Image by YouRban | YouRban Open Calls 2025
YouRban is a European platform where design, sustainability, and urban innovation come together. The YouRban open calls for Milan or Barcelona invite artists, designers, and creative thinkers to explore new ways of recycling and upcycling reinforced polymers while shaping more inclusive and circular cities. Whether you’re responding to a local challenge or developing your own solution, YouRban offers funding, mentorship, and a space to bring your ideas into action.
Open Call 1: for Artists, Citizens & Designers
MILAN
Approach: Problems Looking for a Solution
Location: Milan, Italy
For Whom: Designers, Artists, Urban Creators
The YouRban project invites professionals from the creative and design sectors to participate in a residency based in Milan. Selected applicants will develop innovative, sustainable solutions to address specific urban challenges previously identified through consultation with local stakeholders.
Thematic Focus
Applicants are expected to respond to one of the following predefined challenges:
Eco-friendly Urban Mobility
Temporary Activation of Neglected Spaces
Revitalization of Public Squares
Nature-based Solutions for Climate Adaptation
BARCELONA
Approach: Solutions Looking for a Problem
Location: Barcelona, Spain
For Whom: Designers, Artists, Urban Creators
The YouRban project offers an artistic and design residency in Barcelona, focused on creators who bring forward independent ideas for sustainable, urban-centered innovation. Rather than responding to a predefined challenge, applicants are expected to develop a conceptual or physical solution and identify the problem it addresses throughout the design process.
Thematic Focus
Applicants are encouraged to approach urban challenges from any scale (domestic to public) and to define the issue their solution will address. This open-ended framework supports experimental thinking and conceptual exploration, with an emphasis on recyclable materials, particularly fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP).
Grant & Support
Financial contribution: €17,500 per project
Duration: 8-month residency (September 2025 – April 2026)
Support includes:
- Mentorship from YouRban experts,
- Access to co-creation digital tools (Kartu platform),
- Collaboration with an Urban Factory in Milan.
Submission Deadline: 30 July 2025, 17:00 CEST
More Information: yourban-europe.eu/open-calls