Co-designing urban infrastructures: cases, opportunities and challenges Liesbeth Huybrechts, Faculty of Architecture and Art UHasselt

Group: spatial capacity building approach: participatory design in giving form to public infrastructures (e.g. creation of new concepts for “coal track”, integration of public services in the city/community), using media (new and old) ‘spatial capacity building’: using media to enhance capabilities of citizens, designers, policy makers, property developers,…. to individually or collectively (1) reflect on processes of (spatial) change (2) act in relation to these reflections Concern: generativity of participation: responsibility for context, impact on decision making, skills,..

Co-design guides collective design processes in participatory design a laboratory site (by bringing people together, experimenting with concepts and techniques), but also a parliament (shifting existing power relations) (Ehn) uncertain more expert driven, predefined and controlled design process >< participatory vision: trading all people’s visions, renegotiating power relations, with ‘risky’ and uncertain outcomes

Co-design sessions in European quarter turned European quarter in parliament and laboratory open source toolkit on (background map, stickers, scenario); session 1; session 2:,…PUM, LOMAP Generativity: sharing documentation (maps), modular toolkit, allowing unexpected deviations on the own conclusions, tools,… MAP-it European Quarter,

ZitGoed! Co-design process turning a school into parliament and laboratory. Organisation furniture, policy, teachers,…. ZITGOED

Co-Design game Roles by teachers, children, designers,… (between expert and lay) supported by masks and tools (map-it stickers, camera,..) Training: trust to act in design research process with specific task Hybrid zone: partly familiar and unfamiliar: in a situation of learning, privacy School becomes collage: via game scenario making video reports on context + tagging furniture and space, open drawings etc.

Generativity Participatory documentation/scenarios: unfinished scenarios, open for re- negotiation/trading Modular furniture was prototyped with qualities to create more open platforms, beyond the chair, desk, closet allowing schools to adapt their own furniture in the school space Co-design as training, building capabilities to take process into their own hands

FUTURE FICTIONS GODSHEIDE citizens wanted to engage diverse participants (policy makers property developers,…) to increase the impact of the participatory process on decision making collaboratively set up spatial initiatives and public services art centre Z33 ‘Future Fictions’, horizon in 2024

Co-design ‘scripts for action’ collaboratively scripting/spreading newspaper (traditional big impact on public debate): Articles Pictures/tableaux vivants of performances of spatial initiatives in space, with cardboard and found props qualitative analysis of how newspaper inspired participants to script content and how this interacted with their reflections, actions and public debate

Newspaper language stimulated participants to script the proposals in such a way that they would generate opinions: article: reflections on school in decay, Picture related to ‘real’ context: performance/acting of silent protests in public space, final article on crowdsourcing initiative, gathering community to collaboratively invest in school, activating them via silent protests Generated public debate in the media, by group of schools, included in debate in policy forum

Professionalism associated with newspapers lead to good fact checking and team work in critically editing the articles, images, also after actual making process of newspaper Language enabled easy publishing by other newspapers (public debate)

Challenges in co-designing public infrastructures: sharing decision making (certainly simultaneously!) in concretising phase: reflections during participatory process are often concretised by some groups (e.g. silent protests), but need actions by more actors (eg policy). shift from staging end-results to participatory process, valuing and sharing process; (for some actors more than the bricks), leaving openness for diverse actors to follow and being involved in debate (online, on paper, windows, events and exhibitions) (see eg MAP-it) increasing participants’ trust that uncertain processes can contribute to desired results (decision making, spatial models…) (eg newspaper) generativity of the process (see eg furniture)

Opportunities in co-designing public infrastructures: Increased technical, social and democratic value, challenging status quo Diversification of results for various participants (eg citizen, policy,..) (e.g. participation in decision making, spatial proposals) Carefully scripting the documentation of co-design processes in order to publicly share and debate them (see newspaper, map-it website,…) can support Infrastructuring: building longer term relations between people who reflect, act and evaluate in different constellations at different moments, interwoven with daily life of participants (eg map-it) generativity: reflections/actions by small group can invite 2 nd (and 3d and…) iteration of reflections/actions by larger group, multiplying concretisations (eg school Godsheide) Other Market: public posters, streamed debates, co-design sessions,… on work

Thank You. Liesbeth Huybrechts