Submit a Project Proposal
The Village Building Convergence will take place June 15 – 22, 2024. If you are interested in hosting a community project during this year’s VBC, please fill out the form below!
How does it work?
The Placemaking Committee will work with your community group throughout the Winter and Spring, culminating in a design for your project, which will be implemented at some point during the Village Building Convergence (June-September). We will help neighborhoods facilitate and coordinate the outreach / public involvement process, community decision-making and design workshops, the permit process with the City, and partnership building. Though we will work closely with you, all site groups are responsible for their projects from start to finish, which includes fundraising, publicizing, building, and ongoing maintenance of the project.
What is the Village Building Convergence?
The Village Building Convergence is an annual collaboration and cross pollination of neighbors, groups and civic partnerships to transform our city. Placemaking projects are accepted and developed throughout spring and culminate with our week-long summer festivities, where we showcase the ongoing projects alongside interactive workshops, guest speakers, and local performances.
Why Placemaking?
Placemaking fosters active, engaged relationships with our community, the spaces we inhabit, and the landscapes of our lives. Placemaking allows us to shape those spaces in a way which creates a sense of communal stewardship and lived connection. This is most often accomplished through a creative reclamation of public space: projects can take the form of benches on street corners where neighbors can rest and talk with each other, kiosks on sidewalks where we can post information about local events and resources, and street paintings in the public right-of-way that demonstrate to all who pass through that this is a Place inhabited, known and loved by its residents. In all instances, these projects are undertaken by local communities who come together to discuss what it is they want in their neighborhood—what elements are lacking in the public sphere and how the community can work together with the resources they have to create their own place.
Who is City Repair?
City Repair is a non-profit that facilitates placemaking, community building, and educational projects. Our mission is to support and inspire communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live. City Repair facilitates artistic and ecologically-oriented placemaking through projects that reflect the needs and visions of local communities and the natural world. Our many projects have been accomplished by a mostly volunteer staff and thousands of volunteer citizen activists.
City Repair projects include the annual Village Building Convergence, the Urban Permaculture Design Course, and our mobile tea house called the T-Horse, which is a tool to create community gathering spaces throughout Portland.
How can my neighborhood initiate a Placemaking Project?
We are so glad you asked! Each Fall we offer up an opportunity for interested individuals and groups to submit a proposal for a project intended to bring together the community to work as a team to create beautiful new space for the benefit of all. As noted in “How does it work?”, our team will have various strategies to facilitate the success of your project, but commitment from you, the community champion, is instrumental to the completion of your project.
Below are some of the projects we have supported in the past; feel free to also browse our project map.
Potential Project Ideas:
Community gardens • Insectaries and Bee Habitat • Backyard sharing • Gathering spaces • Benches • Sculptures • Multi-functional spaces • Alternative energies • Murals • Art installations with recycled and reclaimed materials • Depaving • Eco-roofs • Reflective Rooftops • Pollinator Pathways • Meditation areas • Teahouses • Water catchment systems • Intersection repair • Cob structures • Solar installations • Bioswales • Outdoor classrooms • Mosaic work • Permaculture gardens • Cob saunas • Kiosks • Ecological building • Planter boxes • Straw-bale structures • Memorials • Park repair • Street painting • Community theater • Composting toilets • Inter-organizational community collaborations across the city • Brownfield bio-remediation • Inner-block pathways •Creative solutions to issues your neighborhood is facing • Amazing things we have not yet imagined...
CREATING AN EFFECTIVE PROJECT:
Include as many as possible of the people who might use your “place.” Many successful neighborhood projects begin with a few inspired individuals. The key to any community project, however, is to shift that inspiration to a whole community and involve all of the stakeholders throughout the whole process. We realize that this initial statement of interest will be submitted by those first few inspired individuals, so please do your best to express your own interest and ideas as well as those which you think your neighborhood would appreciate.
We welcome folks who are new to placemaking. Answer the questions below to the best of your ability. Some groups start out further along in the process, and have already connected with possible funders, etc. Wherever you are in the process is fine.
Community sites that begin the season with an open potluck of interested participants generally are much more successful in the long run. For neighborhood projects, this means the folks living in roughly a 2-block radius. For churches or schools, you probably already have a good way to make announcements like this - but we encourage you to reach out to all possible participants. We suggest that the event be mostly socializing (with a sign up sheet for further involvement). This is a very highly recommended step, as it is so closely tied to the success of your VBC project.
Registration Fee:
PAYMENT METHODS: Checks or PayPal
CHECKS: Please make check payable to: “The City Repair Project” and add a Memo Line: “VBC 24 [Insert community site name] PM Reg Fee”
DEADLINE: Friday, March 29th, 2024
Send to: 1421 SE Division Street, Portland, Oregon 97202
Pay via PAYPAL include a comment with “VBC 24 [Insert community site name] PM Reg Fee”
We are offering this program with a self-selected spectrum of cost (tiered pricing). Please pay whatever feels right to you.
The full value for this program is *at least* $650. If you can pay that, please do. We encourage those who are able to pay on a higher tier to help support discounts and scholarships for individuals and communities in need. We can create a monthly payment plan for you.
We also have options for individuals and communities that need to pay less.
Typically, a group of neighbors pays between $225-$350, an organization pays between $350-$600 and a large/profitable business pays between $500-$1000.
Situate yourself on this scale, and go ahead and select your payment amount. We trust you!
QUESTIONS
Feel free to contact us for help or more information at info@cityrepair.org.