How Leuven is developing an Urban Repair Center

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;