co-production/

urban living labs

Urban Living Labs (ULLs) are situated laboratories dealing with the specifics of local urban challenges, whilst simultaneously trying to achieve research outcomes at a wider scale to innovate for systemic change (Voytenko et al., 2016; Aquilué et al., 2021; Scholl, de Kraker and Dijk, 2022). ULLs are one of the most common participatory design approaches that aim to facilitate user engagement throughout the innovation development process in a real-life setting.

Their role in neighbourhood regeneration is rooted in sharing and space-commoning practices, generating context-specific insights that can inform planning processes.

Usually, ULLs operate through collaboration and participation, actively involving a diverse range of stakeholders, including designers, experts, policymakers, and community members. Their ability to incorporate diverse perspectives ensures inclusivity in research that addresses the complexities of urban life and cities. Central to ULLs activities is the use of design as a research tool, activating design thinking and prototyping to explore and address urban challenges. Through participatory processes, ULLs generate context-specific spatial knowledge on how neighbourhood-scale spaces function, are utilised, and can be reimagined.

ULLs also create a generative environment for knowledge exchange, fostering mutual learning and co-creation among participants. By combining inputs from diverse fields, ULLs adopt an interdisciplinary approach that enhances the relevance and impact of their findings, contributing to an in-depth understanding of urban spaces and promoting sustainable, community-driven urban development.

key references:

Petrescu, D., Helena Cermeño, H., Keller, C., Moujan C., Belfield, A., and others. (2022). ‘Sharing and Space-Commoning Knowledge Through Urban Living Labs Across Different European Cities’, Urban Planning, 7.3

Israa, M. and Eugenio Morello, E. (2021). ‘Co-Creation Pathway for Urban Nature-Based Solutions: Testing a Shared-Governance Approach in Three Cities and Nine Action Labs’, in Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions, Green Energy and Technology, ed. by Adriano Bisello, Daniele Vettorato, David Ludlow, and Claudia Baranzelli (Cham: Springer International Publishing), pp. 259–76

CASE STUDIES

Collaborative digital map and co‐designing workshop at the lab in Paris (Bagneux) (Petrescu et al. 2022)

Methodological strategy of ProSHARE‐Labs. Graphic design by Carola Moujan (Petrescu et al. 2022)

PRACTICE-LED RESEARCH PROJECT

ProSHARE Urban Living Labs

Project

ProSHARE – Enhancing Diversity, Inclusion and Social Cohesion through Practices of Sharing in Housing and Public Space. JPI Urban Europe / ESRC (2020-22)

UK team

Prof. Doina Petrescu, Dr Carola Moujan, Andrew Belfield, Prof Nishat Awan
Partners:

Universität Kassel (DE) Royal Institute of Technology (SE); University of Sheffield (UK); Goldsmiths University of London (UK); Technische Universität Wien (AU); Uppsala University (SE); Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft HTW Berlin (DE)

project summary & co-production approach

Catalysing community resourcefulness via the ProSHARE Lab in Bagneux / Paris

The ProSHARE consortium conducted research in eight European cities (i.e., Berlin, Stuttgart, Kassel, Vienna, Uppsala, Stockholm, London and Paris), to explore how practics of sharing can contribute to reducing space competition and enhance diversity, civic engagement, community building and social cohesion in socially mixed neighbourhoods. For that purpose, four ULLs – ProSHARE-Labs – were implemented, in which practices of sharing are explored through practical, participatory experiments.

ULLs aim to:

facilitate inclusion and engagement of different stakeholders;
respond to local challenges and contribute to capacity-building;
implement flexible innovation methods and integrate feedback and learning;
situate knowledge where the problem to be addressed takes place, often on the neighbourhood scale

methods for co-producing knowledge + co-design

Co-production in Urban Living Labs is comprised of four key phases, each performed with a series of tools:

Phase 1 – Understanding existing neighbourhood sharing and identifying stakeholders

Ethnographic observation

Online Questionnaire

Explorative semi-structured interviews

Phase 2 – Co-mapping community ‘resourcefulness’

Stakeholders digital & manual mapping for identifying ‘needs’ and ‘shareable resources’ Phase 3 – Co-designing Sharing Catalysts

co-design workshop for identifying catalyst actions

Phase 4 – Prototyping Sharing Catalysts for implementation

entanglements of justice in co-production and design

"While the growing commodification of housing and public spaces in European cities is producing urban inequalities affecting mostly migrant and vulnerable populations, manifold small‐scale neighbourhood‐based collaborative processes seek to co‐produce shared urban resources and contribute to more resilient urban developments. As part of the ProSHARE research project that investigates conditions in which sharing takes place and can be expanded to less‐represented populations, we focus here on sharing and space‐commoning practices within urban living labs." (Petrescu et al, 2022)

references

Petrescu, D., Cermeño, H., Keller, C., Moujan, C., Belfield, A., and others. (2022). ‘Sharing and Space-Commoning Knowledge Through Urban Living Labs Across Different European Cities’, Urban Planning, 7.3

Belfield, A., Petrescu, D. (2024). ‘Co-design, neighbourhood sharing, and commoning through urban living labs’. CoDesign, 1–24.

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