Third Place La Place des Possibles

La Place des Possibles is a collective project aiming at the creation of a third place dedicated to all citizens of Royans Vercors territory, on 5 thematics : digital skills, recycling, local feeding, solidarities, citizenship, culture and arts. The location in an industrial wasteland, ancient textile factory

20 NGOs involved
600 visitors at the 2nd open day in september 2018
different daily activities in the place : repairing / crafting association, recycling stand, music bands training room...

La Place des Possibles is seen as a living lab, thinking about the architectural rehabiliation of the place, about the governance processes between all the members, and the activities that will take place in the third place. It is still in experimentation phasis and will be a perfect meeting place for smart villages initiatives!

The Royans-Vercors Intermunicipality is a rural area of 497 km2 located one hour south-west of Grenoble city in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, 9700 inhabitants are living there. That region presents the characteristics of a preserved and attractive environment appreciated both by tourists and inhabitants, thus a touristic destination famous for its landscapes and its local farming products such as nuts fruits. Territory is ageing resulting in public services departure and drop of local community dynamics and economic dynamics. But arrival of young people in the valley area has been noticed recently and let imagine local challenges that Smart Village project can actually address: small diversity of mobility solutions based on major car-dependant use, lack of collaborative, intelligent and digital governance tools, needs for digital ability improvement for some categories of population.

Place on disposal
Financial resources for place rehabilitation
Human resources for project coordination (1 person partially dedicated)
LEADER subsidies for studies funding

Real citizens and local organizations involvement
Local political support

First steps were dedicated to studies and diagnosis both on the needs of the territory and architectural possibilities in that old factory.
5 organizations were involved from the beginning, other NGOs join the project afterwards, mainly as users of the place, but also implied into the governance processes.
Experimentation phasis consisted of few activities integration in La Place des Possibles, open days (last one in sept 2018, next in sept 2019), and the creation of a european citizenship training cycle of 1 year, on the thematics where La Place des Possibles is interested in, allowing to test ideas with little costs.