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FAIRE LA VILLE ENSEMBLE : VOTRE CURSUS SUR L URBANISME PARTICIPATIF EN AFRIQUE Shttps://campus.groupe-afd.fr/formation/faire-la-ville-ensemble/

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FAIRE LA VILLE ENSEMBLE : VOTRE CURSUS SUR L URBANISME PARTICIPATIF EN AFRIQUE Shttps://campus.groupe-afd.fr/formation/faire-la-ville-ensemble/

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Thématique globale et contexte La fabrique de la ville, en Afrique comme dans le monde, ne peut plus se faire sans les habitants, sans les usagers, sans les acteurs économiques, associatifs, experts, opérationnels, et ce à tous les stades du projet (de sa conception à sa mise en œuvre).Ce changement…

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20 minute neighbourhood - The useful guide 

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20 minute neighbourhood - The useful guide 

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Discovery - the University of Dundee Research Portal

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Abstract

About this guide:

Neighbourhoods where people can pop out to a shop, cycle to their doctor or walk children to school are places that many people have enjoyed in the past. But, given planning and urban design practices since the proliferation of the car, being able to do this cannot be taken for granted today. As local authorities look to tackle climate change, air pollution and promote healthier lifestyles, they are also looking to develop places where people can live well locally.

Some towns and cities already offer their citizens this style of living. For others, there is a widespread ambition to see 20-minute neighbourhoods widely woven into existing urban, suburban and rural life, so that people there can 'live well locally'. In Scotland, for example, the government has committed itself to implementing 20-minute neighbourhoods nation-wide alongside its actions and ambitions for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

A major attraction of the 20-minute neighbourhood is that it appears straightforward and easy to grasp. But this is an illusion. Behind this seemingly simply idea lies a great deal of complexity, making it difficult to achieve in practice. Many post-war neighbourhoods have been designed around the car. Creating a 20-minute neighbourhood requires bringing together many strands, not all of them in the gift of the local authority, and many beyond the control of planners and urban designers. Implementing them may require overcoming a degree of fear and scepticism from local stakeholders.

So what are the necessary ingredients to create a 20-minute neighbourhood? How do you bring them together? And how do you get the necessary buy-in from stakeholders?

This is what the guide seeks to explain. It is intended for anyone who wants to improve their understanding of the meaning and implications of 20-minute neighbourhoods. This includes politicians, policymakers, local council officers and councillors, developers, planners, designers, NGOs, local businesses, community groups and residents' associations. And urban designers and planners will find it useful too.

The guide takes readers through key considerations for a 20-minute neighbourhood strategy. This includes the following ideas.

* Understanding and articulating the desired outcomes that politicians, planners, architects, urban designers and other decision makers want to achieve.
* Correctly assembling the means - mechanisms, levers, triggers and causal factors - necessary to produce a 20-minute neighbourhood.
* Setting out the changes and behaviour required to support the successful operation of a20-minute neighbourhood (essential even where the ends and means can be achieved). It's worth noting, a '20-minute neighbourhood' defies clear definition. There is no single paradigm around which to organise thought and action. Instead, there are competing viewpoints about how best to deliver 20-minute neighbourhoods, and how much priority should be given to each of their component parts. Each case or project has its own specific context and circumstances. What may work in designing a new urban neighbourhood may not apply when retrofitting an existing one.

We hope that armed with the knowledge and advice in this guide, both professionals and lay people seeking to develop 20-minute neighbourhoods will feel better informed and more confident about if and how to rollout the concept to suit their local circumstances.

Special thanks are given to sponsors and contributors Urban Design Group, Sustrans, ADAM Architecture, Corstorphine & Wright Architects, Hilson Moran, and Proctor & Matthews Architects

© The Authors 2024. This work is openly licensed via CC BY 4.0.

For citation please use: AlWaer, H., & Cooper, I.(2024). Understanding the 20 Minute Neighbourhood: Making opportunities for people to live well locally. University of Dundee. https://doi.org/10.20933/100001289

For More Information Contact Dr. Husam AlWaer [email protected]

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

Cite this

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title = "Understanding the 20-Minute Neighbourhood: Making opportunities for people to live well locally",

abstract = "About this guide: Neighbourhoods where people can pop out to a shop, cycle to their doctor or walk children to school are places that many people have enjoyed in the past. But, given planning and urban design practices since the proliferation of the car, being able to do this cannot be taken for granted today. As local authorities look to tackle climate change, air pollution and promote healthier lifestyles, they are also looking to develop places where people can live well locally.Some towns and cities already offer their citizens this style of living. For others, there is a widespread ambition to see 20-minute neighbourhoods widely woven into existing urban, suburban and rural life, so that people there can {\textquoteleft}live well locally{\textquoteright}. In Scotland, for example, the government has committed itself to implementing 20-minute neighbourhoods nation-wide alongside its actions and ambitions for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. A major attraction of the 20-minute neighbourhood is that it appears straightforward and easy to grasp. But this is an illusion. Behind this seemingly simply idea lies a great deal of complexity, making it difficult to achieve in practice. Many post-war neighbourhoods have been designed around the car. Creating a 20-minute neighbourhood requires bringing together many strands, not all of them in the gift of the local authority, and many beyond the control of planners and urban designers. Implementing them may require overcoming a degree of fear and scepticism from local stakeholders. So what are the necessary ingredients to create a 20-minute neighbourhood? How do you bring them together? And how do you get the necessary buy-in from stakeholders?This is what the guide seeks to explain. It is intended for anyone who wants to improve their understanding of the meaning and implications of 20-minute neighbourhoods. This includes politicians, policymakers, local council officers and councillors, developers, planners, designers, NGOs, local businesses, community groups and residents{\textquoteright} associations. And urban designers and planners will find it useful too. The guide takes readers through key considerations for a 20-minute neighbourhood strategy. This includes the following ideas. * Understanding and articulating the desired outcomes that politicians, planners, architects, urban designers and other decision makers want to achieve. * Correctly assembling the means - mechanisms, levers, triggers and causal factors - necessary to produce a 20-minute neighbourhood.* Setting out the changes and behaviour required to support the successful operation of a20-minute neighbourhood (essential even where the ends and means can be achieved). It{\textquoteright}s worth noting, a {\textquoteleft}20-minute neighbourhood{\textquoteright} defies clear definition. There is no single paradigm around which to organise thought and action. Instead, there are competing viewpoints about how best to deliver 20-minute neighbourhoods, and how much priority should be given to each of their component parts. Each case or project has its own specific context and circumstances. What may work in designing a new urban neighbourhood may not apply when retrofitting an existing one. We hope that armed with the knowledge and advice in this guide, both professionals and lay people seeking to develop 20-minute neighbourhoods will feel better informed and more confident about if and how to rollout the concept to suit their local circumstances.Special thanks are given to sponsors and contributors Urban Design Group, Sustrans, ADAM Architecture, Corstorphine & Wright Architects, Hilson Moran, and Proctor & Matthews Architects {\textcopyright} The Authors 2024. This work is openly licensed via CC BY 4.0.For citation please use: AlWaer, H., & Cooper, I.(2024). Understanding the 20 Minute Neighbourhood: Making opportunities for people to live well locally. University of Dundee. https://doi.org/10.20933/100001289For More Information Contact Dr. Husam AlWaer [email protected]",

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N2 - About this guide: Neighbourhoods where people can pop out to a shop, cycle to their doctor or walk children to school are places that many people have enjoyed in the past. But, given planning and urban design practices since the proliferation of the car, being able to do this cannot be taken for granted today. As local authorities look to tackle climate change, air pollution and promote healthier lifestyles, they are also looking to develop places where people can live well locally.Some towns and cities already offer their citizens this style of living. For others, there is a widespread ambition to see 20-minute neighbourhoods widely woven into existing urban, suburban and rural life, so that people there can 'live well locally'. In Scotland, for example, the government has committed itself to implementing 20-minute neighbourhoods nation-wide alongside its actions and ambitions for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. A major attraction of the 20-minute neighbourhood is that it appears straightforward and easy to grasp. But this is an illusion. Behind this seemingly simply idea lies a great deal of complexity, making it difficult to achieve in practice. Many post-war neighbourhoods have been designed around the car. Creating a 20-minute neighbourhood requires bringing together many strands, not all of them in the gift of the local authority, and many beyond the control of planners and urban designers. Implementing them may require overcoming a degree of fear and scepticism from local stakeholders. So what are the necessary ingredients to create a 20-minute neighbourhood? How do you bring them together? And how do you get the necessary buy-in from stakeholders?This is what the guide seeks to explain. It is intended for anyone who wants to improve their understanding of the meaning and implications of 20-minute neighbourhoods. This includes politicians, policymakers, local council officers and councillors, developers, planners, designers, NGOs, local businesses, community groups and residents' associations. And urban designers and planners will find it useful too. The guide takes readers through key considerations for a 20-minute neighbourhood strategy. This includes the following ideas. * Understanding and articulating the desired outcomes that politicians, planners, architects, urban designers and other decision makers want to achieve. * Correctly assembling the means - mechanisms, levers, triggers and causal factors - necessary to produce a 20-minute neighbourhood.* Setting out the changes and behaviour required to support the successful operation of a20-minute neighbourhood (essential even where the ends and means can be achieved). It's worth noting, a '20-minute neighbourhood' defies clear definition. There is no single paradigm around which to organise thought and action. Instead, there are competing viewpoints about how best to deliver 20-minute neighbourhoods, and how much priority should be given to each of their component parts. Each case or project has its own specific context and circumstances. What may work in designing a new urban neighbourhood may not apply when retrofitting an existing one. We hope that armed with the knowledge and advice in this guide, both professionals and lay people seeking to develop 20-minute neighbourhoods will feel better informed and more confident about if and how to rollout the concept to suit their local circumstances.Special thanks are given to sponsors and contributors Urban Design Group, Sustrans, ADAM Architecture, Corstorphine & Wright Architects, Hilson Moran, and Proctor & Matthews Architects © The Authors 2024. This work is openly licensed via CC BY 4.0.For citation please use: AlWaer, H., & Cooper, I.(2024). Understanding the 20 Minute Neighbourhood: Making opportunities for people to live well locally. University of Dundee. https://doi.org/10.20933/100001289For More Information Contact Dr. Husam AlWaer [email protected]

AB - About this guide: Neighbourhoods where people can pop out to a shop, cycle to their doctor or walk children to school are places that many people have enjoyed in the past. But, given planning and urban design practices since the proliferation of the car, being able to do this cannot be taken for granted today. As local authorities look to tackle climate change, air pollution and promote healthier lifestyles, they are also looking to develop places where people can live well locally.Some towns and cities already offer their citizens this style of living. For others, there is a widespread ambition to see 20-minute neighbourhoods widely woven into existing urban, suburban and rural life, so that people there can 'live well locally'. In Scotland, for example, the government has committed itself to implementing 20-minute neighbourhoods nation-wide alongside its actions and ambitions for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. A major attraction of the 20-minute neighbourhood is that it appears straightforward and easy to grasp. But this is an illusion. Behind this seemingly simply idea lies a great deal of complexity, making it difficult to achieve in practice. Many post-war neighbourhoods have been designed around the car. Creating a 20-minute neighbourhood requires bringing together many strands, not all of them in the gift of the local authority, and many beyond the control of planners and urban designers. Implementing them may require overcoming a degree of fear and scepticism from local stakeholders. So what are the necessary ingredients to create a 20-minute neighbourhood? How do you bring them together? And how do you get the necessary buy-in from stakeholders?This is what the guide seeks to explain. It is intended for anyone who wants to improve their understanding of the meaning and implications of 20-minute neighbourhoods. This includes politicians, policymakers, local council officers and councillors, developers, planners, designers, NGOs, local businesses, community groups and residents' associations. And urban designers and planners will find it useful too. The guide takes readers through key considerations for a 20-minute neighbourhood strategy. This includes the following ideas. * Understanding and articulating the desired outcomes that politicians, planners, architects, urban designers and other decision makers want to achieve. * Correctly assembling the means - mechanisms, levers, triggers and causal factors - necessary to produce a 20-minute neighbourhood.* Setting out the changes and behaviour required to support the successful operation of a20-minute neighbourhood (essential even where the ends and means can be achieved). It's worth noting, a '20-minute neighbourhood' defies clear definition. There is no single paradigm around which to organise thought and action. Instead, there are competing viewpoints about how best to deliver 20-minute neighbourhoods, and how much priority should be given to each of their component parts. Each case or project has its own specific context and circumstances. What may work in designing a new urban neighbourhood may not apply when retrofitting an existing one. We hope that armed with the knowledge and advice in this guide, both professionals and lay people seeking to develop 20-minute neighbourhoods will feel better informed and more confident about if and how to rollout the concept to suit their local circumstances.Special thanks are given to sponsors and contributors Urban Design Group, Sustrans, ADAM Architecture, Corstorphine & Wright Architects, Hilson Moran, and Proctor & Matthews Architects © The Authors 2024. This work is openly licensed via CC BY 4.0.For citation please use: AlWaer, H., & Cooper, I.(2024). Understanding the 20 Minute Neighbourhood: Making opportunities for people to live well locally. University of Dundee. https://doi.org/10.20933/100001289For More Information Contact Dr. Husam AlWaer [email protected]

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# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Understanding the 20-Minute Neighbourhood: Making opportunities for people to live well locally

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
About this guide: Neighbourhoods where people can pop out to a shop, cycle to their doctor or walk children to school are places that many people have enjoyed in the past. But, given planning and urban design practices since the proliferation of the car, being able to do this cannot be taken for granted today.

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Centre For Cultural Value - the FailSpace

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Centre For Cultural Value - the FailSpace

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FailSpace was led by Professor Leila Jancovich and Professor David Stevenson, both Associate Directors of the Centre for Cultural Value. It was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and took place over three years.

The project's starting point is that cultural participation projects and policies are frequently lauded as successes. However there is little acknowledgement about what didn't work and formal evaluation processes rarely include reflection on any failures and negative outcomes. And if we don't talk about failures, how do we learn?

Prioritising narratives of success is often a result of a lack of honesty between participants, artists, cultural organisations and funders. Fuelled by a fear of losing funding and future work, this approach can limit risk-taking, learning and positive change towards a more equitable cultural sector.

The FailSpace team talked about failures to hundreds of policymakers, arts practitioners and participants through interviews, workshops and surveys.

They used what they learned to create a series of useful tools to help you hold honest and open conversations about failures between colleagues, artists, funders, participants, and board members.

When people say we need to be allowed to fail, I think that's ridiculous. You know, it's not hard. Everyone's allowed to fail: the point is to learn from it." Funder

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These tools from the FailSpace research project will help you to talk about and learn from failures in cultural participation projects. Learning from failure needs to be an integral part of evaluating cultural projects and policies.

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Who We Are

Our Goal

This Reflection-Action website is an effort to capture and harmonise the different approaches to transformative practice that use participatory tools and processes to challenge and shift power - whether in communities, organisations or countries.

On this website you will find a range of participatory tools and methods that can help create an open, democratic environment in which everyone is able to contribute. This includes everything guidance on how to use a range of matrices and maps, calendars, visualisations of power, chapatti diagrams, ranking tools, role plays, transect walks, flow charts, forum theatre, trees and rivers, kites and pots, people's caravans, report cards, social audits, body maps and timelines.

You will also find examples of how these different tools and methods have been clustered into approaches for working in different contexts or on different issues, outlining everything from adopting participatory practice in a human rights based approach, humanitarian needs assessment and vulnerability analysis, in rooted campaigning, tax justice, inclusive democracy, promoting rights in schools, women's unpaid care work and youth engagement work - and much more

We hope that these resources can help practitioners and activists support people to analyse their situation and position, identify rights violations, confront power and bring about transformative change.

If you have ideas or experiences that you wish to share and upload on this website, please send them to xxxx.

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Get immediate access to expert insights and information with Reflection Action.

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What are the participatory methods ? PM's 

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What are the participatory methods ? PM's 

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Welcome to the Participatory Methods website, managed by the Participation, Inclusion and Social Change Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies.

This site provides resources to generate ideas and action for inclusive development and social change.

We explain what participatory methods are, where and how they are used, and their problems and potentials. We focus on participatory approaches to programme design, monitoring and evaluation; to learning, research and communication in organisations, networks and communities; and to citizen engagement in political processes.

Whether you are a development worker, an activist, a student or a researcher, concerned with widespread social change, small group action or project planning, we can offer you access to many useful and thought-provoking resources.

You might also be interested in ActionAid's NetworkedToolbox which contains methods and tools for participation.

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Participatory Methods | People working together around the world to generate ideas and action for social change

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Welcome to the Participatory Methods website, managed by the Participation, Inclusion and Social Change Cluster at the Institute of Development Studies. This site provides resources to generate ideas and action for inclusive development and social change. We explain what participatory methods are, where and how they are used, and their problems and potentials.

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Creative Climate Tools

Measure your impacts with the Creative Climate Tools, developed by Julie's Bicycle for the creative community.

The CC Tools is a free carbon calculator designed to help organisations to record, measure and understand the impacts of their venue, office, tour, project, event or festival. They allow users to track a range of different impact areas including energy use, water consumption, waste, travel, freight and materials.

The tools also offer a Beyond Carbon survey which allows organisations to record what they do around sustainability, going beyond the basic carbon numbers. This survey is designed to double up as a checklist and encourage organisations to take further environmental actions in areas they may not have explored before.

As part of a recent development project funded by Arts Council England, a set of new features have been added for users to enjoy, including a Forecasting tool, a Return on Investment calculator, a Carbon Budget Setting feature and the opportunity to create your own custom footprint.

By adding your data, you will gain a better understanding of your environmental impact. The results of your footprint can inform your environmental strategy and organisational priorities. This emissions data can help support your decision-making and steer changes to ensure that effective climate action is taken.

Culture is critical to the climate crisis. The cultural community is uniquely placed to inspire climate action and find the creative solutions we need. Add your data and contribute to the cultural community's collective action on climate change.

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Creative Climate Tools | Julie's Bicycle | Sustainability Strategy Tools

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Build your environmental strategy with tools to measure your energy use, water consumption, waste generation, recycling, travel, and production materials.

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Oecumene Studio (Œcumene Spaces For Dignity) stands at the forefront of innovative urban solutions, exemplifying the principles of urban tinkering. As a collaborative studio, we embrace a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together professionals, academics, and community members to co-create sustainable urban futures. Our space functions as an urban living lab, a dynamic environment where real-world challenges meet groundbreaking ideas. Here, theories transition into tangible solutions.

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Oecumene Studio (Œcumene Spaces For Dignity) stands at the forefront of innovative urban solutions, exemplifying the principles of urban tinkering. As a collaborative studio, we embrace a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together professionals, academics, and community members to co-create sustainable urban futures. Our space functions as an urban living lab, a dynamic environment where real-world challenges meet groundbreaking ideas. Here, theories transition into tangible solutions.

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engagement is a strategic partnership between a community and an organization, municipality, or agency that aims to enhance the quality of life within the community. This collaborative process involves both parties working together to identify, plan, and implement solutions to overcome community challenges. Through various participatory approaches, community engagement strives to ensure fair and effective participation of all stakeholders in creating their living environment.

On the other hand, participatory design is a process that involves multiple stakeholders, such as developers, users, and other interested parties, working together to design and develop products, services, and experiences. This iterative process involves continuous stakeholder communication and feedback to ensure that the final product meets their needs and expectations.

Principles of Community Engagement

The Co-Intelligence Institute has developed the seven basic concepts that effectively embody the shared ideas and understandings of individuals working in the field of community involvement - conflict, conflict resolution, and collaboration.

1. Careful planning and preparation: Ensure that the process's design, organization, and convening fulfill a clearly stated objective and the needs of the participants through proper and inclusive planning.

2. Inclusion and Demographic Diversity: Integrate various individuals, opinions, ideas, and information equitably to establish the groundwork for tremendous results and democratic legitimacy.

3. Openness and Learning: Assist every stakeholder engaged in listening to one another, exploring new ideas without regard for predetermined results, learning and using the information to generate new alternatives, and carefully evaluating the effectiveness of community engagement activities.

