Critical indirectness as a design approach in participatory practice: Spatialities of multivocal estrangement in three engagements with public cultural institutions around participatory projects in Gothenburg

Contributing across the domains of open transdisciplinary inquiry and transdisciplinary- and practice-oriented architectural and urbanism research engaging critically with participation in urban contexts, this research proposes critical indirectness as a multivocal design approach in participatory practice, developed through conceptual-analytical inquiry into three cases involving engagements between external art and design practitioners and public cultural institutions around participatory projects in Gothenburg. It joins with calls for art and design practitioners\u27 greater engagement with public sector institutions as way of working towards a more durable and wider impact, with calls to model a more de-centered \u27urban-combinatory\u27 practice on the plurality, hybridity, discontinuities, and contingencies of the contemporary city, and with calls for more multiple, contradictory approaches. Its methodological approach, open transdisciplinary turn-taking, likewise pursued these aims via alternating engagements between institutional and external actors, my own and others\u27 practices, and theory from multiple fields. The primary aim is to explore how art and design practitioners (including researchers and institutional actors) can develop greater capacity to critically wayfind within the complexities of engagements with public cultural institutions in and around participatory processes. This is supported by two interrelated inquiries, the first reworks monovocal understandings of participation, critique, institutions, and actors as multivocal—simultaneously collective, complex, and involving actors\u27 critical and creative trajectories of agency. The second conceptualizes multivocal relations as having their own critical efficacy through potentially estranging effects, which can be both reflexively perceived by practitioners and furthered by design. These two inquiries combine in the use, in case analyses, of alternating voices, transversing voices, and wavering voices—conceptual-analytical lenses enabling focus on the critical and creative potentials of spatialities of multivocal estrangement generated by differential interrelations between \u27voices\u27

Cocreation In Context: An Evaluation of Participatory Technology Design for Enhancing Community Engagement with Public Spaces

The integration of interactive public displays into urban regeneration is a dynamic research area, extending beyond traditional screens to offer accessible, alternative interactions in outdoor settings. These displays not only provide users with a wealth of information but also provide in depth emotionally charged interactions, evoking nostalgia and re-engaging people with a space.In the ever-evolving urban landscape, this thesis addresses the challenges posed by adapting spaces and the effect this can have on the way people engage with these spaces, highlighting a need for innovative interventions to help communities to remain engaged with their local spaces. This work centres on integrating interactive public displays into urban environments, with a primary focus on evoking nostalgia (an affectionate feeling for the past [54]) and topophilia (emotional connections to a space [271]). This thesis embarks on a journey, engaging a diverse range of users, including designers, children, regeneration experts, and community members. It commences with a nine-month deployment of a tangible embedded interface into a dynamic urban context, receiving over 10,000 session interactions. This real-world experience shows the importance of incorporating aspects of cultural heritage and immersive content into informative designs. Subsequently, the journey explores uncharted territories, navigating the landscape of cocreation methods and collaborative efforts, culminating in the development of a multisensory installation, that integrates olfactory, auditory, and visual elements. This exploration delves into the intricacies of community engagement, technology integration, nostalgia, and the dynamics of urban regeneration. As these chapters unfold, valuablelessons are drawn from field experiences, guiding a reflective journey through the design process with an aim to advance interactive public display creation by addressing gaps in design tools and methodologies. Resulting in feature requirements for an overarching master design suite, this contribution advances the field of HCI within urban regeneration. It brings together valuable lessons learned and recommendations for integrating novel multimodal installations of the future, while also addressing the need for adaptable tools to facilitate their design. This holistic approach underscores the transformative potential of technology in shaping urban environments and community engagement

Service Design Capabilities

This open access book discusses service design capabilities in innovation processes, and provides a framework that guides design students, practitioners and researchers towards a better understanding of operational aspects of service design processes. More specifically, it revisits service designers’ capabilities in light of the new roles that have opened up in innovation processes on different scales. After years of being inadequately defined, the professional profile of service designers is now taking shape. Today private and public institutions recognize service designers as essential contributors to their innovation and development processes. What are the capabilities that characterize a service designer? These essential capabilities are what service designers should acquire in their education and can sell when looking for a job

Smart accessibility patterns and shrinking cities: The added value of urban design

During these last decades, the shrinkage of cities has become a major urban issue, a process caused by many factors but one that will generally increase during the next years. This is mainly because of the trend of urbanization: in 2016 the UN estimated that 54.5% of people live in urban settlements, and that by 2030 it will become 60%. The non-urban areas impacted by depopulation, will face several issues in terms of land maintenance, heritage preservation, and conservation of local traditions. This dynamic is strongly related to the notion of accessibility, which, here, stands for the possibility of people to access places, spaces, items, and services. This approach tries to include different points of view such as the notion of accessibility seen in transportation terms, based on its efficiency and multimodality, or the issue of accessibility concerning people with disabilities. The ongoing digital revolution has further impacted the issue of accessibility. The pervasive transition from analogue to digital processes and the development of Information and Communication Technologies has provided new opportunities to supply information, infrastructures, and public services to people. With our smartphones, citizens can access and produce data, which can then be used by them to increase their awareness about urban opportunities and optimize urban projects and policies. Worldwide internet connection has blurred the relation between a place and its use, deepening reuse strategies for buildings and neighbourhoods. The development of shared and circular economy and new health standards in cities has led to the innovation of public services both in an evolutionary way (e.g. water supply and management, waste management) and in a disruptive way (e.g. transportation design, urban hybrid services). Smart Cities projects try to catch most of these opportunities, focusing on innovative urban solutions able to exploit this potential. This article aims to contribute to this debate, reviewing some of the main definitions of urban accessibility and showing the possible added value given by innovative urban strategies open to ICT solutions. To better understand this approach these notions will be related to Gjirokastra, one of the most important cities in southern Albania. Its distinctive combination in terms of heritage, strategic position and business opportunities are facing urban shrinkage, with the consequent loss of city population, lack of maintenance of its renowned heritage and a declining economy. Then a design proposal that uses the notion of accessibility to analyse and indicate strategic accessibility patterns to challenge shrinkage will be outlined. These actions will be referenced to pilot projects and case studies to prove how innovative urban design can add new value to urban accessibility patterns. The conclusions will resume the role of urban design dealing with these issues, indicating constraints and potentials of this approach

