Simon van Dommelen

Director / LOLA Amsterdam

Stichting Leegstand Oplossers Amsterdam (LOLA) is a vacancy manager that is there for the city, building and neighborhood. A building must be maintained and, perhaps more importantly, lived. We show that it is possible to bring an empty building to life in a responsible, inclusive and future-oriented way. We move the neighborhood into the building. In this way, an empty building becomes a place where experiment is possible, where people make, where they connect and where space is offered for social initiative.

People come first at LOLA because the city remains of the inhabitants and because people feel connected to the space, the buildings and the development of their living environment.

LOLA's approach is unique. Nowhere else are connections made so effectively between vacancy management, social initiative, area development, the neighborhood, art and entrepreneurship. Few parties are better able to connect local communities to future area developments. In this way we do inclusive and innovative placemaking.

LOLA was founded to compete with anti-squatting agencies and to advocate a social filling of vacancy. In recent years, we have realized fifteen social and creative breeding grounds in vacant real estate in Amsterdam and surroundings.