Co-constructing city futures

3C (co-constructing city futures) is a project initiated in the Research Council's sandpit in 2016, aiming at contributing to the green shift by developing practices, methods and technologies for cooperation and co-creation that lead to radical and bold solutions and concepts for future cities. 3C has been working systematically with city planners and developers in a large Norwegian city for 4 years and has been involved in collaborative processes in two major urban development processes in this city. Through design processes and experimentation, 3C has investigated how a higher number of citizens can participate in planning processes and how contributions can be systematically integrated into further planning work. This has resulted in experimentation and evaluation of new methods that combine traditional methods such as public meetings and workshops with digital solutions where citizen contributions are represented in social media, displayed at municipal offices and at architects? offices, and made subject to debate and voting in the local community, for example in the local grocery store. A key challenge is to communicate the complexity of planning processes, from overall strategic plans, the municipal master plan, plan for land use, plans and strategies of developers, street plans and detailed zoning plans. These are related and it may be difficult to comprehend all relations between actors, decisions, power relations, authority, the level of proposals, professional and private objections, as well as the consequences of proposals for personal living and own neighbourhoods. Furthermore, there are guidelines and overall goals to consider related to climate change adaptations. 3C has collaborated with urban planners and developers to design new ways of mediating planning processes, with a particular focus on mediating what citizens are invited into in a consultation process. This has resulted in timelines, interactivity and various forms of visualizations. In particular, 3C has focused on collective learning with the aim of contributing to more democratic and comprehensive planning processes where participation takes place at an early stage and has a long-term perspective. We have worked closely with planners and citizens to develop, test and evaluate ideas and prototypes for digital tools in this context. To support a constructive dialogue, the project has developed a shared platform, accessible via ICT tools that are already widely available. Through the platform, planned projects can be communicated in understandable and accessible ways, and citizens and other stakeholders can propose and develop visions and scenarios and engage in debates about the urban development. The use of such a platform forms the starting point for a better and more holistic societal dialogue about the current and the future.

3C har gitt deltagerne mulighet til å tenke langt utenfor sitt eget fagfelt, og har utfordret etablert bruk av metoder og teorier. 3C har hatt primært fokus på endringer og samfunnsnytte og har hatt mulighet til å arbeide nært praksisfeltet i 4 år. 3C diskuterer betingelser og muligheter for befolkningen til å være med på framtidstekning, kritisk diskutere de digitale løsningene for dette, og se på hva dette betyr for profesjonelle planleggere og deres praksiser. Planleggerne som har vært involvert har fått muligheter for å eksperimentere med nye metoder for medvirkning og samskaping. 3C har gjennom en designorientert og iterativ prosess gjort deltagerne i stand til å utforske nye praksiser gjennom materielle og konkrete uttrykk. Den digitale plattformen for framtidsbilder er gjort tilgjengelig for kommuner og andre som ønsker å prøve ut dette i sin egen praksisutvikling.

'Co-constructing city futures (3C)' address current problems in how cities are envisioned and developed, in particular related to the often low and limited participation to a certain set of stakeholders, and the poor collaboration between these stakeholders. The key innovation of the 3C project is on encouraging and facilitating a shift from a step-by-step planning participation, that intentionally or unintentionally excludes certain interest groups, into a more emergent, dynamic and responsive planning system, where citizens are enabled to engage in co-constructing ideas and visions for city futures. The ideas and visions are broadly understood and will be represented by digital knowledge objects and social media which range in complexity, from simple digital notes, images, texts, videos, visualisations and simulations (e.g. 3D environmental data), connected with dialogues and argumentation. The knowledge objects are geo-located, and are therefore attached to places, structures, infrastructures, events, or phenomena in the city and will be visualised overlaying on the physical urban landscape. This will provide opportunities for experiences and knowledge building that is collaborative and situated in the city. The project has a clear external, stakeholder-driven focus, rather than an internal, technology-driven focus. We seek to increase constructive dialogue between stakeholders in order to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes with shared buy-in from providers and users. The project is driven by cases in three Norwegian cities. Green Mobility and blue-green infrastructure. These cases have a large impact on people's lives, creating both opportunities and challenges for city dwellers and development. Cases are explored from a physical, social, economic and governmental point of view. 3C will also exchange perspectives on participation with other European and Asian cities.