4. Transparency and trust entail being explicit and open about the process and providing a public record of the organizers, sponsors, outcomes, and range of opinions and ideas expressed.

5. Impact and Action: Ensure that each participatory effort has a genuine chance of making a difference and that participants know that possibility.

6. Sustained interaction and Participatory Culture: Foster a participatory culture by supporting continued quality community interaction through programmes and institutions.

Different Forms of Community Engagement

Informative Participation: Informing people about impending procedures, decisions, and changes to their living environment is the goal of informative participation. People frequently need to be made aware of the processes that impact their immediate environment, which could help avoid disputes later on.

Benefits of Community Engagement

Community engagement plays an important role in the lives of individuals and communities alike. It can create a sense of belonging, give individuals a sense of purpose and connection, and help build strong communities. It can also help address local issues, promote civic engagement, and increase public involvement in local decision-making.

1. Educating the Public: Improved public education significantly benefits public participation. People become more aware of their local government, its services, the decision-making process and how to use those services.

2. Research Utility: Improvements are made based on research findings used to effect change (e.g., through new or improved services, policy or funding changes, or transformation of professional practices) while also expanding the capacity for change and maintaining long-term partnerships.

3. Ethics: Participation opens up chances to improve the consent process, uncover ethical difficulties, and develop mechanisms for resolving ethical issues as they arise.

4. Citizen Participation: By involving citizens in decision-making, government leaders can better grasp residents' challenges and needs, enabling them to judge better how services are delivered and develop policies that reflect their constituents' needs and interests. The public's knowledge and skills can be strengthened, and their contributions can be recognised (perhaps through financial rewards). These efforts promote goodwill and establish the framework for future collaborations.

5. Public Trust: Public participation can aid in developing public trust in decision-makers. Citizens are more likely to believe their voices are heard when they are invited to participate in the process, leading to more confidence and civic involvement.

6. Academic Benefits: Academic partners can obtain a better understanding of the subject under investigation and respect for the significance and value of community involvement, which can occasionally result in immediate career benefits. Furthermore, new insights into the importance of a project and the various uses to gain from it can lead to greater chances to disseminate its findings and their comprehensive application. Improvements in how studies are conducted can make participation easier and benefit researchers.

7. Collaborations: Community organizations can gain more excellent institutional capability, increased expertise, a more robust profile in the community, and stronger connections with other community members and entities. These advantages can foster goodwill and establish the framework for future collaborations.

8. Accountability: Public engagement increases the accountability of government leaders. By engaging citizens in decision-making, architects, designers, government leaders, etc. are more likely to be held accountable for their actions because citizens are more likely to be aware of the actions and hold them responsible.

Pedagogy of Shared Participation
'It is important to connect critical reflection with political action and architectural practice'.
(Jesica Amescua Carrera and Mariana Ordonez Grajales, 2022)

Significance of Participatory Practices

Participatory design necessitates a shift in attitude and ability among those involved in teaching and learning and a rejection of oppressive and violent practices. Additionally, it consists of developing new approaches, tools, and techniques to promote design as a tool for creative autonomy. Ultimately, participation is a process of community transformation aimed at reclaiming living sovereignty and co-creating a shared future.

'Relational Identity'

Archaeologist Almudena Hernando has investigated the concept of 'relational identity,' which sees individuals as part of a broader unit or social group, resulting in a 'dream of individuality,' in which people believe they can have security and power if they isolate themselves. However, participatory design recognises that architectural design and information production are social activities. As a result, every attempt to reject this fact through individual authorship results in the marginalization and exploitation of many people.
Citations and References
Pragya is a young and passionate Architect, Urbanist, and Academician who is constantly seeking to broaden her horizons. Her primary areas of interest are urban resilience, regeneration, human-centered design approaches, and place identity. She has always worked to improve critical thinking skills in order to foster a learner-centered environment.

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Community engagement and participatory design processes

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Community engagement is a strategic partnership between a community and an organization, municipality, or agency that aims to enhance the quality of life within the community......

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Cities comprise of many types of outdoor spaces, each with their distinct soundscape. These soundscapes contribute to the quality of those spaces, and eventually identify cities and communities. Over the past decades, awareness of the transience and the heritage value of urban soundscapes has risen,…

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Participatory design (originally co-operative design, now often co-design) is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders (e.g. employees, partners, customers, citizens, end users) in the design process to help ensure the result meets their needs and is usable.

# data[].attributes.subject
Participatory design (originally co-operative design, now often co-design) is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders (e.g. employees, partners, customers, citizens, end users) in the design process to help ensure the result meets their needs and is usable.

# data[].attributes.headline
Some history and short review of participatory design 

# data[].attributes.subject
Some history and short review of participatory design 

# data[].attributes.body
Attitudes urbaines !

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Vous autorisez la Société Éditrice du Monde, responsable de traitement, à utiliser les données personnelles figurant dans ce formulaire pour établir la liste de participants à l’événement, et, si vous l’avez accepté, pour vous adresser des informations du Monde sur ses évènements, publications et se…

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Imfusio et une sélection d outils à disposition 

# data[].attributes.subject
Imfusio et une sélection d outils à disposition 

# data[].attributes.body
https://lnkd.in/daddM7UT.

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A collaborative project between African Crossroads community members in South Africa and Nigeria. The video series spotlights how artists and designers across the respective countries are working towards a more climate-just future.

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Art & Climate Justice – African Crossroads

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A Collaborative Project between Bubblegum Club (South Africa) and hFACTOR (Nigeria)

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https://solarimpulse.com/solutions-explorer/bamboo-for-life

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Bamboo for Life - Solar Impulse Efficient Solution

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The Solutions Explorer lets you create alerts that match your needs. You can create several alerts and you will receive a notification each time a new Solar Impulse Efficient Solutions is labeled and matches your filters. Your Search Alerts will show up here.

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Urbanités africaines / Le programme d'appui à la reconstruction de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants https://www.revue-urbanites.fr/urbanites-africaines-chabot-keita-varnai/

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Urbanités africaines / Le programme d'appui à la reconstruction de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants https://www.revue-urbanites.fr/urbanites-africaines-chabot-keita-varnai/

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L'article de L. Chabot, P.A. Keita et B. Varnai au format PDF
En unissant l'écriture à la parole, cet article cherche à mettre en lumière une dynamique de production de la ville en cours de construction dans la banlieue dakaroise. À partir de portraits vidéo, les membres de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants (FSH), rassemblant des groupements d'habitants des quartiers précaires du Sénégal et sa structure d'appui urbaSEN témoignent d'une réalité urbaine en perpétuelle transformation. Cette réalité est marquée par les difficultés et les petits succès des habitants et de cette association de professionnels de l'urbain qui cherchent à reconstruire l'habitat et à améliorer l'environnement des quartiers précaires de la banlieue sinistrés par des inondations.

C'est notamment à travers le programme d'appui à la reconstruction engagé depuis 2013 que la FSH et urbaSEN ont l'ambition de mettre en œuvre un urbanisme à échelle humaine adapté aux capacités et aux besoins locaux ; inclusif, car ciblant les populations vulnérables traditionnellement mises à l'écart des processus de production de la ville ; participatif dans la mesure où cette forme d'urbanisme repose sur l'organisation et la prise de décision collectives et cherche à renforcer le pouvoir d'agir des habitants ; et solidaire, car s'appuyant sur des liens d'entraide et la prise de conscience d'un intérêt commun.

L'article présente ce programme de (re)construction étroitement lié à l'émergence d'un mouvement citoyen, tout en l'insérant dans le contexte urbain et social de la capitale sénégalaise. Il s'interroge sur le mode de production de la ville qu'il représente, son potentiel, ses limites, ses leviers d'actions et le met en perspective avec l'action de l'État visant d'une part la restructuration des quartiers précaires et d'autre part la maîtrise des problèmes d'inondations dans la banlieue de Dakar. Le programme de reconstruction vient en effet relier l'action de l'État et la mobilisation, d'abord spontanée puis structurée, des populations urbaines vulnérables avec l'ambition d'améliorer durablement leurs cadres de vie.

Dakar, portrait d'une ville ouest-africaine

L'agglomération de Dakar concentre un quart de la population du pays sur 0,28 % de son territoire ( ANSD 2011 et Cities Alliance 2010) et n'échappe pas à l'étalement urbain. Ce phénomène est à la fois le moteur et le résultat d'une dynamique de ségrégation socio-spatiale, qui se traduit par une structure métropolitaine duale, avec un centre, principal pôle attractif qui concentre les fonctions les plus importantes du territoire national et l'habitat des populations aisées, et de vastes banlieues au développement peu maîtrisé, avec des zones de précarité occupées par les populations à faibles revenus (Sané, 2013). Ces zones situées dans les villes de Dakar, Pikine et Guédiawaye regroupent notamment les quartiers informels qui occupent plus de 30 % de l'agglomération et hébergent plus d'un million d'habitants (Cities Alliance 2010).

En effet, l'indépendance acquise en 1960 et l'attrait de la capitale comme pôle de concentration de l'essentiel de l'activité économique et des services expliquent le déséquilibre entre offre et demande, aussi bien quantitative que qualitative, de logements. Ce dernier est accentué par l'exode rural des années 1970, conséquence d'une sécheresse prolongée. Les évictions des quartiers informels du centre de Dakar (Baye Gaindé, Nimzatt, Champs de Courses), le renchérissement des coûts de location et le difficile accès à la propriété immobilière et foncière pour les catégories sociales vulnérables accroissent cette problématique, créant ainsi des espaces d'exclusion dans la périphérie et dans les interstices de la ville formelle, concentrant les populations les plus vulnérables.

Les tentatives de réduction des inégalités socio-spatiales avec la création des Sociétés Immobilières publiques, destinées principalement à satisfaire la demande des fonctionnaires en matière de logement, ne parviennent pas à répondre aux besoins des populations vulnérables (Seck, 1970 ; Sané, 2013). Ces populations sont alors contraintes de s'installer sur des terrains impropres à l'habitation, notamment des champs de culture désormais inexploités (Sané, 2013). Cette dynamique à forte tendance exclusive fait naître des quartiers informels et précaires aux portes de la ville planifiée, sur un espace devenu le réceptacle d'une population majoritairement issue du monde rural, non instruite et à faibles revenus (Sané, 2009).

Face à cette situation, l'État se voit dans l'obligation de réagir. D'abord, par des tentatives d'évictions forcées combattues par la population, pour ensuite aboutir à une politique de planification par rattrapage (Chenal 2013), qui va, plutôt que d'anticiper la production de la ville, chercher à réduire les dysfonctionnements urbains résultant d'une urbanisation spontanée et non maîtrisée. À partir de l'année 1985, cette planification par rattrapage a été accompagnée par la coopération allemande et institutionnalisée par un cadre légal et réglementaire. Elle se traduit par des politiques de restructuration urbaine et de régularisation foncière (Sané, 2013), de plus en plus reconnues comme des modes d'intervention les plus à même de donner des solutions adéquates et inclusives à la problématique des quartiers précaires (Mansion et Rachmuhl, 2012). Ces modes d'intervention sont, cependant, souvent en retard par rapport au fort taux d'urbanisation des quartiers périphériques et aux dynamiques de ségrégation socio-spatiales qui en résultent.

Plus récemment, les ZAC (Zones d'Aménagement Concerté) et les pôles urbains sont adoptés comme outils de rééquilibrage du tissu urbain (Sané, 2013). Ces outils, s'inscrivant dans la récente politique d'aménagement, donnent forme aux futurs pôles urbains de Diamniadio et du Lac Rose, situés à 30 kilomètres à l'ouest et au nord du centre-ville de Dakar. Un pari urbanistique audacieux, inspiré du modèle des villes nouvelles, qui soulève de nombreuses questions dont celle de la greffe urbaine et de la société solidaire que cet espace doit contribuer à faire naître.

Dans les interstices entre l'ancienne ville (coloniale) planifiée et la nouvelle ville de Diamniadio se situe donc un territoire caractérisé par l'exclusion, l'informalité et la ségrégation socio-spatiale. Ces quartiers de la banlieue dakaroise ne sont le produit ni d'une action publique, ni d'investisseurs privés mais le fruit de l'effort quotidien de leurs habitants (le plus souvent laissés à eux-mêmes). Cette production sociale de l'habitat, quand elle est mal maîtrisée, génère de la précarité par rapport à l'accès à l'habitat digne et aux équipements mais donne également un sens à l'entraide et à la solidarité. Ainsi, les quartiers précaires de la banlieue sont certes des lieux d'exclusion, mais ils hébergent également le potentiel d'un mode de production participatif et solidaire de la ville à travers l'action spontanée des habitants qui cherchent à faire face à la précarité de leur habitat et quartiers avec leurs propres moyens et capacités (Caslin, 2017). L'expérience de reconstruction et d'amélioration de l'habitat de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants (FSH), et de sa structure d'appui urbaSEN, implantées sur ce territoire, s'appuie sur et se nourrit de ce potentiel.

" Mboolo mooy doole ", l'Union Fait la Force : l'émergence de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants, acteur de changement dans les quartiers précaires

Certaines zones de la banlieue de Dakar abritaient des forages qui permettaient de desservir la capitale avec de l'eau potable. L'installation des populations, à partir des années 1960, sur ces zones non constructibles et déclarées impropres à l'habitat a donné non seulement lieu à des quartiers précaires et informels mais également à la pollution de la nappe phréatique. L'arrêt des pompages, l'apport de nouvelles eaux (Lac de Guiers) et l'urbanisation informelle et non maîtrisée provoquent la remontée de la nappe phréatique et les inondations récurrentes des quartiers de la banlieue à partir des années 2000. Ces inondations obligent une partie de la population à abandonner leur maison, à la reconstruire en permanence ou à vivre dans des conditions particulièrement précaires. Face à cette situation, l'État lance le plan d'urgence Jaxaay en 2005 consistant à construire des bassins de rétention dans les zones inondées et à reloger une partie de la population touchée dans une nouvelle cité à 30 kilomètres de Dakar (Sané, 2013). Ces ouvrages primaires (bassins de rétention) servent d'exutoire dans le cadre de la mise en œuvre du projet de gestion des eaux pluviales et d'adaptation au changement climatique (PROGEP) conduit par l'Agence de Développement Municipale (ADM) visant à drainer les eaux pluviales vers la mer et ainsi à réduire les risques d'inondations.

Autour des années 2000, les habitants des quartiers informels de Djiddah Thiaroye Kao (DTK), l'une des 16 communes de la ville de Pikine située à l'est de Dakar et l'un des territoires les plus touchés par les inondations, se mobilisent pour mettre en œuvre des actions d'urgence et spontanées (remblai de sable et de déchets, sillons) pour faire face aux inondations. Ces actions atteignant vite leurs limites, les différentes associations et initiatives citoyennes se sont progressivement regroupées au sein du collectif des associations de développement de DTK (CADDTK) et ont lancé un appel aux professionnels et aux structures d'appui pour développer des solutions pérennes à leurs difficultés. Cet appel a eu un écho auprès d'acteurs internationaux, notamment l'ONG urbaMonde Suisse (ex urbanistes sans frontières), qui ont accompagné l'initiative citoyenne et préconisé l'implication de professionnels locaux. Le projet urbaDTK voit alors le jour.

UrbaDTK vise la restructuration des quartiers informels de la commune à travers une planification urbaine participative. Entre 2009 et 2012, urbaDTK permet la formulation d'un plan d'urbanisme de détail (PUD) et d'un plan d'investissement prioritaire (PIP), la mise en place d'un bureau municipal d'urbanisme pour la Commune de DTK, ainsi que la naissance de l'association sénégalaise urbaSEN (2009). La mise en œuvre du PROGEP permettant de récupérer certaines zones de la Commune pour l'habitation et de mieux maîtriser la problématique des inondations, combinée à la mobilisation citoyenne à travers le projet urbaDTK ont fait émerger l'idée d'un programme d'accompagnement à la reconstruction. Dans un souci d'étendre et de pérenniser la démarche entreprise par urbaDTK, les professionnels et acteurs communautaires locaux se sont inspirés, grâce à la mise en réseau par urbaMonde, d'expériences de mobilisation citoyenne à l'international. Ceci a donné lieu à la création de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants (FSH) en 2014. Tandis que la FSH est l'organe politique qui fédère les habitants des quartiers informels dans la continuité de la mobilisation citoyenne lancée par CADDTK, urbaSEN est son ONG d'appui constituée de professionnels de l'urbain du Sénégal.

Aujourd'hui, la FSH est composée de près de 3 800 habitants organisés dans plus de 160 groupes d'épargne, essentiellement féminins, issus des quartiers précaires de DTK, ainsi que des habitants des quartiers pour la plupart informels d'une quinzaine de communes de Pikine et Guédiawaye et d'autres villes du Sénégal (Rufisque, Thiès et Louga). Les membres de la fédération se constituent en Assemblée Générale pour élire leur bureau (présidente, trésorière, responsable de collecte de données, du pôle formation, du pôle animation et communication) et le comité de crédit pour une durée de trois ans.

Les groupes d'épargne qui composent la FSH sont des tontines, qui ont un fort ancrage au Sénégal et plus largement en Afrique de l'Ouest ; ils sont les véhicules d'une action collective visant à améliorer le cadre de vie de leurs membres. Ils se constituent grâce aux liens de confiance, de solidarité et d'entraide noués au cœur d'un territoire et d'une même communauté. Les membres de chaque groupe se retrouvent selon un rythme qui leur est propre pour épargner (au niveau du groupe et au niveau de la FSH), s'accorder des financements (pour des activités génératrices de revenus ou l'amélioration de l'habitat), faire des achats groupés de denrées alimentaires, redistribuer l'épargne à l'occasion d'événements d'importance et pour échanger des informations. Le fonctionnement de chaque groupe est propre à son contexte ; la création de certains a été inspirée par la FSH, l'existence des autres remonte bien plus loin dans le temps. La FSH mobilise et fédère ses membres pour faire entendre leurs voix auprès des collectivités publiques et défendre leurs intérêts en matière d'accès à un habitat digne et durable.

L'innovation, par rapport aux programmes de logement (publics ou impulsés par les acteurs de la coopération internationale) reposant sur des solutions souvent de type " clé en main " et limités dans le temps, réside dans la mise en commun de l'épargne à l'échelle d'une fédération. Cette mise en commun permet de constituer un fonds de roulement pour la (re)construction et l'accès au logement qui a pour ambition d'être pérenne (Mitlin, 2008). Elle nécessite et suscite à la fois la prise de conscience par les membres de la Fédération qu'ensemble ils disposent d'un plus grand pouvoir d'agir.

Mboolo Mooy Doole, l'union fait la force, tel est le slogan de la FSH. Depuis 2015, la FSH est membre du réseau Slum Dwellers International, porteur de la voix des populations urbaines pauvres de 32 pays, organisées en fédérations de groupes d'épargne. Le 'modèle SDI', qui consiste à mobiliser les populations urbaines pauvres pour améliorer leur habitat à travers le rituel d'épargne solidaire, la collecte de données et le plaidoyer politique, a fortement inspiré la création de la FSH et la vision d'urbaSEN en tant qu'organisation d'assistance technique (Boonyabancha, 2001 ; D'Cruz, 2014). UrbaMonde, partenaire historique des deux structures, a impulsé ce rapprochement dans un premier temps et a contribué à l'émulsion des idées et de la vision d'urbaSEN grâce à un appui continu et à la mise en perspective avec d'autres acteurs de la production sociale de l'habitat.

Le programme d'appui à la reconstruction, levier d'action pour l'amélioration des quartiers précaires

La planification urbaine participative et la restructuration des quartiers précaires de DTK initiée en 2009, ainsi que la construction d'ouvrages primaires (bassins de rétentions, drainage, voirie, etc.) ont permis de mieux maîtriser les risques d'inondations dans la Commune et de sortir certaines zones hors d'eau. Mais elles ont également mis en évidence l'absence de propositions (étatiques) d'amélioration concrètes au niveau de la rue (ouvrages secondaires) et de la parcelle (maison) (Babacar, 2009). Le programme d'appui à la reconstruction, lancé par urbaSEN et la FSH en 2013, voit alors le jour pour apporter des réponses au difficile accès aux financements abordables et à l'appui technique pour les habitants des quartiers précaires. Face à l'absence de solutions d'amélioration de l'habitat, notamment pour les ménages endommagés par les inondations, c'est donc l'action citoyenne encadrée par des professionnels et doté par des fonds de la coopération internationale décentralisée qui vient relier et prolonger l'action de l'État au sein des quartiers, par la reconstruction de maisons et d'ouvrages collectifs (puisards, etc.).

