Participatory design and “democratizing innovation”

We sketch an alternative “ddemocratizing innovation”” practice more in line with the original visions of participatory design based on our experience of running Malmö Living Labs - an open innovation milieu where new constellations, issues and ideas evolve from bottom-up long--term collaborations amongst diverse stakeholders.

Architect/Designer as “Urban Agent”: A case of mediating temporary use in cities

In recent years, urban transformations have required new work approaches and roles for architects and designers. These expand beyond the design of physical objects, buildings or urban plans, to include the mediation of more complex and controversial processes and collaborations. Negotiation among various kinds of actors has become central, and this challenges traditional expert roles and power relations in architecture and design. This paper draws upon two cases of professional experience and ‘research through design’ to elaborate the role and work of architects/ designers in mediating the temporary use of space. Temporary use is becoming a central and strategic component of urban development today, and it involves direct engagement of citizens and various local actors. In recent research, the importance of ‘mediators’ or ‘agents’ for temporary use has been identified but not explored in greater detail. We draw on participatory design and architecture discourses to conceptualize the architect/designer’s role in mediating temporary use, taking the concept of ‘urban agent’ as a point of departure

Agonism, decision, power – The art of working unfinished

The current debate on agonism has become fixed in an institutional approach: How can an agonistic design institutionally become a tool against forms of domination? An agonistic space needs decisions that do not silence dissensual voices with a finite decision. This paper suggests that this agonistic approach needs de-cisions or simply put, temporary decisions drawn from seeing a decision as a solution for now. A de-cision is not a no-decision, but a decision recognised as temporary. The paper proposes ‘the sketch’ as an appropriate mode for working de-cisionally and unfinished. By having a sketch and working de-cisionally, planners are able to invite agonistic positions to ongoing talks and to act progressively, adaptably, or rationally in the face of emerging circumstances and uncertainty. To work unfinished from a sketch transforms the planning process from being a matter of reaching a finite decision to a strife about how to understand the present and which temporary contours and directions to move on from. The paper as such thus deals with difficult praxis questions, for instance: How is it possible to allow dissent to inform planning praxis in praxis? How can quarrelling and working unfinished empower planning democracy

Exploring agonism with mischief: participatory performance in the public realm

This thesis explores how agonism can emerge through participatory art practice. The practice-based research is contextualised by Chantal Mouffe s political theory of agonism, and the instances in which she applies agonism to art practice (2001-2013). The research highlights the intrinsic and substantial value Mouffe s agonism holds for understanding conflict as an adversarial relation. The problem I identify is that when Mouffe applies agonism to art practice, she locates her examples within the frame of political theory, rather than in or through art practice. Consequently, this research questions agonism from the perspectives of participatory art practice, mischievous performance, and politicised dissent as relational conflict. I employ a methodology of theory and practice. Chapters One and Two expand upon Mouffe s theory of agonism, and her application of agonism to art practice. Chapters Three and Four situate the research within art theory, art history, art practice, and within mischief as a method of explaining relations of power. I expand upon the importance of participation, and I investigate how mischievous performance can facilitate the emergence of agonistic relations. In the final chapter I analyse video recordings of my practice of guerrilla street theatre. The outcome of the research is reflective analysis of evidence, and an understanding of the circumstances in which an art practice does, or does not, become agonistic. The research output is a two-fold analytical framework, and a set of criteria that can be used to clarify when and how an art practice becomes agonistic. I argue that to explore agonism through mischief facilitates (some) participants in performing their politicised dissent in the public realm. Thus, agonism as adversarial political conflict contributes to the vibrancy of the public sphere. However, by focusing on agonism and participatory art practice, I attend to the difficulties and complexities of agonistic art practices. As a result, I develop and extend Mouffe s theory of agonism through my exploration of agonism in mischievous and participatory art practice

Designing commoning: uma investigação em design sobre desafios da construção de colaborações sustentáveis para transições urbanas

