Together We Save the Factory Glasshouses!

We’re starting. The Factory Glasshouses are becoming a community project. This week, we, Make Better and the Banat Mountains Community Foundation, signed the acquisition contract for the The Factory Glasshouses.

The Factory Glasshouses are part of the former UCMR industrial platform (more details about this platform here), on the left bank of the Bârzava river, approximately 15–20 minutes on foot from the center of Reșița. They are tucked away at the end of a road, on the edge of the forest, in a place that many of Reșița’s residents don’t even know they can access.

The property we are taking over covers almost 13,000 sqm of land and includes 8 greenhouses built in different phases (from the 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s) and several administrative buildings and auxiliary spaces. In total, 17 cadastrally registered structures and other secondary structures, in various stages of deterioration.

Once upon a time, these greenhouses produced flowers, vegetables, and exotic plants for the factory’s leadership and for official visitors. They were a privileged, protected place, almost invisible to the rest of the city.

Today they are deteriorated, overrun by vegetation, scattered with piles of broken pots, dried cacti and palm trees, and with glass rooftops pierced by young trees but still full of character and potential.

Why are we taking this step?

Because Reșița needs places that bring people together.
Because Reșița’s remarkable industrial heritage is not just about warehouses and machinery, but also about seemingly marginal spaces that are nonetheless steeped in history.
Because in too many post-industrial cities, abandoned assets end up either deteriorating and disappearing, or being taken over without a vision oriented toward the common good.
Because we believe that civil society organizations have the power to act as active vectors of urban regeneration, not merely passive users or spectators.

2026 marks 10 years of involvement for the Make Better Association in Reșița, and we are marking this year by entering a new phase. We will be active stakeholders in the regeneration of the city’s industrial heritage, co-owners alongside the Banat Mountains Community Foundation, committed to a vision of regeneration and community opening of the entire UCMR site, together with the Municipality of Reșița, which has taken over or is in the process of taking over the other valuable assets on this site: The White Villa (the protocol villa) and the Red Villa (the former director’s residence, later converted into the factory’s polyclinic), the Computing Center, and the UCMR Museum.

And for the Banat Mountains Community Foundation, the Factory Glasshouses represent an opportunity to become directly involved in protecting and revitalizing Reșița’s unique heritage, a vast, undervalued, yet community-treasured legacy. Through this project, we are adding a new dimension to the foundation’s strategy, transforming a deteriorated site into a living, open, and community-useful space, where history, nature, and local initiative meet, and where Reșița residents can rediscover pride in their industry, transformed but alive, showing that the industrial past has not ended, but can be reinvented.

What we envision doing with the Industrial Greenhouses:

We envision an open community space, integrated into the future revitalized UCMR site, with gardening plots, restored and repurposed greenhouses as a micro-botanical garden, flower and vegetable nurseries tended by the community, and creative and event spaces: a forest-edge clearing with an outdoor summer kitchen for events and a camping spot for Via Transilvanica hikers.
We are not rushing. We are charting our course step by step, in consultation with both the community and specialists, building an ecosystem of functions that sustain one another in terms of costs and resources.
We are looking to connect with similar initiatives in Romania and abroad, community gardens, community land trusts, civically managed heritage, in order to learn and grow our capacity together.

What comes next:

(1) We will launch a fundraising campaign with the goal of raising, together with the Banat Mountains Community Foundation, 200,000 EUR over a period of 3 years for:

Completing the acquisition process – 100,000 EUR. We have signed the acquisition contract, yes, but have not yet paid the full amount, committing to payment in installments as we succeed in collecting the necessary sum.
Priority interventions and activation – 100,000 EUR. The priority activity plan for the first years includes: securing the structures, reconnecting to utilities, clearing invasive vegetation and rubble/collapsing structures, operationalizing a rainwater collection irrigation system, and a recurring activation program: gardening, nursery, guided tours, and events.

(2) On April 23–25, we are organizing in Reșița the international industrial heritage conference “Regenerating Places, Reimagining Futures”, an occasion on which we will present our initiative to a local, national, and international audience. The conference program will also include visits to the UCMR site and other industrial heritage landmarks of the city.

(3) On June 12–13, we are delighted to host a satellite event of the New European Bauhaus Festival – an international initiative that highlights how engaged citizens, together with local authorities, can actively contribute to the development and shaping of their communities. As part of this satellite event, we will organize visits to the greenhouses and discussions about their future.

(4) With the support of the Order of Architects of Romania, and in partnership with the Non-Formal Workshop for Spatial Planning, we will be running in July–August the second edition of the Reșița Industrial Heritage Lab – a summer school. Under the guidance of a team of specialists, approximately 20 students, master’s students, doctoral candidates, and early-career professionals in architecture, urbanism, restoration, and territorial planning will develop initial directions for the transformation of the entire former UCMR industrial platform site, which will serve as the basis for future design briefs for this site.

(5) During July–August, in partnership with the Volunteering for All Association, we will organize an international volunteering camp at the Factory Glasshouses. Across several rounds of volunteers, local and international participants will contribute to the first concrete activation actions on the site: clearing invasive vegetation, cleaning up the greenhouses, setting up gardening areas and simple community gathering spaces. The camp will also include educational and creative workshops (urban gardening, composting, DIY, discussions on nature in the city and urban regeneration), as well as moments of encounter and cultural exchange with the local community. We hope that Reșița residents will join us, turning this project into a collective effort built by the community, for the community.

(6) We will continue to communicate about the Factory Glasshouses initiative, the fundraising campaign, and the events mentioned above on the platform www.muzeulvirtualresita.ro, as well as on the websites www.mkbt.ro and https://fundatiacomunitarabanatulmontan.ro.

We need your support!

You can already donate in support of the Factory Glasshouses initiative by supporting any of the ambassadors registered on Timotion for this cause: Together we save the greenhouses!
Want to lend a hand with planting, tending the gardens, renovating the greenhouses and auxiliary buildings? Sign up for our newsletter for news, volunteering camps, and next steps.

Together we bring the greenhouses back to life!