Flanders is spatially dispersed. This mode of urbanisation comes with a high social cost. The current planning paradigm, strategic spatial planning, argues that the retrofitting of dispersed urbanisation requires a continuous public debate, and that such a debate depends on both a process of civic participation and a process of spatial capacity building. This paper researches how spatial designers can support this process of capacity building. It does this by discussing two explorative case studies. ; This project receives funding from the European Union's seventh framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 608299
Planning processes often cause tensions between institutions and citizens because the local knowledge and values of the citizens are not included in the decision-making process, which can cause mistrust. This article builds on an ongoing PhD research that explores the potential of experiential evaluation as an alternative and experimental approach to "hybrid forums": an approach to open the participatory planning process for diverse actors and values. In order to render tensions visible and constructive in the participatory planning process, experiential evaluation creates "risky situations" in these hybrid forums. To discuss this approach of experiential evaluation, we use a methodological and analytical framework based on the four steps of strategic navigation techniques: tracing, mapping, diagramming, and agencying. We use these techniques to analyse two risky situations that were created through experiential evaluation within the participatory planning process of the neighbourhood spatial plan (NSP) of Zwijnaarde (Ghent, Belgium). Based on the analysis of the case, we observed that experiential evaluation was able to render tensions visible, but did not yet make them constructive. However, as a framework for a dialogue between institutions and citizens, the NSP leaves room to continue the experiential evaluation process that was initiated and to take further care of tensions on a smaller scale.
The increasing polarization of sustainability debates has enhanced the need for designers to re-engage with the politics of sustainable futures. This paper particularly explores these debates in (Flemish suburban) dwelling contexts, where sustainable development strategies such as densification and depaving trigger conflicts between dwellers, policy-makers, designers and organisations. We researched how a design anthropological approach could enable design researchers to go beyond polarization by collaboratively researching the politics of how dwelling futures are being shaped in people's everyday lives. We particularly explored the co-production, curation and reworking of dwelling patterns as an approach that can combine the situated approach of design anthropology and the dialogical approach of participatory design in engaging with the politics of everyday dwelling and dwelling futures. ; This study was supported by ERA-NET Cofund Smart Urban Futures(ENSUF), Urban Europe, 2017-2019 and by the Special Research Fund(BOF) of Hasselt University. Our research was developed in the frameworkof the CAPA.CITY project. We would like to thank all the partners of theproject, we would like to especially thank Thomas Lomm ee for its collabora-tion and for supporting us to develop the prototyping toolkit via the opensource system OpenStructures
When defining participation in urban renewal projects in a political sense, this concept implies the challenging of power relations in each of its dimensions while addressing the need for knowledge, action and consciousness. Knowledge is defined as a resource which affects observable decision making. Action looks at who is involved in the production of such knowledge in order to challenge and shape the political agenda. Consciousness is how the production of knowledge changes the awareness or worldview of those involved, thus shaping the psychological and conceptual boundaries of what is possible. This paper addresses these politics of participation via the use of gamification, and more particularly gamified participatory artefacts. We discuss how a 'good' participatory planning process implies rebalancing existing power relations via the redistribution of knowledge, consciousness and actions, and aims to operationalize this ambition through a game. We particularly focus on the urban renewal process of one particular case, namely the Vennestraat-one of the main commercial streets of the city of Genk (BE) and present a three year participatory mapping process that made use of three gamified participatory artefacts (i.e., socio-economic network mapping, gathering mental images and scenario games). After uncovering the complex field of power relations in the entrepreneurial street, we analyze the different types of relations/groups that emerge from this participatory mapping process. The paper concludes with an analytical framework that employs gamified participatory artefacts in order to map and understand power relations and the mechanisms that frame them. ; Joint Programming Initiative Urban Europe: 857160. ; Constantinescu, TI (corresponding author), Hasselt Univ, Spatial Capac Bldg Grp, Architecture Dept, B-3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium. teodora.constantinescu@uhasselt.be; oswald.devisch@uhasselt.be; liesbeth.huybrechts@uhasselt.be
This article reports on the in-between results of a Participatory Design research process in spatial planning in Godsheide, a small village in the Belgian Region of Limburg. The research explores how the language of newspapers enables citizens, policy makers, property developers and local organisations to build capacities (cfr. spatial capacity building) in 'scripting' their reflections on, but also actions in spatial change. In the heads of our participants, there existed a duality between - on the one hand - the participatory process wherein collective reflections can take place and - on the other hand - the actions of making these reflections concrete in decision-making (e.g. on the design, policy making, assigning responsibilities etc.). To provide a more nuanced view on this apparent duality, this article presents a literature study on spatial capacity building, decision making and scripting and an evaluation of a year of fieldwork. It discusses how the participatory scripting of spatial reflections and actions in the form of a newspaper, facilitated a closer relation between spatial capacity building and the process of spatial decision making on concrete matters of concern by paying explicit attention to publically debating spatial change.
