How Leuven is developing an Urban Repair Center
Urban Repair Centres are physical centres that help facilitate repair in urban areas. Leuven is currently working on scaling up the URC in the city.
Read all about the developments below
We want to create a space in the city where citizens, professionals and organizations work together on scaling up repair in the city

The URC in Leuven
The city of Leuven is lucky to have a strong bottom-up repair scene with Maakbaar Leuven and MAAKbar as the main repair organizations. Both organizations focus on guiding citizens towards repair by organizing repair cafés, courses or activities.
First, a Repair Hub in the city
In 2021 we created the Repair Hub in Leuven. The Hub is part of 'maakleerplek', a space where companies, organizations, schools, artists and citizens from Leuven learn, make and work together. Focussing on creativity, innovation and cross-fertilization between different sectors, companies, educational institutions and organizations.
The main activities are:
- organizing repair events and repair cafés;
- working together with other organizations in maakleerplek to find solutions for repair of EEE;
- experimenting with spare parts for EEE repair;
- experimenting with 3D printed spare parts in collaboration with the high-techlab (fablab) in maakleerplek;
Next, from hub to URC
In 2023, we plan to scale up the Repair Hub and create an Urban Repair Centre in the city. A place where MAAKbar and Maakbaar Leuven will still organize repair activities for citizens, but also test new business models for repair.
In the URC we will experiment with:
- repair-as-a-service for companies;
- collaborating with professional repairers in the city;
- making repair accessible for all citizens;
- working together with educational centres to increase the repair capacity;
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