Neighbourhood Doughnut Co-creation Week #2 (Past)

Join us 1st — 7th November 2021 for Neighbourhood Doughnut Co-creation Week #2 as we discover, play with, confront, co-design and advocate for what it means to start exploring this question. Building on from the grounding of Co-creation Week #1 and Down To Earth, learning from soil and the land beneath our feet about healing the planetary boundaries and being part of healthy systems, during this second week of four we will focus on delving more deeply - both practically and metaphorically - into the idea of the safe and just space for humanity.

Together we want to recognise the possibility and opportunity of that space that lies within the doughnut, as well as the deep and often complex interdependencies here too. The need to understand and work with dreamers, storytellers, artists, ecologists, designers, gardeners; neighbours of all kinds near and far around this concept over the long term is the intention from which we begin building a home to deliberate and practically organise around this together.

This is also the first chance to spend time together in the physical space that will be home to the physical and social regenerative neighbourhood infrastructure we have been dreaming up with you all, through a 7 day open studio context based inside The Factory building at Port Loop. This very special week is an open invitation at a significant moment in history for this site and the wider neighbourhood to imagine what this place might be together, who we might all be here, and how we imagine our wider neighbourhood to be in 2030 too.

Together we will co-create an open, relaxed pop-up studio space unpacking the key questions Doughnut Economics poses to us and begin turning the ideas of the doughnut into collective transformative action. Here you can find out lots more about the upcoming buildings at CIVIC SQUARE, the peer-to-peer learning journeys we have coming up to explore Doughnut Economics in the round, and create, play, experiment, question, map and learn more about our neighbourhood together.

Note: due to the early stages of us entering a disused building, it’s imperative we take care of ourselves and each other. Please read the page below for full details of keeping safe on site.

Decarbonising The Neighbourhood

Over the last year we have been working with a group of pioneering partners to reimagine how we move from top down and extractive approaches to decarbonising our neighbourhoods, through interventions such as neighbourhood retrofit. To meet our current climate targets almost every home and neighbourhood in the UK will need to be retrofitted to reduce energy and resource demand, reduce flood risk, urban heat island effects and manage and reduce associated liabilities.

Current approaches have rather spectacularly failed to move at the speed that we need to act, and many amazing movements are working tirelessly on this challenge and opportunity, so let's work together towards a more distributive by design, democratic approach, from the street level up, starting from where we are. Join us at the start of an open exploration into the challenges, ideas, and opportunities ahead and what they mean at the scale of the neighbourhood together.

A place of 1000s of neighbours doing incredible work, let's start to plot a large open map of activity, ensuring we start from the incredible energy already here, the history that got us here as we go forward. What might you share on the map?

Political Voice

One of social foundations identified in the heart of Doughnut Economics is political voice**. T**hese are are internationally agreed principles as part of the global Sustainable Development Goals agreed in 2015. On the eve of COP26, arguably the most urgent global climate summits of our lifetimes, the importance of raising our voices, holding governments to account, and rising up as people, is more important than ever.

Throughout the week, we will be banner and zine making with artist in residence Soofiya and our team, organising and coming together as part of the wider incredible work that has been happening in the city by the Birmingham COP26 Coalition and ****we invite you to join us at the Global Day For Climate Justice Birmingham Rally on 6th November 2021 at Millennium Point.

Safe And Just Space

*"Spatial justice is not a new term. It references an established body of academic work and activism that frames social justice not just as concerned with distribution of wealth and power amongst individuals or groups, but one that is shaped and driven by the geography and place in which it takes place.

How we organise and experience space can lock in injustice and ecological degradation, or can accelerate equity and agency, a good economic recovery and support climate transition."*

— Dark Matter Labs, Building the Spatial Justice Mission

So join us!
CIVIC SQUARE, Rotton Park Street, Birmingham, B16 0AE

OPEN 1st — 7th November 2021

• Monday — Friday, 12pm — 5pm
• Saturday, 10am — 2pm
• Option to head to Global Day For Climate Justice Birmingham Rally at Millennium Point, Cardigan Street, Birmingham, B4 7AP with us, preparing to leave together around 11am or meet there for the event start time of noon.
• Sunday, 10am — 2pm