Design enables collaboration through co-creation techniques, which can allow multiple stakeholders to participate in the design process with the aim to suggest suitable solutions for specific problems. In the context of urban communities, this process entails challenges with respect to the power dynamics that constitute both community and design practices. In this sense, this thesis is located in the domain of design research for studies, aiming to understand how collaboration can emerge from community dynamics and how design practices can facilitate processes of building of collaborations, ensuring its sustainability over time towards novel transitions. This research has been conducted by investigating emerging design agencies carried out by urban “commoning” practices, when collaboration is built from both “community” and “project” orientations. Thus, this thesis explores different configurations of design agency produced by the interaction between designers and nondesigners through a qualitative analysis of four particular case studies located in Brazil and Portugal: A Batata Precisa de Você (São Paulo city); Casa do Vapor (Almada city); Acupuntura Urbana (São Paulo city); and VivaCidade (Aveiro city). These projects took efforts to promote participatory dynamics through design activities such as the co-production of events, objects and spaces. This thesis generated a comprehensive map of emerging design agency configurations placed in spaces of intersection between top-down and bottomup social forms of community building that might promote more sustainable collaborations in public spaces. Therefore, this thesis offers contributions related to both improving user participation in urban environments in the decision-making process and designing collaboration for commoning practices for sustainable transitions. First, this research suggests that the creation of collaborative processes for the development of horizontal decision-making systems require continuous negotiations including conflicts, dissensus and different power interests that comprise a collective action. Second, the empirical analysis carried out by this study suggests that design agency in communities might create conditions through flexible design programs in order to emerge diverse agencies that constitute a certain urban community, allowing ways to rise issues handled by the community itself. Third, this investigation suggests that collaboration can be questioned and explored by design research and design practice through processes of performing, disrupting and sustaining participation for catalysing continuous processes of local change. This research also calls the attention of urban actors for the constitution of design agency through the interplay between making, negotiating and belonging the participation process into collective actions for the formation of sustainable collaborations. Therefore, this thesis is divided in four major parts. The first part presents the theoretical background and the argument of the research project, including a compilation of concepts and ideas developed by the transdisciplinary field of common theory and design research approaches associated with the domains of prototyping, infrastructuring and articulating communities. The second part describes the methodological approach by using gathering and analysing methods from the research field of social sciences, such as the qualitative interviews and coding process. The third part presents and discusses a set of case studies of creative participatory projects carried out in public spaces, which gave support to the elaboration of the structured analysis of the four case studies. Finally, the fourth part of this research project presents the overall outcomes of this thesis on its contribution to the field of design research and design practice, pointing out both the main conclusions and implications of this work in addressing how design research and design practice might shift their approaches to acknowledge the complexity of designing participation in urban spaces.O design permite a colaboração por meio de técnicas de co-criação, as quais facilitam a participação de todos no processo de design com o objetivo de sugerir soluções adequadas para problemas específicos. No contexto de dinâmicas comunitárias, este processo implica desafios em relação às dinâmicas de poder que constituem tanto a comunidade como a própria prática de design. Neste sentido, esta tese está localizada no domínio da pesquisa de design para estudos, visando compreender como a colaboração pode emergir nas dinâmicas comunitárias e como as práticas de design podem facilitar processos de construção de colaborações, garantindo sua sustentabilidade ao longo do tempo para gerar novas mudanças. Assim, esta pesquisa explora novas agências de design produzidas por práticas urbanas de cooperação (commoning), em que a colaboração é construída a partir de duas perspectivas: “comunidade” e “projeto”. Assim, esta tese explora diferentes configurações de agência de design produzidas através da interação entre designers e não-designers através de uma análise qualitativa de quatro estudos de caso específicos localizados no Brasil e em Portugal: A Batata Precisa de Você (São Paulo); Casa do Vapor (Almada); Acupuntura Urbana (São Paulo); e VivaCidade (Aveiro). Esses projetos se esforçaram para promover dinâmicas participativas por meio da co-produção de eventos, objetos e espaços em diferentes contextos urbanos. Esta tese gerou um mapa analítico de novas configurações de agência de design localizadas em espaços de interseção entre formas de construção de comunidades “de cima para baixo” e “de baixo para cima”, as quais podem promover colaborações mais sustentáveis em espaços públicos. Portanto, esta tese oferece contribuições para melhoria da participação urbana em processos de decisão, como também a melhoria de práticas de design para a construção de colaboração que gerem transições sustentáveis nos espaços urbanos. Primeiro, esta pesquisa sugere que a criação de processos colaborativos para o desenvolvimento de sistemas mais horizontais de tomada de decisão requer negociações contínuas, incluindo conflitos, dissensos e os diferentes interesses de poder que compõem uma ação coletiva. Em segundo lugar, a análise empírica realizada por esta investigação sugere que a ação do design em comunidades pode criar condições através de programas flexíveis que permitam emergir diversas agências que constituem cada comunidade urbana, permitindo que os problemas e soluções sejam gerenciados pela própria comunidade. Em terceiro lugar, esta investigação sugere que a colaboração pode ser questionada e explorada pela pesquisa e prática de design por meio de processos de performance, interrupção e sustentação da participação com a intenção de catalisar processos contínuos de mudança local. Esta pesquisa também chama a atenção dos atores urbanos para a constituição da agência de design por meio da produção, negociação e pertencimento do processo local de participação, viabilizando colaborações sustentáveis. Portanto, esta tese é dividida em quatro partes principais. A primeira parte apresenta a fundamentação teórica e o argumento desta investigação a partir da compilação de conceitos e ideias desenvolvidos pelo campo transdisciplinar de “common” e abordagens dentro da pesquisa em design associados a prototipagem, infrastructuring e articulação de comunidades. A segunda parte descreve a abordagem metodológica usando métodos de coleta e análise de informações do trabalho de campo provindas das Ciências Sociais, tais como entrevista qualitativa e codificação. A terceira parte deste documento apresenta e interpreta um conjunto de estudos de caso de projetos participativos realizados em espaços públicos, os quais deram suporte à elaboração de uma análise estruturada de quatro estudos de caso principais. Finalmente, a quarta parte desta tese apresenta as contribuições deste trabalho para o campo da pesquisa em design e para a prática de design, chamando a atenção para a necessidade de produzir novas abordagens em design que possam incorporar a complexidade de projetar a participação em espaços urbanos.Programa Doutoral em Desig