Les projets d'amélioration de l'habitat sont aux dimensions souvent modestes, sans grandes prétentions architecturales et peu perceptibles sur le plan urbanistique. Ils tentent de répondre avec soin et peu de moyens aux besoins des habitants. Ceux-ci sont formulés par les membres des groupes d'épargne affiliés à la FSH, validés par ces derniers et le comité de crédit de la structure fédérale et comptent avec l'appui de l'équipe technique d'urbaSEN tout au long du processus de chiffrage, de suivi et de réception du chantier. Au-delà de la reconstruction des maisons sinistrées par les inondations, le programme vise l'amélioration progressive de l'habitat et des quartiers précaires. Depuis son lancement, le programme a bénéficié à plus de 260 ménages à faibles revenus qui ont obtenu un financement auprès du fonds rotatif de la FSH pour reconstruire leurs maisons avec l'appui technique d'urbaSEN.

Le programme est orienté non seulement par les besoins mais également les capacités des populations des quartiers informels : il s'appuie sur le fonctionnement participatif de la FSH, organe de prise de décision, et sur les liens d'entraide existant au sein des groupes d'épargne qui sont porteurs de pratiques socio-culturelles locales (la tontine). Il valorise également les savoir-faire des artisans locaux et l'important rôle de mobilisation et de cohésion sociale que jouent les femmes au sein de leurs quartiers. Pour renforcer le pouvoir d'agir collectif de la population locale, l'appui d'une structure telle qu'urbaSEN est indispensable tant dans le domaine technique qu'en matière d'animation, de sensibilisation et de mobilisation.

Vers un urbanisme inclusif. Le fonds de rénovation urbaine, rotatif et autogéré

Le fonds rotatif est un instrument de projet à la fois innovant et indispensable du programme d'appui à la reconstruction permettant aux ménages vulnérables d'accéder à un financement abordable. Le fonds rotatif est constitué par une dotation initiale d'environ 100 000 euros de la coopération décentralisée suisse à travers un projet de coopération mené par l'association suisse urbaMonde et l'épargne solidaire des membres de la FSH mise en commun à l'échelle de la FSH (l'équivalent de 7,60 euros par mois et par groupe). En effet, l'épargne solidaire mise en commun au niveau de la fédération dans le fonds rotatif est le moteur de l'action collective de la FSH. Les membres de la FSH empruntent à tour de rôle et à travers leurs groupes d'épargne un montant maximal d'un million de FCFA (environ 1 500 euros) pour améliorer leur habitat. Ils remboursent en 20 mois, avec un mois de différé et un taux d'intérêt de 5 % dont 1 % revient au groupe d'épargne de la bénéficiaire, 1 % à la FSH, et 1 % à urbaSEN. Les 2 % restants sont versés au fonds rotatif.

Grâce à ce fonds, de nouveaux chantiers éclosent chaque semaine sur les terrains sablonneux de la banlieue. À ce jour (juin 2018), environ 220 familles ont reconstruit ou amélioré leur habitat ; 25 réalisations sont en cours et environ 600 chantiers individuels et des aménagements collectifs sont projetés d'ici 2021.

Le fonds rotatif de rénovation urbaine constitue ainsi une réponse à l'absence de moyens financiers propres et d'accès aux financements abordables pour les populations touchées par les inondations ou habitant dans des conditions précaires. Toute décision concernant l'attribution des financements est prise par la FSH, d'abord au niveau des groupes qui arbitrent et valident les demandes individuelles qui leur sont soumises, puis par le comité de crédit de la FSH, qui s'appuie sur les conseils d'urbaSEN. Il est à noter que le financement est accordé par la FSH au groupe et non pas à la bénéficiaire, de sorte que le groupe est solidairement responsable de son recouvrement.

Le caractère rotatif du fonds permet à la FSH de pérenniser ses activités et de les élargir progressivement, tant géographiquement qu'en termes de champs d'action. Cette pérennité est assurée dans la mesure où la FSH et urbaSEN sont capables de sensibiliser les membres de la fédération à l'intérêt d'un fonds commun et pérenne et de faciliter son appropriation par les bénéficiaires.

À partir de 2019, la FSH et urbaSEN souhaitent expérimenter le financement de projets collectifs, formulés, chiffrés et réalisés par les habitants membres de la FSH, portant sur la gestion des eaux et l'espace public à travers le fonds rotatif.

Les habitants maîtres d'ouvrage et maîtres d'œuvre : vers un urbanisme participatif

Dans un contexte de précarité urbaine et de mise à l'écart des processus de décisions prises par l'État, le programme cherche à mettre le pouvoir d'agir dans les mains des usagers de la ville, les habitants. Cela s'opère de manière transversale à travers la sensibilisation de la population aux problématiques urbaines, l'accompagnement au plaidoyer politique, la planification participative, la maîtrise de l'information (à travers la collecte de données, la cartographie par drone et la délivrance d'attestations d'occupation foncière) et la maîtrise d'ouvrage habitante.

La maîtrise d'ouvrage habitante se traduit par la responsabilisation des membres de la FSH concernant le choix des maisons à reconstruire en priorité et la validation des crédits de (re)construction - ce qui implique de faire un arbitrage entre les besoins et les moyens à disposition - la validation des montants des financements et de la portée des travaux, le choix et le paiement des artisans et la gestion des décaissements et du recouvrement. De plus, les membres de la FSH sont responsabilisés, aux côtés d'urbaSEN, au suivi de chantiers (maîtrise d'œuvre) à travers la formation des déléguées de chantier au sein de chaque groupe bénéficiant d'un financement à la construction.

Encourager la maîtrise d'ouvrage et la maîtrise d'œuvre habitantes constitue d'abord un choix pragmatique dans une perspective de réduction des frais de suivi et des coûts de réalisation. Mais cette approche correspond également à une stratégie d'autonomisation des membres de la FSH, d'appropriation des réalisations et de prise de responsabilité par le collectif - les groupes d'épargne et la fédération d'habitants - et requiert un accompagnement de la part d'urbaSEN.

Reconstruire c'est bien, bien reconstruire c'est encore mieux : vers une reconstruction solide et durable des quartiers précaires

UrbaSEN appuie la FSH sur les aspects liés à la construction à travers son équipe chantier en charge des états des lieux, de l'encadrement du devis, du suivi et de la réception des chantiers. Cette dernière intervient également dans le renforcement des capacités des artisans, la formation des membres de la FSH à la maîtrise d'ouvrage et plus récemment, l'organisation de la filière de construction grâce à la mise en place de la " briqueterie FSH ".

Les constructions réalisées sur les chantiers de la FSH présentent en effet ponctuellement des malfaçons dues au manque de qualification de certains artisans et de leur outillage, mais également au fait que ces travaux de reconstruction reposent souvent sur des constructions existantes de mauvaise qualité. Ces défauts constructifs ponctuels fragilisent la solidité à moyen terme des maisons. De plus, la qualité des matériaux de construction, au même titre que le confort thermique à l'intérieur du bâtiment, ne représentent pas, au vue de l'urgence de certains travaux, une priorité pour les habitants.

Cependant, la qualité des matériaux tout comme le confort intérieur sont des éléments décisifs dans un processus de reconstruction de logements dignes voulant s'inscrire dans la durée. Parvenir à réaliser des reconstructions modestes et de qualité, c'est d'une part offrir un environnement sécurisé aux habitants et, d'autre part, augmenter le confort d'habitation et la rentabilité de leur investissement économique.

Bien que la brique en ciment aggloméré représente le matériau de base utilisé quotidiennement sur les chantiers dans la banlieue, ce matériau de construction ne favorise pas la régulation thermique naturelle des bâtiments et nécessite souvent l'installation d'un climatiseur ou l'utilisation d'un ventilateur d'appoint. Cependant, ces installations sont peu répandues compte tenu de leurs coûts importants. Néanmoins, la brique en ciment aggloméré fait partie du paysage urbain de ces quartiers précaires et de la ville 'formelle' ou 'moderne'. La brique en ciment aggloméré matérialise par conséquent une forme de modernité à laquelle aspirent généralement les habitants, par rapport aux constructions vernaculaires offrant un meilleur confort thermique.

Forte de ce constat, la FSH avec l'appui d'urbaSEN, a fait le choix pragmatique de produire des briques de ciment aggloméré de qualité supérieure tout en étant moins chères que les briques disponibles dans les quartiers. La " Briqueterie FSH ", inaugurée en avril 2018, a pour objectif de fournir aux chantiers de la FSH des briques qui respectent les bons dosages et l'emploi d'agrégats de qualité afin d'améliorer en priorité la solidité des constructions.

Au-delà de l'amélioration de la qualité des matériaux de construction, l'équipe chantier d'urbaSEN met également en place des mesures pour améliorer la qualité des travaux. Des ateliers d'échange autour des bonnes pratiques constructives visent à renforcer les compétences des artisans mandatés par les bénéficiaires tout en sensibilisant les déléguées de chantier de la FSH au domaine de la construction. Le principe consiste à transformer ponctuellement certains chantiers de reconstruction en micro-chantiers écoles afin de tirer pleinement parti d'une dynamique constructive déjà existante. Lors de ces ateliers, les travaux planifiés sont réalisés en présence des artisans du quartier conformément aux recommandations techniques en vigueur avec l'appui de l'équipe chantier d'urbaSEN

En résumé, l'objectif de cette série de mesures est de renforcer la durabilité constructive des projets de reconstruction de la FSH, un prérequis incontournable à la durabilité socio-économique visée par le programme d'appui à la reconstruction. Ces mesures tentent de répondre à des situations d'urgence dans une perspective à moyen terme, en tenant compte des aspects socio-culturels et de la réalité du terrain.

Vers un urbanisme participatif, inclusif et solidaire

La FSH et sa structure d'appui urbaSEN démontrent par l'exemple - le programme d'appui à la reconstruction - qu'un urbanisme à échelle humaine, inclusif, participatif et solidaire est non seulement nécessaire pour compléter des politiques urbaines plus 'conventionnelles', mais également possible. Bien que perfectible, ce programme permet de rattacher les opérations urbaines structurantes au tissu urbain fin et d'améliorer le cadre de vie des populations de manière incrémentale.

Ce mode de production de la ville apporte une réponse pragmatique et inclusive aux problématiques urbaines des quartiers de la banlieue de Dakar. Il demande de mobiliser et de fédérer les habitants, de les doter d'outils de collecte de données, de matériaux et techniques de construction durables et de financements abordables, tout en les accompagnant dans la négociation de partenariats avec les autorités centrales et locales. Cette démarche vise à renforcer le pouvoir d'agir des habitants des quartiers précaires, les bâtisseurs anonymes de la banlieue traditionnellement mis à l'écart des prises de décision concernant leur habitat.

Son succès dépend de la capacité d'articuler une démarche 'par le bas' avec l'action publique 'par le haut'. En effet, dans l'ambition de lutter contre la précarité de l'habitat et des quartiers précaires, l'une ne peut pas se faire sans l'autre - d'autant que la reconstruction acquiert son sens une fois les inondations maîtrisées, la restructuration urbaine ne peut se faire que si elle compte avec la participation et l'appui des habitants. Le degré d'autonomisation des habitants, la mobilisation de moyens et d'instruments innovants, l'existence d'une assistance technique au service des usagers finaux de la ville, tout comme une volonté politique favorisant la transformation durable des quartiers précaires et leur intégration au tissu urbain sont des éléments indispensables pour garantir la réussite de ce mode de production de la ville.

L'ambition actuelle et future des acteurs mettant en œuvre le programme d'appui à la reconstruction est de mettre en avant ce mode de production de la ville, dans une démarche expérimentale et d'amélioration continue, de démontrer son potentiel et d'identifier ses limites.

Lionel Chabot, paysagiste-urbaniste, lionel.chabot AT urbamonde DOT org

Pape Ameth Keita, urbaniste, keita AT urbasen DOT org

Bea Varnai, spécialiste en développement international, bea.varnai AT urbamonde DOT org

Couverture : rencontre de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants et de Slum Dwellers International (Amiguet, 2016)

Bibliographie

Agence Nationale de la Démographie et de la Statistique (ANSD), 2011, Situation économique et sociale du Sénégal en 2010, Dakar : MEF-ANSD, 359 p.

Babacar D., 2009, " L'ingénierie économique et sociale dans les projets de lutte contre l'habitat insalubre à Dakar, Pikine et Guédiawaye (Sénégal) " in Le Tellier J. et Iraki A. (dir.), Habitat social au Maghreb et au Sénégal. Gouvernance urbaine et participation en questions, Paris, L'Harmattan, 225-242.

Boonyabancha, S., 2001, " Savings and loans; drawing lessons from some experiences in Asia ", Environment&Urbanization Vol. 13, N°2, 9-21.

Caslin O., 2017, " En Afrique de l'Ouest, nous disposons d'un champ d'expérimentation énorme ", Jeune Afrique, en ligne.

Chenal, J. 2013, " Modèles de planification de l'espace urbain. La ville ouest-africaine. " Genève, MétisPresses, 362 p.

Cities Alliance, 2010, " Stratégie de développement urbain du Grand Dakar (horizon 2025), National Programme for Slum Improvement and Slum Upgrading in Senegal's Cities - " Senegalese Cities Without Slums " ", Stratégie de développement urbain du Grand Dakar (horizon 2025), en ligne

D'Cruz, Celine., 2014, " Community savings: a basic building block in the work of urban poor federations ", IIED Working Paper. IIED, London. http://pubs.iied.org/10711IIED

Mansion A., Rachmuhl V. et al, 2012, " Bâtir des Villes pour tous en Afrique. Leçons de quatre expériences ", n° 31, en ligne

Mitlin, Diana, 2008, " Urban Poor Funds: Development by the people for the people ", IIED, London. http://pubs.iied.org/10559IIED/

Sané Y., 2009, Les processus actuels de l'urbanisation dakaroise. Entre expansion et complexité de gestion. Enjeux de la périphérie Est. Pessac : Thèse de doctorat, Université Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux 3, 375 p.

Sané Y., 2013, " La politique de l'habitat au Sénégal : une mutation permanente ", Les Cahiers d'Outre-Mer, n° 263, en ligne.

Seck A., 1970, Dakar, métropole ouest-africaine, Dakar : IFAN, coll. " Mémoire de l'IFAN ", 516 p.

Pour citer cet article : Chabot L., Keita P. A. et Varnai B., 2018, " Le programme d'appui à la reconstruction de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants - vers un urbanisme participatif et solidaire ", Urbanités, Dossier / Urbanités africaines, octobre 2018, en ligne.

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Urbanités africaines / Le programme d'appui à la reconstruction de la Fédération Sénégalaise des Habitants - vers un urbanisme participatif et solidaire

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L'article de L. Chabot, P.A. Keita et B. Varnai au format PDF En unissant l'écriture à la parole, cet article cherche à mettre en lumière une dynamique de production de la ville en cours de construction dans la banlieue dakaroise.

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Culture and Climate Justice in South Africa

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Towards a Regenerative Culture explores the ways in which South African artists and cultural practitioners are contributing to climate justice and a new culture of human and environmental sustainability all across the country.

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Africa has become the center stage of the global climate crisis as the continent that is not only the hardest hit by climate change, but also perceived to be sleepwalking into a potential climate catastrophe.

We want to harness the power of art and creativity to change the narrative on climate change in Africa and bridge the gap between communities who will most be affected, and policy makers who will determine our climate future.

For nearly three decades the UN has been bringing together almost every country on earth for global climate summits, in 2022 this summit (COP27) will take place in Africa for the first time and Africa No Filter and Creative Development believe that not only has there never been a better time for the continent to find it's voice in climate discourse, but that creative artists will be the ones to help us find and communicate it.

We need Creative Hubs who will lead in facilitating, managing and supporting the development of a pop-up showcase or creative installation that resemble climate justice in the context of "The Africa We Want To See", featuring work "co-created" with their community and 5 of their communities' most creative, provocative and thoughtful emerging young artists.

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WE!ARE Climate Justice Campaign - Africa No Filter

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Africa has become the center stage of the global climate crisis as the continent that is not only the hardest hit by climate change, but also perceived to be sleepwalking into a potential climate catastrophe.

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Projects for climate - the climate project 

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Projects for climate - the climate project 

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"As critical as the conversation around climate change is, it is equally important to present it to people as something they can - positively - participate in. What the world needs more than ever, especially now, is not more grim or stark imagery, but messages of hope. In 2021, we are fatigued by the state of the world, tired of guilt and helplessness. We need a sign. A nudge in the right direction - that we can change the world for the better, that we matter. To hope is human."

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A unique collection of open-license illustrations on climate by TED Countdown and Fine Acts

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The Climate Justice Initiative creates public art about climate change in Lenapehoking (the homelands of the Lenape people, approximately equivalent to the watershed of the Lenapei Sipu / Delaware River). Convened by Mural Arts Philadelphia's Environmental Justice Department, this collaboration between activists, organizers, and artists seeks to galvanize individuals into collective action for climate justice.

Climate change impacts everyone, but not equally. Marginalized communities face disproportionate risks, and are least-responsible for climate pollution. Fortunately, the transition to a more just future is already underway: across the planet, people are building towards climate justice. The CJI highlights local climate justice leaders in low-income communities of color across Lenapehoking.

The MURAL illustrates the past, present, and future of environmental change in the region. Based on collaborators' stories, it acknowledges the injustices of the past and present, and offers a hopeful vision for the future.

The HUB SPACE at the Iglesias Community Garden will host educational events planned by Land Circle collaborators in June and July of 2022.

CREATIVE DISRUPTIONS are artistically-driven direct actions that support campaign objectives of collaborators in the Air and Trash Circles.

See the Climate Justice Initiative website for more information

See the Mural Come to Life: An Animated Story of Philadelphia's Climate Justice Movements

Change for Climate is Here, an animated mural by the Climate Justice Initiative. ©️ 2021 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program Climate Justice Initiative / Denise Bright Dove Ashton-Dunkley, Shari Hersh, Eurhi Jones, Jeannine Kayembe Oro, Jonathan Leibovic, Gamar Markarian, Dolores Stanford, Ron Whyte, and CJI Collaborators

CJI Structure

Our structure is based on the Action Circle model, an organizational framework of power-sharing and relationship-building used by many organizations in different variations over the years. Local activists, organizers, artists, and thinkers collaborate to focus on three main areas related to climate justice: air, land, and trash.

Learn about the issues collaborators shared during the knowledge sharing process:
Land
Air
Trash

Collaborators

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Climate Justice Initiative - Mural Arts Philadelphia

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The Climate Justice Initiative creates public art about climate change in Lenapehoking (the homelands of the Lenape people, approximately equivalent to the watershed of the Lenapei Sipu / Delaware River). Convened by Mural Arts Philadelphia's Environmental Justice Department, this collaboration between activists, organizers, and artists seeks to galvanize individuals into collective action for climate justice.

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Art for Climate Justice menu

Explore the artwork

Download art posters

About

Sign the petition

We asked artists throughout the country to share their perspectives on climate change. Together, their responses paint a vivid, gripping call for climate justice now.

Click on each piece of art for information about the artist and their message.

Download posters to paint your town with art for climate justice

During this make-it-or-break-it decade for climate change, you can help inspire action by postering your community with art for climate justice.

We turned each original artwork into a poster with a call to action for you to print and post in your community.

Our goal is to get 1000 volunteers from all provinces and territories to post three to 10 posters in their communities. Will you join us?

YES, I’LL PUT UP POSTERS

About #ArtForClimateJustice

Meeting the challenge of the climate crisis will require more than laws and policies. It will require us to access the full potential of human imagination, to listen to and lift up diverse voices that can help get us to the heart of the climate movement.

The David Suzuki Foundation hosted a collaborative art project that brought together creative people from diverse communities and backgrounds.

