Special Report on Wood Footprint - From Empty Showrooms to Economic Development

In the economic boom of the last century consumers were eager to buy goods for their homes, and many wooden furniture manufacturers around Europe sold directly to the public, opening enormous showrooms. But the buildings were functional and often ugly. When they stopped trading due to recession and a fall in demand, these buildings looked even worse: bleak reminders of a past prosperity and symbols of urban decay.

A city of ghost buildings

"They were huge because furniture needs big spaces," explains Rui Coutinho, communications officer for Lead Partner Paços de Ferreira (Portugal). His city is all too aware of the problem: as Portugal's furniture capital, 85% of its economy depends on this trade. "With the economic slowdown some of these big buildings became half empty or completely vacant, which led to an enormous problem we have right now in that lots of buildings around the city are pretty much ghost buildings." Now in Paços de Ferreira there are more than 100,000 m2 of empty showrooms.

The vacant buildings sometimes left unemployment, derelict neighbourhoods and crime in their wake, but the city council was faced with the problem that the buildings were privately owned. How could private owners be encouraged to recycle their buildings and how could they help foster economic development and new employment?

A vertical project with wider implications

Paços de Ferreira wanted to find other cities with similar problems with which they could exchange and learn. During the development phase of this URBACT project last year, they discovered 9 other cities with strong relationships with wood manufacturing, all of them with their own specific problems and goals. The Wood Footprint project was approved for its implementation phase on 28 January, 2013.

It's a vertical rather than a horizontal project, addressing the issues that only affect cities associated with this particular industry. But it has wider implications for urban regeneration and economic redevelopment. As the partner cities were holding their 3-day kick-off meeting in Paços de Ferreira from 13 March, a network of contacts and advice was being established.

The 10 partner cities

Besides Paços de Ferreira there are two towns in the Salento area of Puglia in southern Italy: the very small Sternatia with just 3,000 people, where wooden furniture-makers are still investing in showroom space for direct sales; and the district’s capital, Lecce, which will give a better overall representation of this wood district. Sternatia will act as a "lab city" in the project, testing the solutions tried in other cities, and thereby avoiding others' mistakes.

Also in southern Europe are two other partner cities hit by the recession: Larissa in Greece, a town of 200,000 people, where many furniture manufacturers have closed, laying off workers, and requiring it to diversify; and also Yecla, in the Murcia region of Spain, which hosts a world-famous furniture fair annually.

In the Baltic state of Estonia the partner is its second city, Tartu, which in Soviet times had the biggest state-owned factory producing furniture for the USSR. Here the problem is not recession but the fate of the factory since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now its vast building and surrounding neighbourhood are largely abandoned.

The town of Roesalare, in Belgium, where the Rodenbach brewery used wooden barrels, has left a legacy of old buildings to be recycled. And in the border region of Monaghan in Ireland there is a cluster of plants connected with the furniture industry.

In the UK there is the district of Wycombe, home since 2010 of the National School of Furniture. The town is trying to diversify from bespoke furniture production to boost its economic growth.

The last partner is Viborg in Denmark, which has experienced some decline in recent years and is moving away from manufacturing towards high tech and new media.

The five themes and their lead cities

Each partner will be designated as either "coaching" or "learning" on different issues, so that they know where to turn for advice.

• Industrial parks for entrepreneurs and growth (High Wycombe)
• Diversification (Monaghan)
• Abandoned buildings (Viborg)
• Skills and employment (Yecla)
• Public Private Partnerships (Paços de Ferreira)

The partners are open-minded about the solutions: they will consider everything from pulling the buildings down to recycling them for other uses, perhaps moving manufacturers to new business parks. In Tartu there are plans to rehouse the municipal archives in the old factory building while in Paços de Ferreira they are working with the city's university to turn one showroom into a furniture design centre.

The Ikea phenomenon

What has changed the face of the furniture industry in recent decades has been the rise of the Ikea furniture group, opening stores all over Europe offering cheap, stylish goods rather than heirloom pieces. But Rui Coutinho says that traditional manufacturers should not see this phenomenon as a threat. Indeed, his own city of Paços de Ferreira contains the biggest Ikea manufacturing plant in southern Europe, employing 1,500 people.
As a result Ikea is involved in the Wood Footprint project, also because it has experience of recycling old industrial buildings when it took over former state-owned production facilities in Poland.

"We want the furniture business to learn from the model, not to replace their products," Rui says. "And Ikea is subcontracting to local producers. The traditional furniture business is no longer scared to death of Ikea, and they are sitting down at the same table and addressing common problems. We want to stimulate that more and more."

Next steps in a bottom-up project

The partner cities have scheduled a series of transnational meetings over the next 27 months. But the next one will not be until October 2013, in High Wycombe. Rui explains: "It will be a bottom-up project so work will start at local level, and that will be the most important part. At the end we will try to capitalise on everything with a further 6 months for finishing great Local Action Plans, so each stakeholder clearly identifies local problems with local solutions."

The other four thematic transnational meetings will be:
March 2014 in Monaghan: Diversification; June 2014 in Viborg: Abandoned buildings; October 2014 in Yecla: Skills and employment; and April 2015 in Paços de Ferreira, Public Private Partnerships (Final Conference).

Read more:

• Wood Footprint - URBACT website