Improvisation and Planning: Engaging With Unforeseen Encounters in Urban Public Space

Despite the significant emphasis in Scandinavian cities on vital urban spaces and creative unfolding in urban development, there is a tendency towards designing for “finished” urban spaces with a pre-defined conclusion. The result is often standardised design and staged play, ignoring the diversity of lived experiences taking place in the here and now. How can urban spaces be generated to accommodate unforeseen encounters fostering moments of intensity, affect, and disorder? In this article, we explore the potential of improvisation in urban spaces by examining how urban public spaces facilitate improvisation in interactions between places, senses, materials, and participants. Improvisation is understood as a productive force in urban development that gives space to what occurs in urban encounters. The article draws on Richard Sennett’s concept of “disorder” and Jennifer Mason’s concept of “affinity.” By using design experiments and sensory and visual methods inspired by ethnographic methodology the article analyses two improvisational practices occurring in public spaces in Norway and Denmark, which emphasise the performative, affective, and sensory elements of urban life. The analysis brings forth a discussion of how improvisation unfolds in multimodal urban encounters, between order and disorder, and sensory and emotional connections. The authors argue for a more place-sensitive form of city-making and more improvisatorial urban designs that stimulate varied, spontaneous, and changeable use

The Rise of the Common City:On the Culture of Commoning

Artists and creative workers have long been attracted to urban environments. Yet the ‘creative city ‘of the 21st century comes with its own pitfalls. From precarity at the level of the worker to gentrification at the level of the city: the creative engine starts to sputter. Therefore, after or even against the creative city, this book highlights the ‘common city’. The Rise of the Common City explores the value of commoning for cultural practices in urban contexts. The volume defends the hypothesis that a common culture offers better guarantees of urban sustainability than a purely market- or government-driven culture. After all, cultural dynamics are only possible by sharing. We understand culture in a broad anthropological sense, as a socially shared sign and meaning system through which urbanites can give meaning to their environment and their lives. Creative labour and artistic practices keep cultural dynamics alive by intervening in such processes of meaning. They can question, redraw or simply confirm meaning-making processes, habits, values and norms. That is why culture is too important to be left to the market and the government alone. Culture belongs to everyone. The Rise of the Common City examines the value of commoning for culture, but also the value of culture for commoning. What is the culture of the commons? And vice versa, what strategies, norms and rituals do commoners use to define a common space between government and market? The book sketches answers to these questions through conceptual and empirical work, ranging from sociology and philosophy over urban and cultural studies to law and policy science. The volume includes contributions by Walter van Andel, Iolanda Bianchi, Gideon Boie, Giuliana Ciancio, Lara García Díaz, Pascal Gielen, Arne Herman, Gökhan Kodalak, Thijs Lijster, Lara van Meeteren, Hanka Otte, Ching Lin Pang, Tian Shi, Stavros Stavrides, Maria Francesca De Tullio, Louis Volont and Bart Wissink. If there is any conclusion to be drawn, it might be this: the future of culture will have to be common, or there will be no culture at all