Led by community arts facilitator Nadia Chaney, the artists participated in an online workshop where they worked together to hone their stories and create compelling art for climate justice.

This resulted in the artworks you see above. Together they portray the profound passions that drive climate ambition — what gives people hope, what terrifies them. Their pleas for action and justice are united, urgent and strong.

We hope you’ll spend time with these works of art and notice how you feel as you take them in. Then think about what you will do to help create the transformative change we need in this critical moment.

How you can act now

Sign this petition to tell the federal government that climate action can’t wait

Share this #ArtForClimateJustice on social media

Put up Art for Climate Justice posters in your community. Simply download, print and post in public the art that resonates most with you.

What urgent and ambitious actions are we asking Canada to take?

Top climate scientists issued a “code red for humanity” recently, warning that this is our last chance to implement the transformational changes necessary to keep warming below 1.5 C and avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate chaos.

Canada’s climate targets are still critically insufficient. We are the only G7 country whose emissions have increased since the Paris Agreement was signed.

Canada must act with urgency and ambition. Specifically, we need the federal government to:

Set an emissions reduction target of at least 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 to be equitable and in line with climate science.

Implement an ambitious and achievable plan to meet that target, based on intergenerational justice for Indigenous Peoples, workers and communities.

Phase out all subsidies and public financing, and set an absolute cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector – Canada’s largest and fastest-growing source of carbon emissions – while committing to a clear timeline for a phase-out of all fossil fuel production in Canada.

Introduce “just transition” legislation to support workers and communities in the necessary shift away from fossil fuels.

Uphold Indigenous rights and title and implement the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action and UNDRIP.

Bold climate action is possible when we work together. Send your message now.

Urgent, bold, ambitious climate action now!

The climate crisis won’t wait. Call on all federal parties to co-operate on climate action

Sign the petition

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© 2022 David Suzuki Foundation. Website by Briteweb

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Art for Climate Justice - David Suzuki Foundation

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We asked artists throughout the country to share their perspectives on climate change. Together, their responses paint a vivid, gripping call for climate justice now. Explore #ArtForClimateJustice and get inspired to act!

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Community-led and Participatory Approaches to Climate Action in the Built Environment |

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The Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) is a global centre of excellence and expertise (a think & do tank) on the relationship between business and internationally recognised human rights standards.

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When we hear that the clothing that we are wearing is polluting rivers in a country far from us, we can turn to our neighbours who are happy to show us how to sew, and we have free access to machines, where there is digital equipment making it possible to download thousands of free open source patterns off the internet, print, adapt and use these to make our own designs, where there are projects that help us repair, recycle, upcyle and adapt clothes together, where we can learn how to start a collaborative planet-friendly clothing business or buy planet-friendly clothing made locally by our friends and neighbours.

When we hear that young people are without work and feel disconnected from the rest of society, turning to gangs and violence, we can turn to our neighbourhood and help make the streets safe for children to play out and encourage them to be key co-creators of their neighbourhoods too. It's a neighbourhood where we know that when we draw out our children and young people's talents in shared neighbourhood spaces it builds their confidence and relationships with supportive local networks. These relationships help them to learn how to collaborate and connect with the wider world.

When we hear that the food we are eating travelled miles, polluting the planet, and we are throwing away 30% the food produced, we can turn to our neighbourhood, where we cook and eat with our neighbours regularly, in shared public kitchens and spaces, where we grow food in public spaces together and recycle food by learning to compost from our neighbours, where we can buy food from our local cooperative that we helped establish and sustain, where we can reduce food waste by sharing in open fridges.
This is practical public social infrastructure, in the same way as libraries, parks and roads are, and equally essential. Safe, cohesive, sustainable places to live, places that we have had a hand in creating, are a universal dream of millions of people, people that are currently worrying about their future and their family's future. Participatory Cities are not a blueprint created in a think tank behind closed doors, nor are they a politician's cost-cutting utopia. Participatory Cities are a major design challenge for our generation: how to design and build the physical, technical and social infrastructure that enables us to co-create a sustainable future, with our own two hands, and with everyone? It's by no means the only design challenge; there are hundreds. But it is the central one for cities, around which all other new system designs should be built. Citizens and their capabilities need to be at the epicentre of all city systems. We know that investing the minimum into participation infrastructure doesn't work. We can't continue to blame each other for materialism, cynicism or laziness, when in most places today the practical tools to act simply don't exist. As with every big challenge, research and development is vital to work out the nuts and bolts of what it does takes for practical participation to work at a large scale.

We have to invest in long term transformation. Elinor Ostrom, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics expressed that: "A core goal of public policy should be to facilitate the development of institutions that bring out the best in humans."

It sounds inspiring, doesn't it? But what has just been described is incredibly difficult. We have to be convinced that we should be building our societies with the ingenuity and capability of everyone, not just the most educated, most heroic or most confident.

We have to be convinced that we have no choice but to change the way we live if we are to co-create more cohesive, safe and sustainable societies.

If we are convinced, we will have the ambition, urgency and determination required to build large scale practical participation infrastructure designed to make these changes both easy and exciting for everyone.

If we are convinced we will fight for the practical tools we need and want as citizens of our planet to shape the future together.
How are we developing Participatory Cities?
Inspired by the special projects that citizens have created the world over, we have been working on this design challenge for over nine years on the ground. We have worked with thousands of people in over a hundred communities. We have travelled to thirty-six cities on three continents. We have spoken to many citizen project designers in many places, all the while designing, prototyping, testing and re-designing the elements and practices to make a support platform work .

Three years ago we were very fortunate to find a visionary leadership team in Barking and Dagenham, East London, who have been bold enough to take the research and development of this approach to the next level with residents and our team. We have also been supported by an ambitious collective of funders.

Our biggest question has been: 'Is it possible to co-create with citizens at a large scale?' Now in its second year of co-designing and growing the participation ecosystem across a whole borough, the answer is yes, it is not only possible, it is also inspiring to see it growing every day with all the wonderful people involved.

We are building on the learning from special projects in neighbourhoods everywhere, from innovative practitioners and dedicated researchers across the world. We are equally determined to share everything we are learning, and have openly invited others to connect and build this new field of practice together.

For all the design challenges, we believe the success of what we are doing relies entirely on a simple but powerful fact about how we are hardwired as humans.

We need each other, and with the right opportunities, the right invitation, at the right time, in in the right space, we simply can't resist being together.

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Participatory Cites - What they are and why they are so important - Participatory City

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This is a talk about Participatory Cities, what they are and why they are so important. Most would agree that we are experiencing a number of interconnected global challenges, including climate change, political upheaval and conflict, rising inequality. We feel anxious about th

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Using Public Life Tools - The complete Guide

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Using Public Life Tools - The complete Guide

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https://ourcityplans.unhabitat.org/toolbox

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Our City Plans is a global toolbox that guides and supports local governments and urban actors to develop inclusive and integrated urban planning processes.

It is organised in four phases: assessment, plan, operationalisation, and implementation. It includes 15 thematic blocks and 54 activities that include step-by-step instructions, adaptable tools and templates, and additional resources from UN-Habitat and external partners.

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Our City Plans is a global toolbox that guides and supports local governments and urban actors to develop inclusive and integrated urban planning processes. It is organised in four phases: assessment, plan, operationalisation, and implementation. It includes 15 thematic blocks and 54 activities that include step-by-step instructions, adaptable tools and templates, and additional resources from UN-Habitat and external partners.

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D4D Social Design Initiative: Msambweni, Kenya

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Robin Reed, a specialist in participatory design with years of experience working with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, worked for two local community based non-profit organizations, over a period of six weeks to refine the skills and products produced by ...

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Download Free PDF

Download Free PDF

Taher Abdel-Ghani

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The Role of Urban Art in Redefining Pubic Spaces: Mohamed Mahmoud Street, Downtown Cairo

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Ranging from the tiny car stickers to a large-scale wall painting, the term ” Urban Art ” has been interpreted, as well as misinterpreted, by several scholars in its role within the physical setting.

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Entre fabrique d'espace public et émergence de l'individu métropolitain, la transformation du quai de Rabat (Maroc)

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Entre fabrique d'espace public et émergence de l'individu métropolitain, la transformation du quai de Rabat (Maroc)

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338912182_Entre_fabrique_d%27espace_public_et_emergence_de_l%27individu_metropolitain_la_transformation_du_quai_de_Rabat_Maroc

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Participatory Design in User Research | Think Design

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Participatory design is a method to co-create, co-operate, and co-design. Participatory design is an approach where all the stakeholders i.e. employees, customers, end-users, partners, designers, and researchers are actively involved in the design process. Know more about the method and its details.

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Original blogpost on NextBillion
Participation and inclusivity have been discussion topics in international development since the 1970s. But only more recently have they become prominent topics in the technology and innovation sectors. Whether it's done by companies, governments or other organizations, technology is often designed for people - not with them or by them. In some cases, designing for users may be the most efficient design method. In other cases, it can lead to well-meaning technologies that don't get used - or that can't be easily repaired because they were based on inaccurate assumptions about the users or the context of use.

In the development and design fields, we must be mindful of a few truths that exist in tension: Everybody can be active creators of technology, not just passive recipients of it - yet not everyone has the desire to co-create, or has equitable access to the resources necessary for generating and sustaining the development of that technology. As leaders, innovators and catalysts in these fields, we have the opportunity to determine when and how to give people access to the tools, time and space necessary to create together - especially in places where individuals may have fewer opportunities or less access to those resources. In this time of national and international crises caused or exacerbated by a lack of equity and equality, we can improve access to opportunity by our own decisions when designing development-focused innovations. Making those decisions can be difficult. Fortunately, there are tools and frameworks that can help.

Participants from IDDS 2015: Basura Cero (Zero Waste) in Cali, Colombia co-creating the solution for their first design challenge. Organized by Diversa and MIT D-Lab. Photo by Sher Vogel

Inclusion and Innovation at a Global Scale

Over the last 18 years, MIT D-Lab has worked with people around the world to develop and advance collaborative approaches and practical, low-cost and sustainable solutions to global poverty challenges. We pursue our mission through an academic program of more than 20 MIT classes and student fieldwork opportunities; research groups spanning a variety of sectors and approaches; and a group of practitioners and programs that apply an inclusive innovation approach to these challenges.

Participatory design is one key element of our work. The term refers to a family of design approaches that actively involve end-users. Participatory design processes not only produce products aligned to people's needs, they can also build skills and confidence in participants as they practice the design process together.

D-Lab's work in participatory design and inclusive innovation teaches leaders and learners how to discern when (or if) to use a participatory design process to solve a challenge. Through participatory design, we learn how to connect more meaningfully with people of diverse perspectives, and to make decisions with them collectively and quickly. This can lead to more desirable and sustainable solutions - but participatory design is not a silver bullet, and there are times when it can be more costly than other approaches. However, when participatory design is the appropriate approach, we advocate for taking the time to include the people who are facing the challenge that the innovation will address. If necessary, this may involve covering the costs that can limit their full participation (e.g., childcare, transportation, lost wages, etc.).

Three Types of Participatory Design

At D-Lab, we practice three types of participatory design: design for the user, design with the user and design by the user. In the first type, solutions are designed for a particular user need, and users are consulted throughout the process. In the second, designers and users work together throughout the entire design process to co-design a solution together. And in the third type, users are taught the basics of design and provided access to tools and resources necessary for the design process, as they frame their own challenges and design their own solutions.

Image: MIT D-Lab

The type of participatory design approach we choose depends on the type of challenge or opportunity at hand. User engagement in a non-participatory design approach is often limited to the beginning of the design process (when gathering information) or the end of the design process (when requesting feedback). The questions that participatory design brings to the forefront are: Whom should we invite to actively participate in the design process, when and how?

Participatory Design in Technology and International Development

Early on in our history, D-Lab focused mainly on technological solutions. Over time, we noticed that developing these solutions was resulting not only in lower-cost, more sustainable products and tools, but also in the growth of an international network of designers. In the process, the mindsets of participating designers were transforming, as they evolved from passive recipients of solutions to active co-creators of them.

One recent example is our 2018 Transform WASH Co-design Summit with PSI Ethiopia. PSI Ethiopia was trying to improve water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in the country. Instead of engaging only their staff and a few external organizations in the design of solutions, PSI invested in bringing together rural health care workers, government officials, student designers and engineers to work on design teams for 10 consecutive days. They learned the design process together, shared their WASH experiences, and began to ideate and build solutions together.

The design teams co-created six prototypes - one was a lower-cost, more sustainable latrine cover constructed with local bamboo instead of imported iron rod. The design had notable advantages, and it continues to be refined for production at scale. And there were many other unplanned benefits of the co-design experience, including more meaningful connections between health care workers and government officials. The co-design summit transformed the mindsets of many participants on personal hygiene. Before the summit, many had noted that they valued good hygiene practices for themselves, but after focusing deeply on WASH technology designs at the summit, they began talking about hygiene with their households and neighbors. The experience illustrates how participatory design can help public health workers and others encourage behavior change - an essential step for addressing public health issues.

Participatory Design in Business and International Development

As D-Lab works with organizations around the world to co-create low-cost technological solutions to poverty challenges, we've realized there is also a need for businesses to bring those technologies to market - and a need to learn how to co-create them. In response to these needs, D-Lab facilitated another co-design summit in 2018 - this time focused on supporting social enterprises and young entrepreneurs in Laayoune. The OCP Foundation of Morocco invited D-Lab to guide them in connecting NGO, government and business leaders with local entrepreneurs to co-create businesses supporting youth across the region.

Traditionally, young startup entrepreneurs rarely have the opportunity to sit at the table with C-level executives and government officials. But at this co-design summit, young entrepreneurs and senior business leaders ate and worked together for six days, helping to kickstart eight businesses.

One executive participant commented that he had rejected a request for large financial support in the region before the summit, as he saw no young, trustworthy entrepreneurs in the area. However, through his participation in the summit, he met and built relationships with several young entrepreneurs: Upon seeing their dedication, his mindset shifted, and he signed a contract to accept and unleash over 10 million dirhams (US $1.1 million) of funding for young entrepreneurs in the area. This illustrates how participatory design can not only spark behavior change, it can also catalyze businesses.

Participatory Design in Humanitarian Aid

D-Lab also has a history of working with refugees and internally displaced people, to develop low-cost, sustainable solutions for this unique context. Just as in other settings where we practice co-design, solutions for these communities work well for people when they are part of the team that designs them: This allows a diverse network of changemakers to be built, transforming how participants see themselves and others as capable agents of change.

This approach is not the norm in humanitarian work. Because of the rapid nature of emergency relief programs, the vast majority of humanitarian initiatives are top-down. The clients are the humanitarian aid organizations, and the "users" are the affected populations, who have no direct line of communication back to suppliers. In some cases, especially immediately after a crisis, these populations may be too traumatized to participate in the design process to meet a basic need.

Yet we have seen that participating in the design process can be the first step to restoring a person's hope, rebuilding their confidence and catalyzing their healing. That's why D-Lab works with NGOs and refugee-led organizations in places like Athens, Greece (with displaced people from Afghanistan), and in Northern Uganda (with people displaced by civil war), to guide them through the participatory design process.

At a recent International Development Design Summit in the Rhino Camp refugee settlement in northern Uganda, diverse teams (including people affected by conflict) worked on design projects to improve household livelihoods. The residents of Rhino Camp provided insight into the needs, opportunities and unused resources in the camp. The other team members brought their experiences and enthusiasm. And over the course of the three-and-a-half-week summit, each team developed a prototype and designed a business around it. Some of the prototyped business models focused on producing organic waste briquettes and fertilizer, growing mushrooms, and transforming livelihoods through plastics. A week later, Rhino Camp participants were already earning income from the designs, and working to improve them for a more robust business. Participants' confidence levels grew, and they started to teach others about the technologies they had created. They also felt empowered to tackle other challenges: Some of them are now starting a radio station to combat misinformation in the camp.

Challenges of Participatory Design

Those who have tried participatory design before realize that it requires significant investment in time, money and effort. There are many times when the approach is not useful. Sometimes participatory design can lead to more difficulties and lower-quality results - especially if there are no project champions, the challenge is not scoped appropriately, or there is poor facilitation. Obstacles also arise if there is not the right expertise at the table, if participants aren't diverse or inclusive enough, if their input is not heard or acknowledged, or if the appropriate long-term follow-up structures do not exist for the project after the design process. Additionally, sometimes a solution is needed more immediately, requiring a level of expertise the user does not have.

A participatory approach may be most helpful when the risk of design bias is high, participation barriers are low, and there is a specific enough outcome to attract all the right stakeholders - with enough pivot space to co-create something new together.

Learning More - Together

Deciding when and how to invest in a more inclusive and participatory design process is one of the greatest design challenges. We at D-Lab have learned much over the years from our own experiences, and from those of people we have worked with around the world. Through our professional education courses, D-Lab has expanded this learning network, built meaningful connections, transformed mindsets and added a few new tools to practitioners' toolkits. If you'd like to learn more about these approaches to design and innovation, we hope you'll join us in one of our upcoming course offerings: Inclusive Innovation and Inclusive Business. We'd love to learn alongside you.
About the author
Sher Vogel is MIT D-Lab's Global Trainings Manager. Sher oversees and supports D-Lab's three main types of participatory design experiences: Creative Capacity Building Workshops, Co-Design Summits, and the Inclusive Innovation Professional Education courses.

More information
MIT D-Lab Approach
Contact

Sher Vogel, MIT D-Lab Global Trainings Manager

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Co-Creating a More Equitable World: The Transformative Benefits of Participatory Design

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Original blogpost on NextBillion Participation and inclusivity have been discussion topics in international development since the 1970s. But only more recently have they become prominent topics in the technology and innovation sectors. Whether it's done by companies, governments or other organizations, technology is often designed for people - not with them or by them.

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Urban design metal furniture for outdoor and public spaces - TF Urban | Meubles urbains, Mobilier urbain, Urban

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26 mars 2018 - Urban design metal furniture from TF Urban. Discover the brand and designers. Benches, chairs, tables for urban and city spaces.

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ملعب كرة القدم : مكان للتعايش الاجتماعي، للتعبير ولإدماج شباب ضاحية مدينة وهران (الجزائر)

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ملعب كرة القدم : مكان للتعايش الاجتماعي، للتعبير ولإدماج شباب ضاحية مدينة وهران (الجزائر)

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بن جليد, عابد

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ملعب كرة القدم : مكان للتعايش الاجتماعي، للتعبير ولإدماج شباب ضاحية...

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تتميز المدن الكبرى بإفريقيا بالتوسع الكبير و الحديث لضواحيها التي تتحدّد بخاصيتي التجهيز الجزئي لمنشآتها القاعدية و النقص الجلي في التجهيزات الثقافية و أماكن الترفيه. و تعتبر مدينة وهران، الحاضرة ا...

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Réinventer l’espace public pour contrer l’étalement social

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Réinventer l’espace public pour contrer l’étalement social

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Réinventer l’espace public pour contrer l’étalement social

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Le clavardage est venu remplacer le bavardage à l’épicerie du coin.

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LES AMÉNAGEMENTS URBAINS TRANSITOIRES, enjeux et guide pratique

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Qu'est ce qu'une ACTION TRANSITOIRE dans un processus d'aménagement d'espace urbain ? Que signifie une démarche de co-conception ou de co-construction ? Quelles sont les étapes à respecter? ENJEUX ET GUIDE PRATIQUE de l'AMÉNAGEMENT URBAIN TRANSITOIRE //// "Co-conception", "aménagement transitoire", "temporaire", "éphémère", "chantier ouvert"...

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التوجه والتحديات في هوية العمارة المعاصرة في مدينة نابلس: حي رفيديا نموذجاً

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التوجه والتحديات في هوية العمارة المعاصرة في مدينة نابلس: حي رفيديا نموذجاً

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التوجه والتحديات في هوية العمارة

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المساحات العامةّ والنوع االجتماعي في عمان 

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المساحات العامةّ والنوع االجتماعي في عمان 

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PLACEMAKING: CONNECTING PEOPLE AND PLACE | Elena Madison | TEDxSpringfield

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Social media and social space: studying public life in the time of COVID - Gehl

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At a time when we are living more locally and not traveling, how can we continue to explore people's perceptions and sentiments of public spaces? At Gehl, understanding the relationship between human experience and the built environment is central to our people-first approach. In this post, we discuss how analyzing social media can be a...