Technologies for Development: From Innovation to Social Impact

Development Engineering; Technologies for Development; Innovation for Humanitarian Action; Emerging Countries; Developing Countries; Tech4De

Invisible Reconstruction: Cross-disciplinary responses to natural, biological and man-made disasters

What does it really mean to reconstruct a city after a natural, biological or man-made disaster? Is the repair and reinstatement of buildings and infrastructure sufficient without the mending of social fabric? The authors of this volume believe that the true measure of success should be societal. After all, a city without people is no city at all. Invisible Reconstruction takes the view that effective disaster mitigation and recovery require interdisciplinary tactics. Historian Lucia Patrizio Gunning and urbanist Paola Rizzi expand beyond the confines of individual disciplines or disaster studies to bring together academics and practitioners from a wide variety of disciplines, comparing strategies and outcomes in different scenarios and cultures from South America, Europe and Asia. From cultural heritage and public space to education and participation, contributors reflect on the interconnection of people, culture and environment and on constructive approaches to strengthening the intangible ties to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability. By bringing practical examples of how communities and individuals have reacted to or prepared for disaster, the publication proposes a shift in public policy to ensure that essential physical reinforcement and rebuilding are matched by attention to societal needs. Invisible Reconstruction is essential reading for policymakers, academics and practitioners working to reduce the impact of natural, biological and man-made disaster or to improve post-disaster recovery

Invisible Reconstruction

What does it really mean to reconstruct a city after a natural, biological or man-made disaster? Is the repair and reinstatement of buildings and infrastructure sufficient without the mending of social fabric? The authors of this volume believe that the true measure of success should be societal. After all, a city without people is no city at all. Invisible Reconstruction takes the view that effective disaster mitigation and recovery require interdisciplinary tactics. Historian Lucia Patrizio Gunning and urbanist Paola Rizzi expand beyond the confines of individual disciplines or disaster studies to bring together academics and practitioners from a wide variety of disciplines, comparing strategies and outcomes in different scenarios and cultures from South America, Europe and Asia. From cultural heritage and public space to education and participation, contributors reflect on the interconnection of people, culture and environment and on constructive approaches to strengthening the intangible ties to increase resilience and reduce vulnerability. By bringing practical examples of how communities and individuals have reacted to or prepared for disaster, the publication proposes a shift in public policy to ensure that essential physical reinforcement and rebuilding are matched by attention to societal needs. Invisible Reconstruction is essential reading for policymakers, academics and practitioners working to reduce the impact of natural, biological and man-made disaster or to improve post-disaster recovery

Building the Urban Bioregion. Governance scenarios for urban and territorial planning

The book focuses on bioregionalist theories and experiences as an alternative way of reading and designing local contexts, based on the recovery of the co-evolutionary relationship between human settlements and territories to achieve a self-sustainable and non-hierarchical system of urban and rural centers, according to Alberto Magnaghi's vision. The work has developed a broader discussion among researchers from different European backgrounds about the ways in which processes related to bioregionalism, looked at in a transdisciplinary way, can lead to interesting applications and analytical insights, that are useful for reviewing and strengthening community self-organization and reflecting on the constitutive foundations of the relationship between communities and their territories. The collaboration between the French school of Bordeaux, the Tuscany school and the Cagliari school gives back a diversified overview of materials and references for the possible application of the bioregionalist model.The contributions discuss many issues related to the governance of metropolitan areas and the management of the urban-rural relationship with suggestions for interpretation and design in a bioregionalist perspective, the themes of urban green, land vulnerability, and agricultural supply chains in rural and peri-urban spaces and new food economies in metropolitan areas

Cities' Identity Through Architecture and Art

Intended to be a guide for academics, scholars, and interested leaders, this book was designed to critically assess issues related to architectural identity, the city as a scene, the city as an organism, the city as a subject, and the planning or rather approaching of one. A pressing issue for many researchers in the field, the book discusses the negative repercussions resulting from globalization. Studies have indicated that globalization, despite all the positive effects, has resulted in a loss of identity within a city. As a city develops over time, its identity is evolving as well and may even be lost due to rapid and constant changes it is subjected to. Discussed as well are examples and tendencies in dealing with urban identities as well as the transformation of cities and urban cultures mentioned in terms of form, identity, and art. This book is a combination of innovative research submitted to a conference on Cities’ Identity Through Architecture and Arts (CITAA) whereas scholars from all over the world gather in one venue to discuss cultural, historical, and economic issues of the city. Thus, the book offers a collective and global solution that is applicable on a universal level. The research presented in this book was conducted by authors, or rather participants of the conference from, three different continents of the world and organized by IEREK. It was a distinct opportunity for them to share their thoughts with leading scholars and professionals in the field of Architecture, Arts, and Planning. The research and materials in this book are directed at those who are actively engaged in the decision-making processes and to a heterogeneous audience who has an interest to critically examine all the new literature available in the field. A special word of thanks should be made to the editors of this book and to all the authors and co-authors of the chapters who collectively provided the academic community with unique and increasingly valuable literature