Identifying the Underused Spaces in our City with Reusing Dublin

Reusing Dublin aims to unlock the potential of underused and vacant spaces in the city.

Dublin is awash with vacant and underused spaces. There are numerous reasons for this, from economic issues, to a lack of innovative planning for these sites. Solutions have been mooted, such as community gardens for vacant brownfield spaces, and interested groups already exist, but the tools to facilitate access to these lands and let citizens know about them, as well as to engage future possibilities, are yet to be created.

Given the current scenario of numerous vacant and underused spaces that can be found spread throughout the city, Reusing Dublin emerges as a helpful tool to map the location of underused sites, buildings and other types of spaces.

Reusing Dublin works on the idea of crowd sourcing, a method by which citizens and most importantly, Dubliners – the ones who know their city best – are able to mark and give a brief description about an abandoned building in D1 or a vacant plot that is surrounded by palisade fencing in D2.

Moreover, they are able to give advice on what could function well on a specific site, as well as making proposals for these spaces. Considering the area and its sociocultural scope, there are various possibilities that surround such spaces, be they a former pub that needs to be refurbished, a wide grassed area that has been untouched for many years to be remodelled as a pocket park, or even a flat roof that can accommodate additional uses such as growing potatoes.

Reusing Dublin offers the facility to discover and share information on these underused spaces in Dublin. It also aims to connect people on the issue of vacant and underused spaces to work on unlocking the potential of these spaces for the benefit of everyone.

You can explore the sites already recorded on the map on the Reusing Dublin website to get to know more about them. If you are aware of an underused or vacant space, check if it is already pinned by typing its address in the search box. If not, you can locate it on the map and insert a brief description about the space.

Reusing Dublin is an experimental research project that is part of a wider EU FP7 project called TURAS (Transitioning towards Urban Resilience and Sustainability). You can keep up to date with its work via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.