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Activating Public Spaces | Mara Holt Skov | TEDxTwinFalls

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Idea for tyre project

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Facilitation Techniques and Workshop Activities | Library

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Hundreds of group facilitation activities for workshops, meetings and training sessions. Find the best team building activities, energisers, process facilitation and leadership development techniques.

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Youth Spaces in Haunted Places: Placemaking for Peacebuilding in Theory and Practice

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Youth Spaces in Haunted Places: Placemaking for Peacebuilding in Theory and Practice

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People working together around the world to generate ideas and action for social change

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People working together around the world to generate ideas and action for social change

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People working together around the world to generate ideas and action for social change

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العمران ليس حيادي: حول العلاقة بين العمران والعدالة الاجتماعية والبيئية في المنطقة العربية

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العمران ليس حيادي: حول العلاقة بين العمران والعدالة الاجتماعية والبيئية في المنطقة العربية

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منتدى البدائل العربي للدراسات

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العمران ليس حيادي: حول العلاقة بين العمران والعدالة الاجتماعية والبيئية في المنطقة العربية - منتدى البدائل العربي للدراسات

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منتدى البدائل العربي للدراسات: مؤسسة بحثية تأسست عام 2008 وتسعى لتكريس قيم التفكير العلمي في المجتمعات العربية، وتعمل على معالجة القضايا السياسية والاجتماعية والاقتصادية في إطار التقاليد والقواعد العلمية، بعيدا عن لغة التحريض والدعاية السياسية، في إطار احترام السياقات السياسية والاجتماعية الخاصة، وأيضا القيم الإنسانية العالمية.

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By cooperative city

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The Power of Civic Ecosystems: How community spaces and their networks make our cities more cooperative, fair and resilient Edited by Levente Polyák, Sophie Bod and Luca Sára Bródy ( Eutropian - Cooperating for Urban Justice) Design by Jorge Mosquera Suárez Publisher: Cooperative City Books, Vienna, June 2021 Format: Paper size B5, 320 pages ISBN 978-3-9504409-2-8 The book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Public-civic cooperation has never been as important for European cities as today.

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REVITALISER LE
CADRE DE VI(LL)E...
UN ESPACE PUBLIC
À LA FOIS

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Alt Urbaine - agence de design collaboratif d'espaces publics.

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alt.Urbaine - agence spécialisée en aménagement des espaces publics, réinvente la concertation urbaine autour d'une démarche innovante qui propose des actions concrètes d'amélioration du quotidien et du cadre de vie, en co-construction avec les habitants et les acteurs du territoire.

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How COVID has revealed the need for a rethink in urban planning

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How COVID has revealed the need for a rethink in urban planning

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How COVID has revealed the need for a rethink in urban planning

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An urban epidemiologist from Cambridge University explains how a global Marshall Plan can improve planetary health, safeguarding the future of fast-growing cities.

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Ici, vous pouvez vous inspirer, apprendre d'autres expériences, initiatives, projets. Ces inspirations proviennent des partenaires du Réseau, des découvertes ainsi que des travaux de référencement menés par des étudiant·es de plusieurs universités européennes. Et si vous souhaitez nous faire part d'une expérience intéressante : écrivez nous !

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 BUILDING PARTICIPATORY ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS FOR CITY POLICIES

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 BUILDING PARTICIPATORY ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEMS FOR CITY POLICIES

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Handbook

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10 steep to make agreat main street

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Experimental University Program

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Dis_Local is a platform that brings together Venezuelan architects and urban disciplines in different latitudes, together with a network of global cooperation. We want to build and not simulate reality, focused on the peripheral world.

We are an experimental on-site university. We approach designing while educating with an eye for net-zero sustainable processes through architecture and policy. We take an experimental space, on-site, live with real-time problem-solving tools to construct in the context of challenging socio-economic conditions across the globe.

Dis_Local offers students of any level from anywhere in the world, the opportunity to learn experience-based project architecture and focus on one of our city sites across the Globe. We let you experiment with us. We offer high-profile professors in architecture, engineering, and sustainability to guide your work through common problems of the city landscape.

Our organization follows the philosophy that urban areas will undoubtedly expand into the rural areas and create a live feedback loop between rural-city. For us, the city fabric offers an intersection between urban development models and the exploration of peripheries as part of a fresh irreverent context, where new spaces hatch.

The 2021-2022 cycle will jumpstart with the virtual community for a semester to offer students credits that can be adapted to different university systems into a trimester, a summer school, internship experience, or capacity-building workshops for local civil society organizations, mayors, and their teams, or others. We tailor our curriculum into workshops, seminars, speaking events, and more within our partnering universities, municipalities, international organizations, and global institutions: UN, World Bank, CAF, IADB, ADB, AfDB, etc. This is followed by an in-person sustainable architecture trip whereby students will explore architecture, design political sustainable outputs in the built environment in Costa Rica, and finally the built prototype in Caracas, Venezuela. Each year we rotate the field trip but always develop a project in Venezuela.

Our program is designed to create a profile of professionals endowed with local tools to face the new challenges of the peripheral globe. We look to connect your future in architecture with trends in emerging urban development towards a sustainable outlook with equitable, inclusive, and carbon-neutral projects through a human lens. The commitment is to build a resource-efficient world, both on the social and environmental front.

All contents developed by Dislocal ©

Executive direction Mabe García Rincon | Creative direction Marcos Coronel | Contents and Media direction Khristian Ceballos | Conceptual advise Alfredo Brillembourg, Luciano Landaeta, Alejandro López, Henry Rueda | Arts and Graphic producers Marcelo Ertorteguy, Sara Valente, Julio Kowalenko | Methodological design Ricardo Sanz, Rodrigo Marín | Filmmaking Bárbara De Sousa, Ángel Mendoza | Photography Madelaine Mendoza

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Dis_Local is a platform that brings together Venezuelan architects and urban disciplines in different latitudes, together with a network of global cooperation. We want to build and not simulate reality, focused on the peripheral world. We are an experimental on-site university. We approach designing while educating with an eye for net-zero sustainable processes through architecture and policy.

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Participation of people living in poverty in policy-making

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Participation of people living in poverty in policy-making

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Participation of people living in poverty in policy-making

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Each second that passes represents two days and the effects of residential building collapses.

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Simon Liedtke, Sebastian Henschel, sinnwerkstatt

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In one year an estimated 800 Egyptian families became homeless while 192 died when their homes collapsed. There are many reasons behind the collapses, but most are due to lack of government regulation, bad planning and unsafe built environments.

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Adaptive Public Space: Places for People in the Pandemic and Beyond

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Adaptive Public Space: Places for People in the Pandemic and Beyond

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By Gehl Architects

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Adaptve Public space- places for people in the pandemic and beyond

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Using Public Life Tools: The Complete Guide

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Using Public Life Tools: The Complete Guide

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By Gehl Architects

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Using public life tool - complete guide - Gehl architects

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How do we accommodate a growing urban population in a way that is sustainable, equitable, and inviting? This question is becoming increasingly urgent to answer as we face diminishing fossil-fuel resources and the effects of a changing climate while global cities continue to compete to be the most vibrant centers of culture, knowledge, and finance.

Jan Gehl has been examining this question since the 1960s, when few urban designers or planners were thinking about designing cities for people. But given the unpredictable, complex and ephemeral nature of life in cities, how can we best design public infrastructure-vital to cities for getting from place to place, or staying in place-for human use? Studying city life and understanding the factors that encourage or discourage use is the key to designing inviting public space.

In How to Study Public Life Jan Gehl and Birgitte Svarre draw from their combined experience of over 50 years to provide a history of public-life study as well as methods and tools necessary to recapture city life as an important planning dimension.

This type of systematic study began in earnest in the 1960s, when several researchers and journalists on different continents criticized urban planning for having forgotten life in the city. City life studies provide knowledge about human behavior in the built environment in an attempt to put it on an equal footing with knowledge about urban elements such as buildings and transport systems. Studies can be used as input in the decision-making process, as part of overall planning, or in designing individual projects such as streets, squares or parks. The original goal is still the goal today: to recapture city life as an important planning dimension. Anyone interested in improving city life will find inspiration, tools, and examples in this invaluable guide.

Area studies Public life studies Sustainability Urban design Urban planning

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How do we accommodate a growing urban population in a way that is sustainable, equitable, and inviting? This question is becoming increasingly urgent to answer as we face diminishing fossil-fuel resources and the effects of a changing climate while global cities continue to compete to be the most vibrant centers of culture, knowledge, and finance.

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Analyses of human behaviour in public spaces

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Analyses of human behaviour in public spaces

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Analyses of human behaviour in public spaces

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The spatial and social structures of a city, e.g. buildings, traffic infrastructure, parks, just as the dynamics of human activities and underlying processes, can trigger various collective and individual human sensations. The consideration of emotions in civic-centered spatial planning processes is a major challenge in shaping the fundamentally changing planning understanding in a network society.

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A creative representation of refugees experience in their neighborhoods

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Jumpstarting a new existence in an emerging city.
Everyday life in a refugee camp.

Camp Facts

Since November 2014, 3,027,317 Syrians have been registered as refugees. Another 177,939 are waiting to be registered.

Currently Iraq is hosting 223,923 refugees from Syria, which is 0.6% of the Iraqi population.

Domiz Refugee Camp was established in April 2012 to host Syrian Kurds.

Currently 57,953 refugees are registered in Domiz Camp. The planned capacity for the camp was 38,135 individuals.

The camp is closed for receiving new arrivals, with the exception of family reunification.

The camp is located 20 kms southeast of Dohuk city, in Iraqi Kurdistan and 60 km from Syria-Iraq border.

The size of Domiz Camp is 1,142,500 m2.

There are 12 Quarters, 10 main streets and 99 side streets.

In December 2013 a total of 9,367 standard shelters were detected, as well as 990 improvised structures likely being used for shelter and other purposes, and 592 infrastructure and support buildings.

45% of the population are female.

55% of the population are male.

37% of the population are below the age of 15.

57% of the population are aged between 15 and 49, only 38% of this group are female.

The average age is 21.

In November 2014 there were 16,699 households registered in Domiz Camp.

In November 2014 the average amount of children born in Domiz Camp was approximately 2.6 per day.

Since the establishment of the camp 130 persons died according facts in november 2013.

An average of 324 people per day make use of the primary healthcare.

There are two hospitals in the camp.

There are 7 schools in the camp.

According to The Syrian Regional Refugee Response, 100% of the children registered are also enrolled in school.

8313 Syrian students between grades 1-9 are attending schools in Duhok Governorate.

Since the foundation of the camp the UNHCR distributed 12,700 tents, 139,948 blankets, 28,387 kitchen sets, 27,860 cooking stoves

Food assistance, of adequate quality and quantity, is provided through food vouchers, redeemable in supermarkets in Domiz village for 2,100 kilocalories per person per day. Each beneficiary is provided with an individual food parcel (16.29 kg per month).

The camp produces an average of 80 tons of refuse per day, which is taken away by seven trucks, twice a day.

The camp needs 4.5 megawatts of electricity per day.

The camp uses 2200 m3 of water per day, which is distributed by trucks and regular infrastructure.

Four families share one latrine and one shower.

Approximately 600 - 700m3 wastewater is produced every day, which is taken away by 13 trucks every day.

75% of the households in Domiz Camp claim to have an income; of the other refugees in Kurdish Iraq this is 47%. 22% of this income is generated through labour and commercial activities outside the camp.

The average income for labourers is $275 per month.

In 14% of the households the female is responsible for an income.

81% of the income is used for food.

On arrival in 2012, 66% of the refugees had savings. Currently this is 4%.

47% of the households in Domiz Camp are in debt.

Domiz Camp, as with other refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, has been recognised as a permanent city by the regional authorities. Still, the best-case scenario is that the situation in Syria settles down, security improves and that people are able to return to their homes safely.

The Syrian Regional Refugee Response needs a budget of $3,740,654,701. In November 2014 51% of this was covered.

Refugee Republic is an interactive transmedia documentary about everyday life in Domiz Camp, a Syrian refugee camp in northern Iraq.

The aim of the makers, artist Jan Rothuizen, multimedia journalist Martijn van Tol, photographer Dirk Jan Visser and webdeveloper Aart Jan van der Linden, is to enrich the existing image of refugee camps by building an anatomical sketch of everyday life in the camp, through a combination of drawings, film, photography, sound and text to create a sensory experience.

The interactive documentary, produced by Submarine Channel and De Volkskrant, premiered at the Amsterdam documentary festival IDFA on 20 November 2014. The Dutch version was released online on 28 November 2014 on De Volkskrant website together with a six page special in De Volkskrant newspaper. Simultaneously, OneWorld magazine published the documentary online as well as in a six page print publication in its monthly magazine.

Press

Download Presskit

For press inquiries, please contact Submarine Channel:
info[@]submarinechannel.com
+31 20 820 49 40

Profile of the makers

Synopsis

A group of women sit on the ground in front of a row of white tents, waiting for help. A child covered in dust stands behind barbed wire gazing wide-eyed into the lens. These are the images that reach us from refugee camps. And yet a whole world lies behind these images, one that few people witness with their own eyes.

We understand the camps to be temporary measures, but worldwide refugees remain in some form of relief care for an average of 17 years. (Source: Norwegian Refugee Council).

For the first time since the Second World War there are more than 50 million refugees worldwide. The hundreds of refugee camps across the world are rapidly growing into mini-societies, with refugees as citizens and relief organizations as governments. Like any others, the refugee-citizens make home improvements, go to the baker, look for work or start up a business, seek entertainment, fall in love, argue with the neighbours, get married and have children, who also go to day care centres after school.

Just as we do, the refugee-citizens navigate between the opportunities and risks of the free markets in the camp and the sometimes helpful and at other times intrusive camp government.

Refugee Republic takes you into the world behind the relief organization posters. The makers of this interactive documentary went to Camp Domiz in northern Iraq, where around 64 thousand predominantly Kurdish Syrian refugees have sought shelter. You can explore the camp through the pen drawings of an artist, the lens of a photographer and the ears of a radio producer. You meet the residents and get to know them by scrolling through audio-visual narratives, or wandering through drawings enriched with sound.

Through an interactive map you get to know a.o. Ahmed (13), who skips school to look after his bird stall, you follow a day in the life of the busy circumciser Shixmous (63), you drink a cup of tea between tuk tuk engines with the Mahmoud the tinkerer (23), and you fall silent with Fatma (16) who hopes to find her big break as a singer via Youtube.

They each arrive, exhausted, at the camp entrance. They each receive a basic aid box. And then their lives here begin. Welcome to Refugee Republic.

A Submarine Channel Production

Concept & Drawings

Jan Rothuizen

Concept, Text, Audio, Editing

Martijn van Tol

Concept, Video, Photography

Dirk-Jan Visser

Concept, Interactive Developer, Editor

Aart Jan van der Linden

Interactive Producer

Yaniv Wolf

Interface Design

Christiaan de Rooij

Music, compositions and all instruments

Bonno Lange

Audio & Colour Correction

Joost Wierenga

Additional Video Editing

Thijs Papôt

Studio Assistants

Mark Lohmann, Soeraya Siemons

Text Layout

Jorgen Koolwijk

Research

Martin Turner

Project Management Iraq

Michelle Hamers, Nienke Nauta

Interpreter Iraq

Bahmand Osei

Translators

Peshmerge Morad, Rosie Heinrich

Text corrections

Wybrand Scheffer & Esther Ottens

PR

Lotte Niks, Yaniv Wolf (yaniv [at] submarine.nl)

Producers

Bruno Felix & Femke Wolting. A Submarine Channel Production 2014

Co-Production de Volkskrant:

Laurens Verhagen, Chef Digital de Volkskrant

This producation was made possible by:

The Non-fiction Transmedia Programme (A collaboration of: Creative Industries Fund, Dutch Media Fund and the Netherlands Film Fund)
De Volkskrant
Free Press Unlimited Postcode Loterij Fonds
One World
The Creative Industries Fund NL
The City of Amsterdam

Wedding footage

Private collection of Ahmet Pashew

Many thanks to:

Mirka Duijn
Bram Jansen

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Jumpstarting a new existence in an emerging city. This is an interactive documentary about everyday life in Domiz Camp, a Syrian refugee camp in northern Iraq. A combination of drawings, film, photography, sound and text takes you into the world behind the relief organization posters and gives you the opportunity to discover the camp and meet the residents.

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A toolkit for cities to transfer the playbus

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How to Design Spaces for Kids in Marginalized Areas? 3 Examples from UN-Habitat

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How to Design Spaces for Kids in Marginalized Areas? 3 Examples from UN-Habitat

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The Un-Habitat or the United Nations agency for human settlements and sustainable urban development, whose primary focus is to deal with the challenges of rapid urbanization, has been developing innovative approaches in the urban design field, centered on the active participation of the community. ArchDaily has teamed up with UN-Habitat to bring you weekly news, article, and interviews that highlight this work, with content straight from the source, developed by our editors.

In this second collaboration with UN-Habitat, discover different examples on how to design with and for kids in marginalized areas. In fact, child-responsive planning leads to a vibrant and animated inclusive city. Focusing on spaces for children, this feature highlights cases in Bangladesh, Niger, and Vietnam. These public spaces implementation projects seek to promote environment-friendly livable cities, taking on participatory approaches and involving the youngsters from the beginning of the process. In the end, no one knows the needs of kids, more than the kids themselves.

Directing their efforts into making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable, UN-HABITAT through its Global Public Space Programme, has upgraded so far 109 public spaces worldwide. Supported by Block by Block, an NGO initiated by the creators of Minecraft, Mojang, and Microsoft, the initiative funds public space projects worldwide, mobilizing communities and influencing policy in the process. In fact, through participatory workshops, the methodology brings people together to visualize their urban design ideas in Minecraft and present them to decision-makers.

Trang Keo Park

Trang Keo Park, located in Hoi An City in central Vietnam was designed as one of the biggest green public spaces in the area. Spreading over 65,000 square meters, the newly planned park, initially built in 2016 by developers, " is devoid of anything that would be interesting ". With poor accessibility, few local residents use the always empty space.

UN-Habitat, in collaboration with Healthbridge, Think Playgrounds, and Hoi An City has tackled this topic and organized first a Minecraft workshop with community members, where residents used the program to develop five designs for the park improvements. Following up with meetings to discuss the importance and the need for quality public spaces, the project drafted consisted of building a play space, with the help of the community. 371 members participated in the works, with a total of 296 hours of volunteering time.

Infrastructure changes included the addition of swings, climbing poles, fish rocking set, hanging bridge, push up bars, fitness bike, and the transformation of a fishing boat into a slide and a climbing system. Generating a fun place where children feel comfortable and safe, the intervention increased the number of people using the site, reaching over 200 individuals per day. Interesting for both young and old, the park achieved its goal to improve safety, inclusivity, and accessibility for all.

Rayerbazar Boishakhi Playground

While there are 15,000 students studying around the area of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) in Bangladesh, only one school has a playground and only students of the school are permitted to use it. With a lack of public spaces, children find themselves restricted to their homes. Rayerbazar Boishakhi Playground, the only existing public space in the ward, was used exclusively by teenage boys playing football and cricket. With poor accessibility for people with disabilities and lack of security, this space was not suitable for the majority of the people.

UN-Habitat, in collaboration with Healthbridge, and Work for a Better Bangladesh Trust, initiated a rehabilitation project that involved local residents from the beginning, especially kids. Aiming to create an inclusive playground out of the Rayerbazar Boishakhi space, many activities were organized including a Minecraft workshop with community members where residents focused on children's recreation, and meetings with government officials, local leaders, residents, architects, the Ward Councillor, stakeholders, and with school authorities.

As a result, 14 improvements were drafted, to be implemented in a seven-day long public space building event with the society. While children helped paint the murals, the community focused on cleaning the space. Infrastructure changes comprised of the introduction of see-saws, a toddler street scramble, swings, slides, football goalposts, plants, benches etc. Increasing the number of girls and women using the space, the successful intervention achieved its purpose, creating a very busy playground for all children and low-income families.

