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03/10/2025

HERITACT x INHERIT in Eleusis: practical synergies for reactivating cultural and industrial heritage

General

On Wednesday, 24 September 2025, MENTOR and the Municipality of Eleusis, in co-organisation with the University of Patras, hosted a hybrid, open event at the Old Refreshment Room (Palio Anapsiktirio), bringing to the same table two flagship Horizon Europe projects: HeritACT and INHERIT. The meeting aimed to highlight, and share with the public and with partners from both consortia, practical pathways for adaptive reuse and activation of industrial and cultural heritage sites. The discussion focused on three pillars: community activation and participation; non-intrusive, small-scale architectural solutions with a tangible footprint on the city’s urban and social fabric; and digital experiences that broaden access and reinforce participation.

The event was livestreamed (10:30–13:30 EEST / 09:30–12:30 CET) and brought together a wide range of professionals, cultural practitioners, architects, students, and researchers, who followed the presentations, exchanged experience, and discussed the challenges and opportunities of heritage reactivation at the European scale.

Why Eleusis?

Choosing Eleusis as the meeting point was no accident. The city has a distinctive historical and cultural stratigraphy, where the legacy of antiquity coexists with the traces of intense 20th-century industrial development. It is a living laboratory for exploring new pathways of adaptive reuse and heritage activation. Its experience as European Capital of Culture 2023 further strengthened collaboration prospects, having already placed sustainable cultural development and community participation at centre stage.

Within HeritACT, Eleusis serves as one of three pilot sites, alongside Milan and Ballina, providing a field for testing in practice participatory methodologies, small-scale, non-intrusive architectural interventions, and digital tools. In this way, the city does not merely host a series of European actions; it actively helps shape a new paradigm for cultural heritage in Europe. Eleusis functions as a practical testbed and is progressively transformed through the contribution of the local community and the guidance of the project team, in line with contemporary European frameworks and the New European Bauhaus principles.

The HeritACT project: philosophy and objectives

The HeritACT presentation was delivered by the University of Patras team, the project coordinator. At the core of the talk was the project’s vision: bridging the past with the future of cities through cultural heritage.

The team outlined how HeritACT weaves together three key pillars:

  • a digital, open-access toolkit;
  • participatory practices that place the community at the centre of design;
  • non-intrusive, small-scale architectural and digital solutions piloted within the urban fabric.

They also presented the project’s nine objectives, spanning from strengthening local participatory processes to policy development and the integration of sustainable materials in construction. Particular emphasis was placed on alignment with the New European Bauhaus (NEB) principles - beautiful, sustainable, together - that is, gentle interventions which make everyday life more beautiful, more sustainable, and more inclusive. The presentation highlighted how HeritACT aims to deliver not only innovative applications, but also a transferable model that can be adopted by other European cities seeking ways to connect cultural heritage with contemporary urban life.

The INHERIT project

INHERIT aims to develop and demonstrate next-generation solutions for historic buildings, improving their energy and resource performance, climate resilience, accessibility, and inclusiveness. Through 11 ICT-enabled management services, linked to social and behavioural practices, the project will be piloted across eight cultural-heritage sites, validating the scalability and exploitation of results in diverse socioeconomic, physical, and cultural contexts. INHERIT follows an integrated three-layer methodology, social, scientific, technological, augmented by AI algorithms, big-data analytics, and MCDA. The consortium comprises 18 partners in 13 European countries, covering all layers as well as communication, dissemination, and exploitation. Its objective is to align heritage management with sustainable-development principles, offering models that can be applied in different cultural and climatic environments.

INHERIT: Pilot application in Visby

The event showcased INHERIT’s pilot in Visby, a UNESCO World Heritage medieval town. Here, the INHERIT methodology is applied to evaluate renovation packages and identify optimal strategies for the pilot’s heritage buildings. Using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), the aim is to assess the impact of different renovation approaches, considering factors such as current energy status, potential for adaptive reuse, and preservation of the buildings’ historic character. Additional services will be tested both across the building stock and at the Kulturum. All interventions are carefully designed to enhance functionality and sustainability without compromising heritage values.

INHERIT: Pilot application in Izmir

The INHERIT pilot in Izmir focused on the APİKAM building, a site of particular historical value for the city: it was the first fire station constructed by the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality after the Great Fire of 1922. Today, the building houses municipal offices, an exhibition hall, two seminar rooms (with a combined capacity of over 140 people), a research room for the municipal archive, the Foundation of the National Library of Izmir, a local press archive, and a book-café in the annex. With this range of functions, APİKAM can attract more than 50,000 visitors annually.

Given the building’s public role, the pilot will improve accessibility and public use and deploy a decision-support tool to assess the most cost-effective strategies for reducing energy consumption and emissions, enhancing the building’s indoor environmental conditions, and integrating renewable-energy technologies—all while preserving its historic value. In doing so, APİKAM aims to serve as a model for how cultural-heritage buildings can adapt to community needs without losing their historical identity. Through this pilot, Izmir emerges as a living laboratory where technological innovation meets the protection of cultural memory.

HeritACT: Eleusis as Palimpsest - Municipality of Eleusis

The presentation by the Municipality of Eleusis highlighted the city’s distinctive cultural and historical context, underscoring its dual character: on the one hand, a heavy industrial past; on the other, a rich archaeological heritage that ranks Eleusis among the most significant sites of antiquity. Key challenges were noted, including the reactivation and regeneration of abandoned industrial sites and the deeper integration of the archaeological site into residents’ everyday life. It was also emphasised that in 2023 Eleusis served as European Capital of Culture, a title that opened the way for long-pursued ambitions. While the full impact is still being assessed, tangible legacies include strengthened European networking, participatory programmes with the local community, and new cultural infrastructures. This momentum continues through projects such as HeritACT, which seek to bring new life to places long associated with dereliction or environmental degradation, turning them into drivers of urban regeneration, social cohesion, and sustainable development.

