DVOR: Neighbours in Charge - The Urban Commoning Toolkit
AO LAOLALTĂ
Moldova, Republic of
DVOR revitalizes residential neighborhoods into urban commons - places for culture and community. The aim is to share practices, skills and tools needed to organize, design, and activate neighbourhood courtyards, through an accessible practical visual guide - from navigating local regulations to running cultural events and collective urban interventions. Instead of waiting for top-down change, neighbours reclaim shared spaces through culture and collaboration with urbanists, activists, artists, civic groups and local authorities through a shared online resource and a participatory framework.
DVOR: Neighbours in Charge is an online toolkit that turns 3 years of the DVOR community program in Chișinău (meaning ‘neighbourhood courtyard’ in local slang) into a practical digital resource for neighbours’ self-organization. The platform will compile and systematize knowledge from multiple successful courtyard initiatives — including participatory planning processes, cultural interventions and collaboration with local authorities — and then, translate it into accessible tools for residents and civic actors.
Through case studies, step-by-step guides, visual materials and practical advice from urban planners, legal experts, artists and community organizers, the platform will function as both a knowledge archive and an action toolkit. Published as a free and open-access website, the platform will enable residents, civil society groups, and local authorities to learn from existing examples and replicate the DVOR model independently, regardless of project funding or municipal support. By making this knowledge visible and accessible, the project strengthens participatory governance, cultural activation of neighbourhoods and the idea of courtyards as shared urban commons.