The Case of Niger

Sinka Park

In the city of Niamey, in Niger, there is a significant lack of formal public spaces. Out of seven parks in the area, only two are operational, and the rest are degraded, of poor quality, and constantly at risk of being transformed into other purposes. Due primarily to an absence of funding, planning, and maintenance, these spaces in decay are also inaccessible, unsafe, and unconnected.

UN-Habitat, in collaboration with Healthbridge, and Public Spaces for all, has built a public park in the Saga district of Niamey, a traditional neighborhood and a lower-income community. Using a participatory and inclusive process, the project seeks to generate a safe and accessible park, in an empty plot of land with no facilities.

During the Minecraft workshop, residents living in the neighborhood used the program to develop the designs for the park improvements, focusing on their recreational needs. As a result, 35 improvements to the site were envisioned. UN-Habitat organized six events where the community could participate in the changes to the park. Once completed, the project put in place swings, teeter-totters, a community garden and planted trees, a tire tunnel, fish ponds, partially built toilets and a refreshment center, etc. Generating a comfortable and safe place to play, relax, and socialize for children, Sinka Park included also several innovative elements for everyone, such as a community garden that is connected to potable water and irrigated through a system developed especially for the project.

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How to Design Spaces for Kids in Marginalized Areas? 3 Examples from UN-Habitat

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The Un-Habitat or the United Nations agency for human settlements and sustainable urban development, whose primary focus is to deal with the challenges of rapid urbanization, has been developing innovative approaches in the urban design field, centered on the active participation of the community.

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How Can One Public Space Transform an Entire Neighborhood? UN-Habitat's Model Street Initiative

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How Can One Public Space Transform an Entire Neighborhood? UN-Habitat's Model Street Initiative

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The Un-Habitat or the United Nations agency for human settlements and sustainable urban development, whose primary focus is to deal with the challenges of rapid urbanization, has been developing innovative approaches in the urban design field, centered on the active participation of the community. ArchDaily has teamed up with UN-Habitat to bring you weekly news, article, and interviews that highlight this work, with content straight from the source, developed by our editors.

Associated with crime, waste, and garbage, Dandora in Nairobi's Eastlands is home to 140,000 or so residents. In an on-going collaboration, between local residents and youth groups, UN-Habitat, Making Cities Together Coalition, and the Dandora Transformation League, the Model Street project has been transforming the garbage-filled community spaces into waste-free, attractive, and engaging places. Focusing on improving the shared courtyard spaces of residential compounds, an annual competition led by the youth of the neighborhood, the Changing Faces Challenge, became an initiative mobilizing citizens across Nairobi.
Dandora is not a slum but an estate The local community is at the center of the co-creation process If we can change Dandora, we can change Nairobi, we can change Kenya and we can change Africa
Dandora, built in the 1970s, with support of the World Bank, was initially a well-planned neighborhood in Nairobi, Kenya, before it gradually transformed into a slum, primarily due to poor management. It became known for its large dumpsite, the biggest in the country, and for its notorious criminal activities such as violence, drug abuse, rape, and prostitution. In order to reclaim the neighborhood, the first changes, consisting of cleaning, planting, opening up drainages, and painting facades, were started by a group of young people, many of which were initially involved in crime. In a short period of time, local retail activities increased, safety and security improved and stronger social cohesion was established.

Evolving into the "Dandora Transformation League", these individuals have partnered up since 2015 with UN-Habitat Public Space Programme, Making Cities Together coalition of partners, and Nairobi City County Government to launch the Model Street initiative. Upgrading public space using collaborative and participatory processes, the program " has enabled easy access to the estate while allowing small scale road-side businesses to thrive [...] It is an exemplar of how placemaking catalyzes unlikely alliances among grassroots groups, the private sector, local government, and other placemaking leaders to adapt, replicate and up-scale good practices from domestic to neighborhood level, and trigger an avalanche of community empowerment initiatives by various stakeholders ". A benchmark to guide future interventions, the project is an incremental process for community-led neighborhood regeneration.

As a first step to implement the Model Street, UN-Habitat and local partners organized a participatory design session using Minecraft, to collect the ideas, priorities, and aspirations of the community. The designs coming from this workshop were then translated into buildable architectural designs. On another hand, the community contributed about 10% of the project cost, in-kind, and included manual labor - clean ups, ground leveling, landscaping, and importantly, maintenance of the streetscape.

Specific results of the model street intervention include improved safety and security, livelihood opportunities, relationship with authorities, play opportunities for children as well as better drainage and environmental quality. Taking about eighteen months and done in co-creation with the local community - with youth and women providing labor, the phase II of the Model Street in Dandora, for example, saw a total of 25 trees planted, a total of 800m of a roadway paved, drainages cleared and opened, 13 waste receptacles installed and four Gateways constructed, giving a new identity to the street block.

Focusing on improving the shared courtyard spaces of residential compounds -home to between 20-50 households and are a central public space for all families and individuals living there- the Dandora model street partnership project has challenged residents to clean these areas. In fact, the initiative " had a catalytic impact within Dandora [...] Not wanting to stop at their doors-steps, residents have gone on to form street-wide coalitions to upgrade their local street". Following the project's success in 2015, everyone saw the need to replicate. The Changing Faces Competition, led mostly by the youth, was launched. What started with few projects in Dandora, expanded later on to other areas. In fact, in other neighborhoods in Nairobi, including Kayole, Korogocho, Buruburu, and Mathare among others, similar conversions have started, using the same competition model that brings together community champions and urban enthusiasts. Already in its fourth edition, the challenge that enables Nairobians to improve their living environment has impacted 200 000 users of public spaces.

Using public space and waste management as entry points to address neighborhood revitalization, the Model Street project highlights the value of inclusive urban planning that starts first at a micro-scale and that can be up-scaled and replicated in other areas. Finally, key contributing factors that encouraged individuals to transform both their own homes and their street and communities include:

Genuine multi-sector partnerships

Multi-sector approach

The community in the driving seat

Practical urban plan incorporating different scales

Mechanisms to ensure an ongoing community focus to waste and public space management

Value for money

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How Can One Public Space Transform an Entire Neighborhood? UN-Habitat's Model Street Initiative

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The Un-Habitat or the United Nations agency for human settlements and sustainable urban development, whose primary focus is to deal with the challenges of rapid urbanization, has been developing innovative approaches in the urban design field, centered on the active participation of the community.

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building the community from the insideout

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building the community from the insideout

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[PDF] Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets | Semantic Scholar

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Most of this guide is devoted to spreading community-building success stories. These stories are organized into a step-by-step introduction to a coherent strategy that we have learned about from neighborhood leaders. We call this strategy "asset-based community development."

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This workshop is part of the collective mapping project "Disembodied Territories" which brings together investigations around place making and territory from an African point of view, in which African scholars, artists, architects and writers try to make sense of Africa, unbounded. This collection of voices and analysis spans African spaces beyond territorial politics and colonial borders, in a trial to make sense of our African space inside the continent and in the diaspora. We have 40 entries by an inspiring group of African thinkers, looking at a stunning range of subjects, from watery politics in the Niger Delta to Zimbabwean dreams of space, from the ghosts of the past in South Africa to diasporic reflections on American, Arab Canadian and British blackness.

In this storytelling workshop we carve out a place to share our senses, see and hear each other's places. It will take place on the 1st of July over 6 sessions, with each session taking around 90 minutes in which 5-6 contributors will share their proposals. We are honoured to have the expertise and wisdom of esteemed respondents who will give their insight around the proposed topics. The workshop will be an intimate space and will not be broadcast live but we might consider publishing parts of our conversation, following consent from everyone involved.

Ola Uduku is Research Professor in Architecture at the Manchester School of Architecture. Prior to this she was Reader in Architecture, and Dean International for Africa, at Edinburgh University. Her research specialisms are in the history of educational architecture in Africa, and the contemporary issues related to social infrastructure provision for minority communities in cities in the 'West' and 'South'. She is currently engaged in developing postgraduate research and teaching links in architecture urbanism, heritage and conservation between West African Architecture schools and those in North West England.

Momen El-Husseiny is assistant professor of architecture and urban design at The American University in Cairo. As a licensed architect since 2003, he has collaborated in the design of several international competitions and projects across the Middle East including The American University in Cairo's New Cairo Campus (2001-2006) particularly the Performance and Visual Arts building (PVA) with its park and square. He is a trained ethnographer with a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in Architecture (2007-2015) with a designated emphasis in global metropolitan studies and minor in anthropology.

My research and teaching are informed by an interest in the ways in which states and communities interact in place. So for example, how are government policies and programs implemented or translated into everyday experiences; how do community members use, narrate and shape their environments; and in turn how do those actions and stories influence new government policies and programs. I focus this general interest through questions around citizenship and immigration, and environmental justice and urban health.These interests also reflect my interdisciplinary training centred around social planning and community development with stops in political science, biology and geography.

Saloojee is an Associate Professor at Carleton's Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism in Ottawa. Beyond his personal research and teaching, Saloojee is creating new platforms for students to engage in critically important studio work surrounding equity, justice, contested territories, radical acts of joy Saloojee is also a co-director of the Carleton Urban Research Lab and cross-appointed faculty at the university's Institute for African Studies. Born and raised in Johannesburg, South Africa, he has taught in Canada, Europe, and the US. He completed his B.Arch. and post-professional M.Arch. (Theory and Culture), at Carleton University and completed his doctoral work at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

Suzanne Hall is an interdisciplinary urban scholar and her work connects the asymmetries of global migration and urban marginalisation. From the grounded perspective of peripheral street economies, she explores the racialised frameworks of citizenship and economic inequality and their everyday contestations. By moving between globe, state and street, she engages with the margins as a capricious space in which social sorting, cultural intermixtures and claims to difference are forged. Her work pays attention to how wide geographies shape our knowledge of the urban condition, and is invested in the ethnographic possibilities of seeing political economies through the everyday.

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Menna Agha, Sara Salem, London School of Economics, Flemish Architecture Institute

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Storytelling Workshop - Disembodied Territories

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This workshop is part of the collective mapping project "Disembodied Territories" which brings together investigations around place making and territory from an African point of view, in which African scholars, artists, architects and writers try to make sense of Africa, unbounded.

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Re)Imagining Port Cities: Understanding Space, Society and Culture

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Re)Imagining Port Cities: Understanding Space, Society and Culture

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Port cities are dynamic environments. They face ever-changing challenges and demands from port activities under continually evolving economic and environmental circumstances. They also offer a rich social and cultural environment.

If you are a professional involved in the development and running of port cities this course will offer you a fresh perspective on the complex spatial and socio-cultural relations between ports, cities and regions and between water and land, around the world. This course will provide you with the insights and tools to understand and transform port city regions. By employing a comprehensive cross-cultural perspective you will make better decisions when addressing the challenges port cities face today and when planning for a sustainable and socially just future of your port city in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

If you are a master level student with an interest in a multidisciplinary approach to the development of cities, with a connection to the built and natural environment this course will offer you an insight into the workings of port city development, preparing you better for a possible career in this area.

If you live in a port city this course will help you understand the development of your city, appreciate the hidden potential and help you influence the way your port city deals with issues such as climate change and rising water levels in the future.

More about this course

After taking this course, you will be able to:

Recognize port cities as a particular type of space, and appreciate their defining characteristics.

Analyze the complexity of the networks of stakeholders in port cities.

Analyze moments of change in port cities both global and local and their causes and effects.

Reflect on contemporary social, economic and environmental challenges and the way decisions taken in the past are still influencing the present and the future.

Assemble a value-based approach to decision-making in port cities for sustainable development and the benefit of all relevant stakeholders.

Expand what you'll learn

Week 1: What are Port Cities?

Explore the characteristics that port cities have in common and those that separate them from other cities.

Examine new and varied perspectives on the relationship between the port and the city, with attention to socio-cultural aspects.

Week 2: Who makes Port Cities?

Understand the complex networks, formal and informal, of a broad range of stakeholders that make up the port city.

Look at the influence stakeholders have on each other and on space, and discover how their needs and interests often conflict.

Week 3: What catalyzes change in port cities?

Identify moments of change in port cities and their causes and effects, both globally and locally.

Review how causes for change, such as catastrophes, trigger responses to change by inhabitants and authorities.

Learn how to use tools to implement change and respond to challenges.

Week 4: What challenges are port cities facing?

Discuss the contemporary social, economic and environmental challenges to port cities and the way past decisions are still influencing the present and the future.

Explore the role of values in the decision-making of various stakeholders and their conflicts which may arise from the challenges.

Week 5: How to respond to challenges in port cities at times of change?

Learn how to set goals to inform decision making in response to a challenge.

See how the UN Sustainable Development Goals are tailored to port cities and the stakeholder tensions they lead to.

Develop a value-based approach to decision-making.

You will choose to work on a goal that relates to your port city and the challenges it faces and present the results of your research.

Expand syllabus

Meet your instructors

See all instructors

Pursue a Verified Certificate to highlight the knowledge and skills you gain

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(Re)Imagining Port Cities: Understanding Space, Society and Culture

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Port city regions are at the forefront of many urgent contemporary issues such as migration, climate change, digitization, etc. Addressing these challenges and developing sustainable solutions, requires more than technical interventions, it requires rethinking and redesigning the basic spatial and socio-cultural paradigms that prevail at present.

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How to Explore a City through its scents 

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How to Explore a City through its scents 

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Fold by Moleskine: The New Magazine for Art, Trends and Talents

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Kate McLean is an artist and designer who specializes in mapping smells. She organizes popular "smell walks" in cities around the world, from Singapore to New York, where she prompts her volunteers to note every scent they pick up, which she then visualizes in complex, ultra-stylish maps. This is more revolutionary than it sounds. McLean's ongoing project is nothing less than a call to reconsider how we perceive the world - reawaken our neglected senses and smell the coffee, the roses, and everything else.

Whether it's your ongoing project, Anicka Yi's show at the Guggenheim, or Sissel Tolaas's scent art, there seems to be a strong preoccupation with smell these days. How do you explain this heightened interest? Not to be trite, but I think it's a reaction to digital life. In the digital world, our sensory input is quite restricted. We are only exercising these two senses [seeing and hearing]. This increases the interest in our neglected senses - how they react and work together every day to form meaning in our lives. I think that's largely responsible for the resurgent interest in smell.

Yeah, there's no digital conduit for scents.
A couple of people have tried it. It's a difficult technology to master because you're trying to synthesize something that is phenomenally complex. For example, strawberries have about 350 different volatile molecular compounds - 350 different things you have to synthesize in order to create the idea of a strawberry. That's why artificial strawberry, in a milkshake or something, always smells terrible. It's actually far more nuanced and subtle and complex than that one synthesis could capture. Also, genetically it's unlikely I'll smell the same things that you smell. We can differentiate about a trillion different smells as a human beings based on the number of olfactory receptors that we've got.

Your popular "smell walks" are a way to get people to go out again and reconnect with that neglected sense. How do people respond to the experience?
The smell walks are a phenomenal way of just being aware that you have a sense of smell and it's a lot better than you think. There's been a fair bit of research out recently that shows that people are actually fairly good at smelling - we just haven't drawn attention to it so much. That comes out in the smell walks. Most people tell me: oh my god, I didn't realize I had a nose. It doesn't happen instantly. Right after [the smell walk], they usually say something like, That was kind of cool. Thank you very much. The next day I see them and they say: oh my god, my life just changed. I actually am noticing all of the smells around me and it didn't happen immediately, but having slept on it, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Their life becomes a smell walk! How does that change a person?
It really does change their experience of the whole world in a couple of ways. One is that when you smell walk, you actually move much slower, so you become much more aware of all the different sensory stimuli around you. You notice more about where they are as a result of smelling. So it's almost as if olfaction causes the other senses to sort of sit up and take note and become much more aware of everything around us.

You get your volunteers to take note of everything they smell, and then you visualize those smells in your maps. What interests you in mapping something inherently fleeting and temporary? Ancient cartographers brought the world into being through the creation of their maps. They got other people to understand that there was more to the world than what was around them. The smell maps try to do the same thing. It's a reminder that this olfactory space exists. And it's a call to action to go out and personally experience it. It's not a depiction of something; it's an imagination of something.

How did you start this project?
Like all of the best things in the world, it was a complete accident. Studying for a [design] MFA in Edinburgh, I started mapping the city by its textures and then physically making them into relief printed maps. I got a little bit stuck and I don't know where to actually take that next. I ended up deconstructing Edinburgh by five different senses which is really interesting, but the smell one was most difficult and that's the one that I've just stuck with ever since.

What defined Edinburgh as a smellscape?
Bear in mind that this is highly temporal, so this is Edinburgh in the spring of 2011 [laughs]. There are the amazing smells of the brewery, which permeate the city. You get off the train and the brewery's about two miles away, but you can still smell it. So there's this smell that's sometimes described as Marmite, sometimes described as this snack called Wotsits, which is actually the yeast that comes from the malt extracts that are used in the brewing of the beer. So that's a massive, overriding Edinburgh smell. And along with that come a lot of delicate notes of cherry blossoms in certain locations, fresh cut grass from the golf courses in the middle of the city. There's a musty smell of cellars, from the darkness of the granite buildings as they are being renovated. There's also boys toilets in primary schools, just to add a really lovely note. There's a single hint of penguins at the zoo, which is a smell that comes out about three o'clock every afternoon. [Laughs.] Are you getting a picture of Edinburgh's smellscapes?

I am. Listening to you is bringing back a lot of smells from the cities I've lived in. Where have you lived and what have you smelled there?

I've lived in Berlin, London, New York and Los Angeles. To me, Berlin and London are most memorable for the types of alcohol they drink there. Los Angeles is notable mostly for its weed dispensaries, which have fairly anonymous store fronts but then you notice them because they smell like what they are - literal vaults of marijuana. I mostly remember unpleasant smells, unfortunately. That's quite common. Most people do. We tend to focus on the one's we don't like. And we rarely focus on the ones we do like, though they're incredibly important to creating that sense of place.

I guess that's because we're not utilizing our sense of smell except when an unfortunate smell overwhelms us. Should people who design our cities consider smell more?
It's very much of use to architects and urban planners in terms of thinking about what might happen if they build certain spaces that harbor smells, creating wind vortexes. New York was actually designed particularly to enable crosswinds to rid the city of its smells. So part of the grid system was actually based on smellscape design. So there's a precedent for doing that and I do very much think that it is part of landscape and urban architecture and thinking about what the smellscape is likely to be as a result of the decisions that are made with planning.

Are there historical smell maps? There are ones of Brooklyn and New York that depict the industrial smells. They look at it from an odor monitoring and control perspective. So, it's more about negative smells. Mine are different as they focus on the good and the bad ones. It's an exploration of the complexity and diversity, rather than saying, "your factories here - my home stinks as a result of it." [Laughs.]

New Yorkers strike me as particularly interested in the smell of their city. The atmospheric rap songs from the mid-90s talked a lot about the smell of the streets and the hallways. Then there was that awesome article by Molly Young in New York magazine ("The Smelliest Block in New York"), which described a smell that you ended up tracking down and visualizing. Am I onto something?Yes! All the best smell-mapping has come out of New York. There was the Gawker subway smells map that said you should be able to navigate your way around with your eyes closed based on the different wreaks that come out of different subways. There's Matthew Frank, a water scientist, who made a pushpin google map of some 1910 sewer reports about Manhattan that indicated that the sewer underneath canal street actually smelled like banana oil. They put that down to some pain cleaner that was being sold and tipped down the drains. New Yorkers are just extremely vociferous about smell. It's a joy being able to work there.

What's the best-smelling city in your opinion? I very much appreciated Singapore because it was a range of smells that I'd never come across before. Warmth and humidity, two things that smells reallylove, were both in abundance there. It was the prettiest smellscape. There was broccoli, and spices; Chinese pharmacies that have a smell I would describe as a dusty olive green, which is just sort of like a combination of teas and herbs; and the very subtle fake fragrances coming out of the malls. There's an abundance of Jasmine growing absolutely everywhere, which releases beautifully in the dusk. Just these swirling currents of different smells.

I think that just listening to you is going to change the way I walk around. Thank you.
[Laughs.] Yes, please report back.
Cover image: NYC, Astor Place.

