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news from rooftops across europe

Want to keep abreast of the latest (rooftop) news and developments? We’ve organised everything here for your convenience.

We are challenging cities to use rooftops as a way to combat climate change and socio-economic segregation by publishing the policy paper: RAINBOW ROOFTOPS. A document with political proposals rethinking the use of European rooftops, mapping the available ones and bringing the community together to make decisions about their future use.

Download the PDF

The ECRN roofscope landmark project

Artist Larsen Bervoets (Antwerp, 1979) is a multi-disciplinary and experimental artist. Coming months he will work on 6 different roofs throughout Europe, starting in Gothenburg. His works are characterised by tight geometric compositions that give an impression of ‘a space’. Often in these creations colours and colour patterns create an illusion of an extra dimension.

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Chemnitz Meetup

The spring 2023 partnermeeting of the ECRN consortium was hosted by our partners from Chemnitz, the European Capital of Culture 2025. We worked on our art project, the festival exchanges, our benchmarking study and the future of ECRN. Team Chemnitz showed us their amazing city with locations such as Wirkbau, Oberdeck Chemnitz and Garagen Campus.

The ECRN artistic rooftop residencies

Summer 2022, each ECRN member sent two artists to two other members, and they received two in their own city. During their residency, these artists were offered a chance to create and show work in the country where they were hosted. The 18 different artworks were inspired by the roofscape and related to local roof-topics.

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Rooftops for Europe event

ECRN did a public event called “Rooftops for Europe” on the 18th of November 2022 in the city of Belfast. The initiative took place at Banana Block/Portview.

more about the event

Nomad Academy: Victoria

Meet Victoria, the nomad from Barcelona. She’s working on her final dissertation on how to link the the practices and uses of rooftops in Barcelona with the Sustainable Development Goal 11, which aims to create sustainable cities and communities.

More about Victoria & her project

Member meetup in Belfast

The ECRN consortium met in Belfast November 2022, where we worked on more rooftop awareness across Europe. We visited some of Belfasts rooftops (for instance the new Belfast Story site, the Oh Yeah Music Centre, and Portview Trade Centre).

meet the members

Nomad Academy: Agnes Eeg-Olofsson

Our nomad Agnes Eeg-Olofsson is focusing on the best way to use rooftops for performances. She wants to shine a light on how the rooftops of swimming halls can be used for performances and also through their transparency, giving public access to art.

More about Agnes & her project

Nomad Academy: Dean

Our nomad from Belfast: Dean! He’s an avid architectural researcher, and their project seeks to explore the celestial histories of Belfast during ‘The Troubles’ to create an archival piece of work around how observation during this period hindered rooftop development.

More about Dean & his project

Nomad Academy: Sophie Stravens

Introducing Sophie, the Nomad from Rotterdam. Sophie is a performer, presenter and programmer. This summer she shared a performance with mini-lectures, rooftop-songs and moments of reflection, on rooftops in 3 cities. How can rooftops provide us new space in our dense city centers and busy lives? Exciting stuff!

More about Sophie & her project

Nomad Academy: Sarah Haazen

Meet Sarah, the Nomad from Antwerp. She just finished the last year of her architecture studies by writing her thesis on how the amount of unused roofs in Antwerp could contribute to solving urban challenges. She’s working with Dakkan to see what’s possible on the roof to change Antwerp’s roof landscape bit by bit.

More about Sarah & her project
Nomad Tiago

Nomad Academy: Tiago Candeias

Meet Tiago, our Nomad from Faro. He wants to promote rooftops as creative labs for young and emerging artists to have a space, engage, explore, be creative and put their ideas into practice. He’s doing this through a creative mentoring programme.

More about Tiago & his project
Nomad Christin

Nomad Academy: Christin Breitfeld

Meet Christin, she’s the Nomad from Chemnitz, from our Nomad Academy. Christin is connecting schools in Chemnitz to create green roofs so students will have their own garden to learn about climate-related issues and they’ll become much more aware of the subject.

More about Christin & her project
Nomad Marina

Nomad Academy: Marina Kyriakou

Meet Marina, the Nomad from Nicosia, from our Nomad Academy. Marina is creating an “Inclusive Community Engagement Toolkit for developing Rooftop Activities” with the playful acronym “ICE-T on the Roof”. She aims to provide alternative tools to allow people to increase the level of interest and participation when initiating and developing a Rooftop Project.

More about Marina & her project
Nomad Anna

Nomad Academy: Anne Molenaar

Meet Anne, one of the Nomads from our Nomad Academy. The Nomad Academy is a group of 9 people, that we believe to be the next generation rooftop pioneers! Anne Molenaar is the Nomad from Amsterdam. She’s working on a booklet to inspire people from all over Europe to start their own rooftop initiative.

More about Anne & the nomad academy

07-07-22 These are the Rooftop Artists

The members of the European Creative Rooftop Network have selected 18 artists for the Rooftop Artist Residencies. This transdisciplinary project will be organised in the summer of 2022. The artists will travel to one of the European cities of the network and develop artwork related to… Rooftops! Check our list of selected artists!

more information

31-05-22 New European Bauhaus Festival

The ECRN has been selected as one of the official side events to take place in Brussels during The New European Bauhaus Festival in Brussels (and a bit across Europe) between 09 and 12 of June. Join our session “Europe from another perspective” on June 10th!

more information

11-05-22 Meetup in Gothenburg

ECRN met up in Gothenburg this time, where we, among other things, worked on the artistic residencies where two dozen artists will circulate around Europe. The creative natives also showed us around to see projects that make a difference like the Göteborg 400 år. 

14-03-22 Meetup in Amsterdam

Last week ROEF Amsterdam had the pleasure of showing the ECRN their hometown. The meetup included inspiring work sessions at local hotspots, visiting rooftops, meeting local rooftop experts and much more.

04-02-22 Artist in residencies

Open call for 18 transdisciplinary Rooftop Artist Residencies in the summer of 2022: residencies are available for artists who live and work in the 9 European cities of the ECRN. They’ll travel to one of the other 8 European cities of the network and develop artwork related to… Rooftops!

more information

02-12-21 Meetup in Antwerp

On December second, the partner organisations met in Antwerp. The nine partner cities differ in culture, climate and city planning but seek the similarities within the European roofscape and exchange their knowledge of this shared heritage.

Rooftopedia

The nine partners of ECRN are working on mapping rooftops in their cities. Check out the Rooftopedia by clicking the link below.

rooftopedia