Community Activation - MENTOR

As a HeritACT partner, MENTOR presented the participatory actions already delivered, and those forthcoming, in the city. The talk outlined the community activation methodology used to enable residents’ participation in the design and adaptive reuse of cultural-heritage sites, alongside the mapping and data-gathering tools employed to capture local needs and ideas.

An integrated methodological approach is being applied for community activation aimed at the reactivation and adaptive reuse of industrial-heritage spaces. At its core lie four sequential phases:

  1. Co-recognition: Documenting and understanding tangible/intangible heritage, local memories, and community needs.
  2. Co-envisioning: Collectively shaping ideas for the future of sites through workshops, dialogues, and creative practices.
  3. Co-design: Developing feasible proposals and small-scale interventions with residents, artists, architects, and stakeholders.
  4. Co-creation: Implementing pilot actions that turn the site into a living laboratory of participation and cultural production.

Through this approach, it became clear that HeritACT, with MENTOR’s pivotal contribution, acts as a bridge between place and people. It does not merely restore or repurpose buildings; it transforms them into living fields of dialogue, participation, and creativity.

Presentation of the Architectural Solutions designed by the University of Patras

Dr. Katerina Liapi, Professor at the University of Patras, presented the architectural solutions being developed within HeritACT. Her talk focused on how small-scale interventions can contribute to the adaptive reuse of sites that currently have little or no active presence in the city’s social and urban fabric. She showcased design examples that leverage appropriate materials, flexible typologies, and architectural solutions to ensure sustainable implementation. Dr Liapi also mapped these approaches to the New European Bauhaus (NEB) principles, emphasising aesthetic quality, sustainability, and inclusiveness.

These are lightweight, flexible, and sustainable interventions that combine aesthetics with functionality and can be adapted to different contexts:

  • Mobile urban equipment: Modular units made from economical, durable materials (e.g., timber), deployable as seating, micro-stages, or information stations. Their final configuration emerges through co-design processes with users.
  • Green Tensegrity & small-scale Pavilion: Planting is used for passive cooling and shading. The design draws on community workshops and parametric testing, so that the structures align with local flows, orientation, and microclimate.

Common features across all solutions include low weight, low cost, high transformability, and clear utility for community-level actions.

IAAC - Innovation, Sustainable Materials, and Circular Design

The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) presented methodologies and applications around the use of innovative materials and circular processes in design. The aim is to implement interventions in cultural-heritage spaces in ways that reduce environmental footprint while ensuring accessibility and aesthetic quality. These interventions function as shading elements, rest points, or small activity surfaces. IAAC highlighted practices that include modular (arthrotés) constructions, easily adaptable to community needs, as well as bio-material trials that enable phased adaptive reuse and extension of material life cycles. In this perspective, architecture is approached not as a static insertion, but as a dynamic process.

Projection Mapping - University of Patras

The participatory projection mapping strand was presented by Eva Vlachaki (University of Patras), showcasing how projection mapping technology can become a participatory tool for cultural storytelling. The methodology relied on collective content production through workshops with residents, schools, and local groups. Participants created visual and sonic fragments (collage, stop-motion, short recordings), which will be integrated into projections on selected structures in public space. In this way, Eleusis’s neighbourhoods and their residents redefine their own image within the urban fabric, while projection mapping operates as a tool of shared memory and visibility. The approach links artistic expression with collective participation, empowering residents as co-creators of cultural content.

THINGS - Digital experiences and participation tools

The THINGS team presented HeritACT’s digital solutions strand, designed to broaden access and public participation. Their proposals are structured along two axes:

  • Virtual Exhibition Archive (VEA): a permanent digital exhibition space, accessible via desktop, mobile, and VR. It aggregates photographs, texts, videos, audio testimonies, and 3D objects that narrate Eleusis’s workers’ and industrial memory. The platform is open and extensible, with the ability to connect to other cities in the future.
  • Augmented Reality (AR) on-site: a mobile application (iOS/Android) that guides visitors to points of interest via QR prompts.

THINGS’ solutions combine technological innovation with participatory practice, offering tools that strengthen local memory and create new forms of cultural access.

HeritACT - INHERIT meeting: convergences and complementary approaches

The Eleusis event offered a rare opportunity to bring together two Horizon Europe projects, HeritACT and INHERIT. Though their starting points differ, both converge on the shared aim of redefining the role of monuments and heritage sites today. HeritACT foregrounds participatory processes, gentle/small-scale interventions, and digital tools that give communities a voice and activate sites. INHERIT contributes the necessary technical expertise; energy efficiency, predictive methods, and solutions that combine technological innovation with heritage protection, always with community participation as a guiding principle.

The event closed with an extended Q&A between speakers and participants, opening fruitful conversations on the future of cultural heritage and on culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development. After the session, participants walked the industrial area, “read” the urban fabric, and discussed in situ how the proposed solutions can be embedded in the real environment.

What changes in practice

Eleusis functions as a pilot setting where the architectural interventions and digital solutions co-created with the community under HeritACT are now set to be used by that same community. Next steps include co-design and co-implementation workshops, activation of the virtual museum for Eleusis’s industrial heritage, the phased rollout of the on-site AR experience at initial points of interest, and a final pan-European showcase of the solutions. Stay tuned!