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How to Explore a City Through Its Scents

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Kate McLean is an artist and designer who specializes in mapping smells. She organizes popular "smell walks" in cities around the world, from Singapore to New York, where she prompts her volunteers to note every scent they pick up, which she then visualizes in complex, ultra-stylish maps.

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Participation - Planning during Covid-19 

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Participation - Planning during Covid-19 

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Covid-19 has not just changed our everyday life, but also impacted urban planning. By transforming cities, for example through pop-up bike lanes, and by stopping in-person participation and community engagement, the virus is creating new parameters for cities.

In this article, I'll present some options for continued community engagement despite physical distancing. Of course, digital tools do not offer the same experience as a personal discussion does, but they can provide transparency and inclusion.

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Participatory Planning During Covid-19: Online Participation

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Covid-19 has not just changed our everyday life, but also impacted urban planning. By transforming cities, for example through pop-up bike lanes, and by stopping in-person participation and community engagement, the virus is creating new parameters for cities. In this article, I'll present some options for continued community engagement despite physical distancing.

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Public Space Site-Specific Assessment: Guidelines to Achieve Quality Public Spaces at Neighbourhood Level

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Public Space Site-Specific Assessment: Guidelines to Achieve Quality Public Spaces at Neighbourhood Level

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The Site-specific Assessment consists of a series of activities and tools to understand the quality of public spaces and influence, through a participatory process, the design of the site. The assessment focuses on a selected open public space and its five minutes walking radius (equivalent to 400-meter distance) referred in the document as the 'walkable radius'. The guideline supports the user on how to gather the right data and what information is needed within the selected area in order to come up with adequate design and planning solutions.

While many upgrading projects adopt civic engagement activities, the transition phase between community needs and the expert designs is often lost in translation. The tool ensures that the conversation between the community and the experts is bridged through a series of activities that provides a platform for exchange between the different parties. This demand a certain level of participation from community members, technical experts and the local authorities in each of the listed activities.

The result from the assessment is a collection of qualitative and quantitative information gathered by and with the community and are used to measure public space indicators that will inform the design elaborated by the experts. In this process, municipalities are guided about how and where to allocate resources for upgrading public spaces that contributes to SDG11.7 - By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities.

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Public Space Site-Specific Assessment: Guidelines to Achieve Quality Public Spaces at Neighbourhood Level | UN-Habitat

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The Site-specific Assessment consists of a series of activities and tools to understand the quality of public spaces and influence, through a participatory process, the design of the site. The assessment focuses on a selected open public space and its five minutes walking radius (equivalent to 400-meter distance) referred in the document as the 'walkable radius'.

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Tactical Urbanism Materials and Design Guide

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Tactical Urbanism is an approach to neighborhood building that uses short-term, low-cost, and scalable interventions and policies to catalyze long term change.

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Toolbox - city Lab - Digital participation 

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Toolbox - city Lab - Digital participation 

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Following country-wide citizen protests on a range of social issues, the Chilean Association of Municipalities (the AChM), launched a large-scale citizen consultation on the future of the constitution.

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Resources for civic engagement - CitizenLab

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Following country-wide citizen protests on a range of social issues, the Chilean Association of Municipalities (the AChM), launched a large-scale citizen consultation on the future of the constitution.

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Our approach is best defined as a mix of storytelling, advocacy and demonstration through practice. The methods that we employ towards the realization of our goals include-

An important aspect of understanding and working with cities is data.
Towards this, UDC engages in mapping various aspects of cities as well as allied urban research that can facilitate better solutions for our cities.

Aside from traditional mapping techniques, we are also constantly innovating ways to involve a wide range of citizen groups to understand the city through maps.

Community engagement is at the heart of all of UDC's activities and we are always looking for ways to engage a wide range of urban citizens in dialogues and activities on 'what makes cities livable'.

UDC has collaborated with local and international organisations, anchoring workshops and public events to raise awareness on good urban design and participatory planning practices.

We love art! And we love using artistic platforms to communicate.
We also believe that public art enriches urban spaces and can be a powerful tool to provoke, engage, and collaborate.

The idea of placemaking still has a long way to go in Indian cities as is evident from the public realms of most cities. Formal architectural design education too has not been able to address this because it is still largely a habit if not the norm to be limited to the 'red line' boundary of a site.

UDC has attempted to bridge this gap with educational workshops and capacity building exercises for various 'change agents' starting from students of architecture to public works department engineers in city ULBs.

We believe that the best way to learn more about our cities is by exploring them - by walking, observing, recording, and sharing.
Since our inception, we have collaborated with local and international organisations that share this passion with us; creating public walks and field trips, colloquiums, and exhibitions, on topics ranging from civic infrastructure, housing, and ecology, to heritage.

At UDC, we strongly feel that communicating about cities is immensely important to the creation of livable cities.
From the very start, we have been using the various tools and platforms offered by the digital age to reach out to a diverse audience to both share our activities as well as to get across the idea that the only path to a livable city is through a sustainable city.

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Our approach is best defined as a mix of storytelling, advocacy and demonstration through practice. The methods that we employ towards the realization of our goals include- An important aspect of understanding and working with cities is data. Towards this, UDC engages in mapping various aspects of cities as well as allied urban research that can facilitate better solutions for our cities.

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Adaptive Streets: Strategies for Transforming the Urban Right-of-Way  

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Adaptive Streets: Strategies for Transforming the Urban Right-of-Way  

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Adaptive Streets is an illustrated handbook to inspire and guide citizens, planners and officials to re-imagine how our streets can be adapt... See More

Adaptive Streets is an illustrated handbook to inspire and guide citizens, planners and officials to re-imagine how our streets can be adapt... See More

Connecting content to people.

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Adaptive Streets: Strategies for Transforming the Urban Right-of-Way

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Adaptive Streets is an illustrated handbook to inspire and guide citizens, planners and officials to re-imagine how our streets can be adapted to increase utility and delight as well as enhance human and environmental health. The book presents a collection of strategies, demonstrating how they can be implemented in prototypical streets.

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London UK

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In London, children are helping to design the streets

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Child-friendly cities are more sustainable and provide a better quality of life for everyone. Planners are now recognizing the need to put children's welfare at the centre of urban design.

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Public Space, the public Sphere and the urban realm 

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Public Space, the public Sphere and the urban realm 

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A most read !

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This essay was originally written as part of my PhD comprehensive examinations. It was written to address connections between theories of the public sphere and concerns about public space, and to conceptualize the urban environment as a public realm. Introduction
Questions of space have always been implicated with the concept of the public sphere, but the idea of space has been conceptualized and applied in various ways within this context. Carragee's challenge for scholars to address the nexus between public sphere theory and the study of public space has a solid foundation in the pertinent implications for civic life, attempts to connect academic perspectives and planning disciplines, and his own analysis of the impact of urban design on the character of public interaction. I agree with Carragee's assertion that a vital public sphere requires vital public spaces. I am less inclined to agree with his claim that communication scholars have been silent on the issue, as there have been moves to address the communicative implications of the built environment through approaches such as material rhetoric. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to consider how scholars of communication and other fields have approached this nexus, and how this line of inquiry might be extended.

To properly address this question about the relationship between public space and the public sphere it is helpful to define our terms. Both "public space" and "public sphere" have been used by different actors to signify differing meanings. The Habermasian formulation of the public sphere posited a novel form of social interaction facilitated by a network of institutions comprised by physical locations and mediated discourses. Following this model, scholars have understood the public sphere as a discursive space rooted in place-based communication as well as mediated exchanges. Catherine Squires has defined the public sphere as "a set of physical and mediated spaces" in which people come together to identify, express, and deliberate interests of common concern. Nancy Fraser has characterized the public sphere as "a theater" for social interaction where political activity is actualized through the medium of speech. The public sphere can also be understood as a particular kind of relationship among participants. This relationship is mediated by these historical forms of sociability enacted at specific points in space and time. Kurt Iveson refers to public spheres as "social imaginaries" that are always in the process of being formed. The public sphere has also been understood procedurally (or processually), as a normative ideal founded on a set of principles intended to guide interaction.

The meaning of "public space" may seem obvious, but this term too has been conceptualized in a variety of ways. Notions of "public space" can be rooted in the physical characteristics of a location, the institutional structures and policies affecting a place, or the types of uses and activities undertaken in the space. Seyla Benhabib offers a procedural definition of public space. Understood procedurally, "public space" is any space that, through public address at a particular time, is transformed as a site of political action through speech and persuasion. In Benhabib's formulation, "public space" is not merely "open" space, or physical, absolute, geographical space. More to the point, public space is never merely space in this physical sense. This represents an approach to public space that contrasts with Carragee's view of public space as material, empirical, and concrete, as opposed to the public sphere which he sees as more conceptual and virtual. In Benhabib's procedural definition these realms are not so clearly distinguished from one another.

This essay will further explore influential notions of public space, the public sphere, and their relationship to one another. The first section will review significant and influential approaches to this nexus as represented by three prominent theorists. The second section looks at how the contemporary city has figured as a key referent in discussion of public space and the public sphere. The third section considers how the introduction of networked communication technologies has complicated understandings this relationship. Finally, I conclude with some contemporary issues facing work in this area.
Three Models of the Public Realm: Arendt, Habermas, Sennett
Hannah Arendt was a political theorist who wrote about power, authority, totalitarianism, and democracy. In one of her best known and most influential works, "The Human Condition," she surveyed different conceptions and enactments of human activity beginning in ancient societies. The second section of this book is dedicated to "the private and public realms." According to Arendt, life in ancient Greek society was divided between the private realm and the public realm. The private realm was the sphere of the household, and the public realm was the site of "action". Activity in the private realm was preoccupied with bodily necessities, whereas the public realm was free of these necessities and in which one could distinguish oneself through great works and deeds. Arendt further proposes a dichotomy of human life based on the concepts of "zoe" and "bios". Both words are etymologically linked to mean "life," but Arendt is distinguishing human activity into two modes: animalistic (zoe) and humanistic (bios). This distinction between zoe and bios is connected to Arendt's notion of life in the market versus public space, which she also refers to as the private realm (oikos) and the public realm (polis). Arendt considers the market an impoverished place where subjects are treated as animals, mere consumers driven to satisfy bodily and selfish needs. In the context of the oikos, one's human identity and individuality is of no importance: in order to purchase a commodity, you need only pay the appropriate price, regardless of who you are. In the public realm, by contrast, the individual identity of each subject does acquire prominence. Through public discussion subjects or speakers are recognized as unique human beings who are inexchangeable with anyone else. Without language, human beings live on the level of "laboring animals," merely concerned with continuing their lives. Through the medium of linguistic communication, humans open themselves up to the existence of others as well as the existence of a world that is shared with others. This then is the key idea in Arendt's distinction between the private and public realms: people live privately as animals, and as humans only in public. Arendt valorizes the types of relations in ancient cities such as Athens, but she distinguishes between the built environment and the polis. She says that the polis, properly understood, does not refer to the physical city-state but to the relations that emerge from acting and speaking together, regardless of where the participants are. "Not Athens, but Athenians, were the polis."

Jurgen Habermas defined the public sphere as "the sphere of private individuals come together as a public." Similar to Arendt, he also considers this "public" relation as rooted in and a consequence of discourse and communication. Habermas' notion of the public sphere is based on an empirical study of voluntary social associations and literary practices that emerged in Europe in the 18 th century. The emergence of a "debating public" and an ethos of local governance were tied to the development of "provincial urban" institutions. These included coffee houses, salons, and theaters. Habermas' study of the bourgeois public sphere is not only an account of specific historical phenomena, it also represents a normative ideal for rational-critical debate and deliberative politics. As such, Habermas' theory has been interpreted as distinctly aspatial, not concerned with physical spaces but rather only an abstract discursive space. Several critics have argued that in order for Habermas' theory to function as both a historical social explanation and a normative political idea, as his study proposes, it must be founded in an understanding of situated contexts of specific communities.

Richard Sennett is an urban sociologist who has written extensively on city design, public life, and civic engagement. His first book, "The Uses of Disorder," argued that excessively ordered environments stifle personal development, and that people who live in such environments end up with overly rigid worldviews and insufficiently developed political consciousness. Sennett calls for practices of city design that allow for unpredictability, anarchy, and creative disorder that will foster adults better equipped to confront the complexities of life. In "The Conscience of the Eye" Sennett suggests that the built forms of modern cities are bland and neutralized spaces that diminish contact and wall people off from encounters with the Other. His remedy for this condition is a creative art of exposure to others and city life that should instill an appreciation for and empathy with difference. "A city," Sennett says, "should be a school for learning to live a centered life." Sennett's book "The Fall of Public Man" outlines the decline of public life since the 18 th century. In the 18 th century, Sennett argues, public and private space were more clearly delineated than today. The disappearance of public space in the 20 th century is attributed to a rise in intimacy and narcissism associated with industrial capitalism. In an essay titled "The Public Realm," Sennett situates his approach to public life in relation to Arendt and Habermas. Sennett describes Arendt's model of the public realm as inherently political and based on public deliberation in which participants discard their private interests. He calls Arendt the champion of the urban center "par excellence," as the population density of urban centers provides the condition of anonymity that he sees as central to Arendt's ideal. Sennett considers Habermas less interested in place than Arendt, as his theory includes mass produced texts such as newspapers as sites for the public sphere. For Habermas, Sennett states, the public realm is "any medium, occasion, or event" that facilitates free communication among strangers. Regarding his own approach, Sennett defines the public realm as "a place where strangers can come together." He emphasizes that the public realm is a place, traditionally understood as a location on the ground, but Sennett states that developments in communication technologies have challenged this sense of place. Today "cyberspace" can function as a public realm as much as any physical place. Sennett also argues that "the public realm is a process." As is evident in the arguments from his books summarized above, Sennett believes that shared spaces that accommodate unplanned and unmanaged encounters between strangers are beneficial for personal and social development. His emphasis on incompleteness and process, as opposed to fixity and determination, recalls Chantal Mouffe's concept of agonistic Pluralism. Mouffe challenges the ideal espoused by Habermas that the deliberative ideal should be consensus reached by rational individuals. She argues that for freedom to exist the intrusion of conflict must be allowed for. The democratic process, Mouffe says, should provide an arena for the emergence of conflict and difference. Similarly Sennett says that daily experience doesn't register much without "disruptive drama."
The Modern City as Public Realm
In her book "Justice and Political Difference," political theorist Iris Marion Young writes of city life as a normative ideal for communicative and political interaction. Young states that urbanity must be understood as an inherent aspect of life in advanced industrial societies, and that the material of our environment and structures available to us presuppose the forms of interactions that occur in these spaces. By "city life" Young refers to a type of social relation that she refers to as "a relation among strangers." Urban experience, and in particular urban spaces, provide ideal conditions for the exposure to difference lives that a politics of difference should be predicated on. Young states that public spaces are crucial for open communicative democracy.

In "City of Rhetoric," rhetorical scholar David Fleming argues that the city is the ideal context for the revitalization of the public sphere. He proposes an ideal space of relation that is between the intimacy of friends and family, on the one hand, and the mutual suspicion of strangers on the other. Fleming argues that the built environment and public space of the city is perfectly situated between users, relating and separating them at the same.

Don Mitchell has written about the "disappearance of public space" in the modern city. In a similar vein to influential critiques of the Habermasian public sphere, Mitchell states that the ideal of public space "open to all" has never been an existing state of affairs, but the ideal of public space circulates to powerful effect. For instance, Mitchell says, the circulation of the "open" public space ideal has served as a rallying call for successive waves of political movements to utilize space for activism and inclusionary ends.
Mediated Spaces and Mediated Spheres
Since Habermas' formulation the idea of the public sphere has included elements of mediation. Habermas directly implicates the mass media in "The Structural Transformation," citing the role of literature and the press in establishing the bourgeois public sphere, and the impact of television and other commercial mass media in diminishing the public sphere. The advent of the World Wide Web in the 1990s spawned enthusiasm from some regarding the deliberative and participatory potential of the medium. To some, the Internet seemed to realize all the ideals of Habermas' public sphere. It was universal, non-hierarchical, based on uncoerced communication, and enabled public opinion formation based on voluntary deliberation. By these principles, and many others, the Internet looked like the realization of the ideal speech situation. Iveson suggests that the procedural understanding of public space allows various media to be understood as "public spaces" because they facilitate the formation of publics. Other scholars have considered media as new "spaces" for interaction. Sheller and Urry have compared new media to Arendt's "space of appearances," suggesting that in the digital age this "space" may be a "screen" on which public matters appear.

Still other scholars have voiced opposing accounts of the relationship between virtual spaces and the ideals of the public sphere. Don Mitchell has argued that the Internet can never meet or surpass the street as a public space, saying the infrastructure of the medium precludes certain uses and political opportunities. Public space remains crucial because it makes it possible for disadvantaged groups to occupy the space in a way that is precluded in virtual space. This space is especially important for homeless people because it is also a space to be and live in; a space for living rather than just visibilization. Iris Marion Young also addresses the distinction between physical space and virtual space with her concept of "embodied public space." She says that media can facilitate public address and formation, and in this sense is not dependent on physical space. To the extent that public space is shrinking, or that individuals are withdrawing from public space, there is a democratic crisis. She uses the term "embodied public space" to refer to streets, squares, plazas, parks, and other physical spaces of the built environment that she deems crucial to allowing access to anyone and enabling encounters with difference. These spaces allow varieties of public interaction that are fundamental to her notion of city life as a normative ideal.

Jodi Dean has persistently criticized the "inclusionary ideal" promoted by the internet as an ideology of technocracy that she calls "communicative capitalism." Dean's article "Why the Net is Not a Public Sphere" challenges claims that the Internet can enable the ideals of the public sphere. In the public sphere ideal, communicative exchange is supposed to provide the basis for real political action. Under conditions of communicative capitalism, these exchanges function merely as message circulation rather than acclamations to be responded to. Political theorist Robert Putnam posited a decline of social capital in U.S. communities since 1950 in his book "Bowling Alone." Putnam cites evidence of civic decline indicated by decreased voter turnout, public meeting attendance, and committee participation. The book's title refers to the fact that while the number of Americans who bowl has increased in past decades, the number of people who participate in bowling leagues has declined. He attributes this fall in social capital to the "individualizing" of leisure time enabled by television and the Internet. Sherry Turkle has similarly argued for a technologically-promoted decline of physical proximity and interaction in the book "Alone Together." Iveson has responded to such criticisms by arguing that the "stage" and "screen" (or "print" and "polis") should not be seen as mutually exclusive arenas. Rather, he points to examples where movements of co-present interaction were facilitated through, managed by, or arranged around mediated forms of interaction.
Conclusion
There are several areas where continued research into the relationship between public space and the public sphere could be productive. First, it is important to consider how networked technology and mediated communication have changed the use of public space. Have the dispersed networks of power, access, and participation diminished the potency of public space for realizing political agency? Are these changes reversing Arendt's formulation of the public and private realms? Has the logic of the market short circuited the function of the polis? Have new uses of public space emerged, and have traditional uses disappeared? It is now common for bodies to occupy physical space while their gaze and consciousness are directed not at their environment but at their various devices. How does this change our understanding of and approach to public and shared spaces? What does mean in relation to Mitchell and Young's arguments about the role of "embodied public space"? In light of pervasive mediation in daily life it is important to affirm the fundamental importance of physical locations as public space.

Secondly, it is important not just to consider physical and virtual space in a dichotomous relationship, but also how they interrelate. How are digital technologies and mediated communication intersecting with the use of public space, and vice versa? To be clear, the phenomena at the core of this question are not new. Habermas' model of the bourgeois public sphere concerns the relation between mass media and association in public space. More recently, the political uprisings collectively referred to as the "Arab Spring" brought attention to this issue. After social media and text messaging were use to organize demonstrations in Cairo, Egypt that eventually led to the removal of president Mubarak, pundits and media theorists began referring to this social movement as the "Twitter revolution." Again, it is important to differentiate between the means of communication used to exchange information and organize bodies, and the site of political protest as represented in this case by Tahrir Square.

