, and introduce alternative sources of funding like private companies, NGOs , advertising and crowdfunding. It also aims to test and map a process of sustainable reuse on urban scale. Encouraging a creative mix of visual arts, product design and outdoor advertising, the platform enables citizens to nominate spaces in their city in need of transformation, and professionals, companies, and citizens are invited to propose a solution for revamping them."