In recent years, many countries all over Europe have witnessed a demand for a more direct form of democracy, ranging from improved clarity of information to being directly involved in decision-making procedures. Increasingly, governments are putting citizen participation at the centre of their policy objectives, striving for more transparency, to engage and empower local individuals and communities to collaborate on public projects and to encourage self-organization. This book explores the role of participatory design in keeping these participatory processes public. It addresses four specific lines of enquiry: how can the use and/or development of technologies and social media help to diversify, to coproduce, to interrupt and to document democratic design experiments? Aimed at researchers and academics in the fields of urban planning and participatory design, this book includes contributions from a range of experts across Europe including the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Austria, Spain, France, Romania, Hungary and Finland.
Spatial planning as a field in continuous transition needs a way of working that allows for questioning its professional practice. In this paper, we focus on the design of 4-days long 'studios' for planning professionals that aim to reflect on new notions of democratic practice and participatory planning. During these studios, different methods to enhance a collective reflective attitude among participants were tested. The paper describes how the tutors of the studios tried to encourage participants to develop their own theory of practice by iteratively (re)designing the learning artefacts, learning content and learning modes of the studio. In the conclusions of this paper, we introduce the idea of a Participation Studio Conjecture Map to support and structure a culture of collective reflection-in (participatory planning) organizations. ; ISSN:0965-4313 ; ISSN:1469-5944
Based on an in-depth study of how socially innovative processes are collectively reinforced within two cases, this article builds a reflexive framework that conceptualizes socially innovative processes as situated trajectories of collective learning. The framework starts from three theories in the field of pedagogy and organisational studies that try to contextualise and operationalise how internal processes of learning, supportive relationships and external demands interrelate withinprocesses of collective learning. In line with the reflexive character of social innovation research, the article presents the framework as a means to give concrete answer on how socially innovative processes can be supported and how the dynamic character of their collective learning trajectories can be managed. The conclusion of this article further reflects on the importance of a situational and multi-layered understanding of collective learning for creating institutional support for socially innovative processes in planning and presents reflexive questions that can help external actors as planning practitioners to position themselves within this often messy and complex reality.
In a review of participatory planning literature, Liisa Horelli (2002) comes to the conclusion that "the core problem (of participatory planning) lies in the fuzzy relationship between participatory planning and decision making or in that between direct and representative democracy". Participatory planning, she argues, is unpredictable by nature, driven by dynamic and heterogeneous citizen initiatives. Decision making, in contrast, requires stable and long term agreements in order to plan and supervise complex projects. Participatory practices are therefore often caught in generic procedures that turn these practices into formalities that are de-politicized and thus irrelevant (a/o De Bie et al., 2012; Olesen, 2014). To overcome this 'core problem', Horelli (2002) suggests to not try and open up the procedural nature of planning, but to rather reconceive it as an iteration of communicative transactions that support "learning and capacity building of citizens, experts, and decision makers". There is quite some literature on how to organize single communicative transactions (a/o Steyaert & Lisoir, 2005) and there is a growing body of knowledge on spatial planning as collaborative learning (a/o Albrechts, 2004; Teitelbaum et al., 2015). But this literature does not provide frameworks on how to turn closed planning procedures into open collaborative learning processes, as Horelli (2002) suggests, that can support strategic planning. The aim of this paper is to explore the contours of such a framework. It will do this by applying Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) to three ongoing participatory planning processes. CHAT is a theory that conceptualizes learning as a social practice firmly situated in a cultural and historical context (Engeström, 2009). All three cases are initiated by the Spatial Development Department of the Flemish Government. And all three have to comply with a distinctive policy context. The paper will first introduce the three cases. It will then apply CHAT. The paper will end with a discussion on potential strategies to turn (standard) planning procedures into instruments that can support collaborative learning. References: Albrechts, L., 2004. Strategic (spatial) planning re-examined. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design 2004, 31, 743-758. De Bie, M., Oosterlynck, S., & De Blust, S., 2012. Participatie, ontwerp en toeeigening in een democratische stadsvernieuwing. In E. Vervloesem, B. De Meulder, & A. Loeckx (Eds.), Stadsvernieuwingsprojecten in Vlaanderen 20022011. Een eigenzinnige praktijk in Europees perspectief. Brussel: ASP, 29–33. Elbakidze, M., Dawson, L., Andersson, K., Axelsson, R., Angelstam, P., Stjernquist, I., Teitelbaum, S., Schlyter, P. & Thellbro, C., 2015. Is spatial planning a collaborative learning process? A case study from a rural–urban gradient in Sweden. Land Use Policy, 48, 270–285. Engeström, Y., 2009. The Future of Activity Theory: A Rough Draft. In: Sannino, A., Daniels, H. & Gutiérrez, K. (Eds.), Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory. Cambridge University Press, 303-328. Horelli, L., 2002. A Methodology of participatory planning. In R. Bechtel & A. Churchman (Eds.), Handbook of Environmental Psychology. John Wiley. Olesen, K., 2014. The neoliberalisation of strategic spatial planning. Planning Theory, 13(3), 288–303. Steyaert, S. & Lisoir, H., 2005. Participatory methods toolkit – A practitioner's manual, King Baudouin Foundation and Flemish Institute for Science and Technology Assessment. Belgium.
The Virtual and the Real in Planning and Urban Design: Perspectives, Practices and Applications explores the merging relationship between physical and virtual spaces in planning and urban design. Technological advances such as smart sensors, interactive screens, locative media and evolving computation software have impacted the ways in which people experience, explore, interact with and create these complex spaces. This book draws together a broad range of interdisciplinary researchers in areas such as architecture, urban design, spatial planning, geoinformation science, computer science and psychology to introduce the theories, models, opportunities and uncertainties involved in the interplay between virtual and physical spaces. Using a wide range of international contributors, from the UK, USA, Germany, France, Switzerland, Netherlands and Japan, it provides a framework for assessing how new technology alters our perception of physical space.
Urban centres worldwide are affected differently by flooding. In Vietnam this impact is increasingly negative caused by a process of rapid urbanisation. Traditional spatial planning and flood mitigation planning are not able to deal with this growing threat. This article therefore proposes to focus on increasing the participation of local communities in flood control and management. It explores, on the basis of a design studio exercise, how lay knowledge on flooding can be integrated within planning processes. The article presents a theoretical basis for the structured criterion for site selection for a flood resilient urban park from the perspective of science, then discloses the tacit and explicit knowledge of the flood-prone area and finally integrates this knowledge into the design strategies for flood resilient urban park design. Keywords-Analytic Hierarchy Process, AHP, design resilience, flood resilient urban park, knowledge integration. I. BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS A. Traditional Planning and Flood Mitigation Planning in Vietnam HE formal planning of landscapes in Vietnam can be divided into three main branches: 1) overall socioeconomic development planning (on a national to local level); 2) spatial planning (including land use and master planning); and 3) sector planning. In general, the planning framework envisions that the lower-level plans should follow the directions laid out in the upper-level plans. However, experience shows that, in reality, this workflow is often broken up, and planning processes are rather disjointed and characterized by synchronizing low-level between the vertical and horizontal sectors [1]. Moreover, a lack of financial support from government and provincial budgets are obstacles to the monitoring, maintenance, improvement, design, and funding of flood control projects [2]. In the context of the general urbanization, management, and planning challenges in Vietnam, climate change has increased the pressure on local urban governments, with inefficient planning often exceeding their capacities and resources. To Quyen, Le is with the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam and is with the Faculty