Finally, the implementation of information technology into the built environment is raising questions about the role of technologies in public space and civic life. In a November 2016 article, urban media scholar Shannon Mattern considered this issue in relation to the implementation and subsequent shuttering of the LinkNYC terminals in New York City. The LinkNYC initiative involved replacing telephone booths throughout the sidewalks of Manhattan with kiosks that provided access to electricity and wireless internet service. The city government promoted the terminals as places where tourists could access maps and online information and New Yorkers could charge their cell phones. The resultant "misuse" of these terminals, exemplified by people using the service for watching pornography or illicitly downloading media, resulted in the program being suspended indefinitely. Mattern uses this example to argue the importance of "vital spaces of information exchange" in our public spaces. She suggests that ideologies of "data solutionism" have influenced planning commissions to the detriment of small, local, and analog data perspectives that she considers essential to urban life. Mattern encourages city planning boards and project committees to include librarians and archivists in their ranks in the interest of such spaces of information exchange. At stake, Mattern argues, is the nature and well-being of our democracy.

These are just a few of the issues and questions that I think should inform future research into the relationship between public space and the public sphere. My own work is informed by these questions, and my interest in "smart city" policies and practices of implementation seeks to extend and challenge the conceptual zones outlined in this essay. Related questions explored in my research include: changing conceptions of public and private infrastructure; shifting models of civic engagement; and the predominance of market rationalities and discourses in (re)shaping the built environment. These questions are likely to only increase in prominence in the foreseeable future, and unforeseen developments are always arising. The essential questions of public space and the public sphere, however, will remain of crucial importance in our increasingly interconnected collective lives.

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Public space, the public sphere, and the urban as public realm

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This essay was originally written as part of my PhD comprehensive examinations. It was written to address connections between theories of the public sphere and concerns about public space, and to conceptualize the urban environment as a public realm. Introduction Questions of space have always been implicated with the concept of the public sphere, but...

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"If we want to transform society, we must learn to tell - and listen to - a new set of stories about the world we want to create." - Ashoka

"We need new narratives to bring people together to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable world at a time when, as Greta Thunberg said, 'our house is on fire'." - World Economic Forum

"We urgently need new narratives to imagine the impossible." - Green Economy Coalition

"Climate change is a failure of the imagination." - Naomi Klein

From all sides, the same call emerges: "We need new narratives", to make imaginable, and therefore possible the transformations that we need in order to live together on this planet.

Narratopias is a collaborative and open project to organize, on a global scale, a collective response to this call for new narratives. An invitation to embark on a collective search for alternative, transformative narratives, and turn them into the seeds of concrete changes.

This project will develop in two chapters. First, we will collect existing "new narratives" from all over the world. Then, we will connect, facilitate and support initiatives that both enrich the diversity of narratives, and use them to empower individuals and communities to think up or effect transformations.

Come build Narratopias with us!
What are "Transformative narratives" within Narratopias?
Transformative Narratives, for us, are artistic or fictional stories, told through different voices and media (text, video, game, performance, visual arts...), that point at a systemic transformation towards a different, and better, present or future.
These new narratives offer different ways of looking at the world, however, they are not purely dystopic or critical.
They can be about the future, the present or even the past; About your community, region, or the planet, or even the universe. They can be your own work, or references that you find inspiring; Original or pre-existing works; Based on imaginary worlds or on existing initiatives and experiences.

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Narratopias : imagine the worlds we want | Plurality University Network

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"If we want to transform society, we must learn to tell - and listen to - a new set of stories about the world we want to create." - Ashoka "We need new narratives to bring people together to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable world at a time when, as Greta Thunberg said, 'our house is on fire'."

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Toward a people-driven response: A practical guide for facilitating the engagement of displaced women and marginalised groups in humanitarian planning and decision making.

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Benefits and disadvantages of public participation

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Benefits and disadvantages of public participation

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PDF document

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Participation is not a new concept (Buchy, Ross et al. 2000). It represents a move from the global, aspatial, top-down strategies that dominated early development initiatives to more locally sensitive methodologies (Storey 1999). There are differing opinions as to the origins of participation theory. Midgley et al (1986) suggested that the historical antecedents of community participation include: the legacy of western ideology, the influence of community development and the contribution of social work and community radicalism. Buchy, Ross et al (2000) suggested that literature on participation and participatory processes stems broadly from two major areas: political sciences and development theory. Lane (1995) added to this view, suggesting that participation is heavily influenced by theories of development and is therefore highly varied and complex due to different theoretical positions. The dominance of the top-down approaches to development was largely a result of modernization theory which was dominant in the 1960s (Lane 1995).

Modernization theory surmises that for developing countries to develop they need economic growth along the path already travelled by western countries (Hulme and Turner 1990; Peet and Hartwick 1999; So 1990). This has been heavily criticized and other development theories have highlighted disparities. From the modernization point of view participation meant involvement of the community in the implementation of a project with the purpose of increasing the acceptance and efficiency of use (Lane 1995). This represents a low level of participation that is reactionary and ignores the site-specific complexities of management needs (Kolavalli and Kerr 2002).

According to Holcombe (1995), acknowledgement of the importance of participation grew out of the recognition that the worlds' poor have actually suffered as a result of development, and that everyone needs to be involved in development decisions, implementation and benefits. As participatory approaches advanced, they highlighted the weaknesses inherent in traditional, top-down approaches that focused on single disciplines and reductionist paradigms (Johnson and Walker 2000). Agrawal and Gibson (1999) identified the limitation of the state in top-down resource conservation practices and emphasis popular participation as the remedy of these shortcomings. Mompati and Prinsen (2000) made a similar observation of the uniqueness of an individual as an entity who is capable of making unique contributions to decision-making. This move represents a move towards people centered development at a normative level (Chambers 1993; Kelly 2001). Midgley et al (1986) posited that the community development movement of the 1950s and 1960s was another source of inspiration for contemporary community participation theory and that community development and participation theory are very similar. Moser (1987) identified that community development is now considered in some countries to have colonialist overtones and has become discredited. Kelly (2001) provided a good account of the evolutionary trends in participation from the 1960s however does not identify the influence of community development (refer to table 1).

Table 1 Development of participatory processes (adapted from Kelly 2001)

Era

Trends in participatory processes

1950's & 60s

Rapid industrialization and growing influence of technological expertise; supremacy of scientific knowledge. Chambers (1992) said that this era was characterized by the diffusion model of adoption I agriculture. Extension agents were involved primarily in teaching farmers, and in the transfer of technology.

1970s
Need for alternatives

Concern expressed about 'giving a voice to the voiceless' specifically the poor in developing countries (Friere 1972). Increasing focus on learning, adult learning principles and group extension.

Early experimentation of participatory approaches in development. Frustration over the ineffectiveness of externally imposed & 'expert' orientated forms (Chambers 1992). Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) grew out of Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA).

1980s
The participation boom

Change from top-down to bottom-up; acknowledgement of the value of local indigenous knowledge
The 1980s witnessed flourishing of activity, particularly amongst non- government organizations (NGOs) in seeking alternatives to top-down outsider driven development. The emphasis was on participatory appraisal and analysis in rural communities.Proliferation of participatory methodologies, including PAR (participatory action research) and tools such as rich pictures and venn diagrams.

1990s
The participation imperative

The fervor about participation continued in the early 1990s. Participation became synonymous with 'good' or 'sustainable' in the development field (Guijt and Shah 1998:4). As Green (1998:71) emphasized, the popularization of participation is dangerous, as the problems are often glossed over.

Funding bodies began demanding participatory processes as a condition for funding. The push for participation stimulated a proliferation of guidebooks and courses on 'how to'. A growing interest in natural resource monitoring and evaluation has led to community involvement in these activities.

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Evolution of Participation Theory - Social Capital Research

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Participation is not a new concept (Buchy, Ross et al. 2000). It represents a move from the global, aspatial, top-down strategies that dominated early development initiatives to more locally sensitive methodologies (Storey 1999). There are differing opinions as to the origins of participation theory. Midgley et al (1986) suggested that the historical antecedents of community ...

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Creative Placemaking: How to embedArts-led processes within culturalregeneration?

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Creative Placemaking: How to embedArts-led processes within culturalregeneration?

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Creative Placemaking (CP), a strategic policy platform that was established in the USA, (Landesman, 2009) is a sub-field of 'Placemaking' and can be considered as the latest iteration of the evolving effort to embed Arts-led processes within cultural regeneration. 'Cultivating permaCultural resilience (pCr) - towards a Creative Placemaking critical praxis' (McKeown, 2015) integrated the ethics and design principles of Permaculture, into Situated Art Practices to develop a critical praxis for Creative Placemaking.

Informed by the Situationists' dérive, CP as a situated process of creative co-production for self-organisation. The initiation of a process of self-organised CP is achieved through the creation of opportunities to reveal and actualise local potential and resources and encouraging emergent adaptive behaviour and resilient practices from the inside out. As an emergent critical praxis (a theoretical framework, practical toolkit and nascent evaluative matrix) - Art Services Unincorporated re-imagined permaCultural resilience, fosters the ability of a location toadapt to changing conditions initiated by a systemic arts-led process.

Creative Placemaking (Landesman, 2009) is a US a strategic policy platform with a distinct heritage that has been quickly adopted and exported internationally. Currently there is enthusiastic uptake by funders, governments and arts councils in India, Korea, UK, Europe and Ireland. As CP gains traction (Bergstom, 2012; Gadwa, 2012, 2013; Coletta, 2010) with governments and spatial planners, historical concerns linked to development, formal masterplans and zoning arise. Further, there is a corresponding increase in the potential of dominant narratives - established through socio-political or cultural boundaries - to shape and define the performance of a location's identity (Lanham, 2007). Polarised approaches to regeneration i.e. management-led (top down) and grassroots, collaborative (bottom-up) constrains the potential of an agile approach utilising Arts and Cultural leadership that recognises multiple narratives and expertise.

and helped to define Creative Placemaking thusly:

In Creative Placemaking from public, private, non-profit, and community sectors strategically shape the physical and social character of a neighbourhood, town, tribe, city, or region around arts and cultural activities. (Markusen and Gadwa, 2010)

An Introduction to Art Services Unincorporated's Research Approach

ASU in residence (ASU IR) was a strategy evolved as an appropriate tool for work undertaken in a complex, adaptive, environment where singular causality is unsuitable and results must be recognised as intrinsic to the generative process of the given situation and beyond. Through situated interventions, the research addressed two levels of 'situation'. Firstly, the geo-location's context within which ASU IR finds itself, and the broader systemic landscape in which both CP and the geo-location are situated and it is important to identify this additional level.

Grounded within an arts research paradigm and a bespoke 'edge-dwelling' methodology, ASU IR's itinerant process, enacted specific contexts, developed a praxis that reflects, embodies and enacts both theoretical awareness and professional skills.This relational perspective explored the benefits of artists' engagement with systems and environmental inter-relationships i.e. ecological, geographic, political, biological and cultural into CP.

Developing and Adapting Permaculture's Methods

Contemporary Permaculture, was developed and promoted by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and defined as an 'integrated, evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man' (1978). Quickly adapted to signify permanent culture, it recognised the importance of social aspects as an integral part of a truly sustainable system that is continually evolving. Permaculture's permanence comes from a dynamic, generative approach framed within an understanding of an extended ecological time line and long-term perspective.

Conclusion - Cultivating permaCultural resilience

The 'permaCultural resilience' framework evolved as an evolution of CP towards a situated networked practice of co-production to facilitate self-organisation and contribute to resilience. The research explored the creation of a 'road map' not the road map, simply one possible route, rooted and cultivated by the experience of working in the public domain, on- and offline, within regeneration agendas for twenty years. The initial conceit was an ambition to develop an open-source systems approach to CP by tactically applying permaculture's audit and zoning methods within a situated art practice to addressing the key challenges for CP - summarised as follows;

- Avoiding displacement and gentrification

Embedding Permaculture's design principles within the constructed situations of the main method ASU IR 's strategic interventions supported an iterative semi-structured improvisation within a location and its complex dynamic. Their construction of 'temporary commons' in order to reveal, share, re-mix and disseminate multiple intimacies; place-based knowledge cultures. The integration and adaptation of Permaculture's design methods supported an immersive durational technique for CP that responded to a local situation, current CP and a global context simultaneously. This enabled the evolution of a guiding framework for an itinerant practice that is non-formulaic and transferable and inclusive of personal and local processes and knowledge.

The research conceived, argued for and trialled a local-scale generative methodology to develop a context-responsive philosophy and practice of CP, one conscious of planetary urbanisation within the Age of the Anthropocene. This expands the definition outlined by Markusen and Gadwa in their attempt to describe CP, identifying and expounding a new and unique process through which it is possible to cultivate permaCultural resilience (pCr) through a CP critical praxis.

2. Strategic Intervention Tactics: The identification and re-imagining of opportunities for a broad range of constituents to participate, develop and reveal new avenues of engagement and intervention within local policy and concerns.

Within emergent adaptive complex situations, evaluation, just like adaptation is never finished. The results within the pCr approach are the best achievable for that specific situation including time and resources available. The research did not seek to define causal relationships or develop a theory or static model but instead identify a correlation between input and output. The pCr approach strives towards a CP process that enables insights and possibilities that inform future activities rather than fixed solutions: an appropriate goal for an agile systemic approach. Vital signs are indicators to measure a functioning body through the four main vital signs; body temperature, blood pressure, heart / pulse rate and breathing / respiration. From a systemic perspective this offers a viable method to develop an evaluation matrix appropriate to the pCr process. As an ecological approach, the evaluativemethods are affirmed by, John Holden's suggestion to observe vital signs and system deterioration (2015) as a means to determine a healthy generative cultural ecology.

Guided and framed by an Open Source ethos and a Guattarian understanding of Ecosophy that argues for eco-social equity, the permaCultural-dérive - a strategic intervention tactic emerged as a core component for achieving permaCultural resilience (pCr); a situated cultural resilience that is established over time through continual evolution. Informed by the premise of the research and grounded in the concept of vital signs as conventional indicators of a healthy system - human and non-human , the evaluation matrix, constructed through the research uses the proposed foundational characteristics of pCr:

Adaptation of Bill Hamilton's Inclusive Fitness Theory (1964) led to another useful metric of impact for the project. Hamilton's radical concept challenged the field of Behavioural Ecology by repositioning the longstanding polarised discussion around the Bergen / Edwards concepts of the development of behaviour for the good of the group or the good of the individual. Hamilton offers a third option; a gene's survival is insured not only through direct descendants but also in supporting relatives who may also share the gene.

Usually applied within a genetic understanding health or fitness is not only determined by proliferation of genes in a number of offspring but also the proliferation of genes within their relatives i.e. the dispersal of the genetic code. This becomes a potentially useful concept for evaluating ephemeral participatory artworks, including behaviour they may encourage or traits they may display. Hamilton's theory aids the identification of ASU IR's vital signs through networks, relationships established or any legacy projects. This is then evidenced by the dissemination of their ethos, approach ideas or information seeded through on-going projects.

In Summary

As an operating system, pCr presents an Open Source resilient approach to CP, that is deeply political, highlighting and addressing inequities and vulnerable points in a system where alternative approaches can take root. Through Arts-led experimentation the means of piloting new ways to communicate and interact within a geo-location forms the basis of a continuous re-shaping of the physical and social character of place. This in turn initiates and facilitates locally scaled self-organisation towards potential possibilities grown from the inside-out. Incorporating Permaculture into CP's praxis frames objectives and outcomes of the intervention at an early stage, creates an open-endedness that allows a dynamic response.

Introduced as an embryonic framework and practical method to harness an artist's and others' skillsets within a ecological analysis of a location, the permaCultural dérive at the core of the pCr approach, grounds these skills within an active process of revealing, valuing and disseminating multiple knowledge cultures. The temporary commons the pCr process creates harnesses the agility of an edge-dwelling (Holmgren, 1992) position to navigate and temporarily inhabit multiple locations simultaneously: geo-locational, operational, social, professional and personal.As a strategic intervention tactic; cross-pollination, an essential characteristic for the third condition of permaCultural resilience, Re-seeding local knowledge occurs.

As a process of arts engagement, the permaCultural dérive encourages a broader constituency of participants into a project's micro-ecology, establishing new working relationships. As a generative process, the project ecologies' knowledge is infused into the projects and their knowledge networks. This extended the project's life span through fostering emergent ideas within on-going partnerships that began to adapt existing working practices and support emergent behaviour. Nurtured through a durational immersive process and location, a lack of fixity and agile response offers a dynamic mutable space to initiate, encourage and accommodate localised action.

Their navigation of a dynamic socio-cultural environment facilitates the gathering of a diverse range of data through a deep audit that encourages a rich engagement with the 'software and hardware' of a location's ecology. This encourages a more nuanced understanding of microclimates, political and administrational relations as well as identifying gaps or opportunities for intervention. The project ecology operates asmicro, complex adaptive change systems, merging public and private systems, thereby demonstrating emergent behaviours: e.g. self-organisation, non-linearity, unpredictability.

As a micro-change model the ability to imagine a different world (Peake, 2010) begins to emerge, enhanced through sharing local knowledge and understanding conveying different worldviews or perspectives within a location. Their small gestures become leverage points that encourage greater impacts by transcending conventional or average responses. A dialogical approach is crucial. The creation of resilient enclaves that facilitate the flow of larger systemic processes to bypass unaltered is to be avoided. The concern being that this could sustain such processes through equipping residents with a resilient approach to change that ultimately contributes to the resilience of a dominant narrative.

The permaCultural dérive's creationofbespoke interventions acts as means to stimulate the flow of information contained within a localised dynamic environment. Through an on-going awareness of a localised system, distributed knowledge networks and their intersubjective, interdependent responses, form a threshold space of potentialities. Their 'in-between' states; locale, professional roles, emergent projects and unique re-constructions of space|place|time, confronts many assumptions around the geo-locations in which they are enacted.
Anita McKeown FRSA, PhD is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and researcher working in the public domain. Her work in the main is project-based, context-responsive, ecologically sensitive interventions that arise from extended relationships within a location. Her wider research interests include Open Source Culture and Technology (ethically and ecologically) and STEAM education. Her recent research (2015) explored emergence and self-organisation within Creative Placemaking, through the development of a bespoke systemic framework including a practical toolkit piloted in the UK, Ireland and USA .
[1] Art Services Unincorporated ( ASU) established in 2004is the collective identity for an on-going practice that represents the multiple contributions that contribute to ASU's process of producing artwork. Art Services Unincorporated in Residence 1- 3 (ASU IR 1 - 3) was the main vehicle used to develop the permaCultural resilience approach to Creative Placemaking.

[2] The research drew on original economic research and fourteen case studies that 'summarised twenty years of creative American placemaking' (NEA, 2010) guided by recommendations from national experts within the fields of the Arts and Culture.

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Creative Placemaking (CP), a strategic policy platform that was established in the USA, (Landesman, 2009) is a sub-field of 'Placemaking' and can be considered as the latest iteration of the evolving effort to embed Arts-led processes within cultural regeneration.

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Have you heard about the mycelium, this incredible mushroom which helps trees communicate with each other? I made this fascinating discovery while watching "Intelligent Trees", a documentary talking about the scientific research on the interactions between trees. More specifically they present the mycelium, which is the root part of fungi.

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Global Public Space Toolkit: From Global Principles to Local Policies and Practice to download:

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Global Public Space Toolkit: From Global Principles to Local Policies and Practice to download:

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Despite its importance in promoting sustainable urban development, public space has not been given the attention it deserves in literature and, more importantly, in the global policy arena. Yet there is a growing body of principles and sound policies for improving access to good public space in our cities, as well as a growing patrimony of good practices from different urban settings around the world.

This toolkit will be a practical reference for local governments to frame and implement principles, policy recommendations and development initiatives on public space and for central governments to aid their efforts with material support and enabling legislation. It will also serve the purpose of demonstrating the value of the involvement of the citizenry and civil society in securing, developing and managing public space in the city.

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Global Public Space Toolkit: From Global Principles to Local Policies and Practice | UN-Habitat

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Despite its importance in promoting sustainable urban development, public space has not been given the attention it deserves in literature and, more importantly, in the global policy arena. Yet there is a growing body of principles and sound policies for improving access to good public space in our cities, as well as a growing patrimony of good practices from different urban settings around the world.