Our friends over at the Third Lisbon Architecture Triennale Close, Closer have put together a small grant program for architects to propose start-up civic projects in the city of Lisbon. Aptly titled Crisis Buster the program is close to our hearts, in offering opportunities for civic engagement and unsolicited urban interventions. Deadline for applications is February 18th 2013. Download their guidelines here (PDF).

The third Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Close, Closer, is announcing a crisis-busting ideas grant for Lisbon, in a direct response to the catastrophic social impacts of recession and the cultural and civic deficit created in crisis-ridden Europe.

The Triennale will provide a number of small grants from €500 – € 2,500 (five hundred to two-thousand five hundred Euros) to individuals or teams presenting proposals for funding, part-funding or start-up funding for civic projects in the city of Lisbon. The grants reflect the existing entrepreneurial and social spirit that has emerged in the city during the crisis and we hope they will encourage more ideas to start-up in Portugal and beyond.

The Triennale sees this as an opportunity for architectural thinking and ideas to be applied on a small scale to the city, to support and to give visibility to existing local projects. We hope that the start-up ideas we support can not only attempt to solve problems, produce exciting, beautiful or meaningful contributions to the city, but also inspire others to read, understand and replicate them.

The goal of the Crisis Buster grant programme is to generate innovative, useful, productive and long-term ideas which, through spatial, written, cultural or other means, address civic issues in the city of Lisbon. The grant also exists to support and promote existing initiatives. One of the central aims of the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale is to provide opportunities and new platforms for emerging practitioners and to promote interdisciplinary work, therefore we strongly welcome proposals from cross-disciplinary collaborations.

The Crisis Buster grant programme is open to national and international teams from start-up funds to 100% costs, but the project must take place in Lisbon and must be directly related to issues and circumstances generated by the crisis. More info and guidelines at www.close-closer.com