Together with my Dutch bestie Geertje Slingerland from Delft University of Technology, we’ve published a new paper that takes a closer look at how participation actually works in urban place-making initiatives.
The paper has just been published in CoDesign and is available as an open access article. You can read the full paper here.
The abstract:
Place-making is a promising approach to foster strong communities in cities. While participation has always been central to urban place-making, novel approaches such as using co-design and digital technologies change how stakeholders participate in the design of place-making interventions and the potential effect of these interventions. These new approaches open up questions on how participation works in place-making and how it is facilitated to achieve the intended outcomes. Through a literature review, 23 articles were selected and analysed using qualitative analysis informed by program theory. This allows us to understand the goals and workings of participation in place-making and its influence on the place-making itself. Findings include that designers of place-making interventions often do not explicitly consider their participation goal in selecting participatory mechanisms, and that place-making efforts driven by physical space are most effective in achieving impact.
This work continues my interest in program theory as a lens for understanding how different design activities work and achieve their effects. It’s particularly exciting to see how this analytical approach can help untangle the complex relationships between participatory mechanisms and their outcomes in urban contexts.
Citation
Slingerland, Geertje, and Nicolai and Brodersen Hansen. “Untangling the Participation Buzz in Urban Place-Making: Mechanisms and Effects.” CoDesign, 2025, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2025.2514561.
Think I do cool stuff? why not shoot over and ask me to collaborate