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The Incubators of Public Spaces project launches an innovative approach to public participation in the design of the built environment.
Overview
The project is an international collaboration of architects, planners and software developers which, through the development of urban design software within an online crowdsourcing platform, aims to enable citizens to be directly involved in the (re)design of their public realm. In doing so, the project will more broadly assist understandings of how new technological possibilities can be successfully integrated within the planning process so to facilitate distributed decision-making in the self-organisation of places.
The work undertaken by UCL focuses on addressing the issue of urban complexity by detailing and examining the planning and governance framework that provides the setting for the Incubators project. Furthermore, the Incubators project draws its primary empirical base from its application to three Urban Living Labs, constituted of three cases studies in Brussels, London and Turin respectively. As such, UCL holds responsibility for operationalising the London Living Lab at Pollards Hill.
The Pollards Hill Living Lab consists of a housing estate that is currently undergoing regeneration under the management of the Moat Housing Ltd regeneration company.
UCL is assisting in this process by providing access to the Incubators online design platform so that local residents are able to upload design ideas, both in the form of text and images, and directly manipulate features in a 3D digital model so to inform the regeneration of the site. Furthermore, the users will have a platform from which to share design ideas as well as comment and vote on their desirability. The Pollards Hill Living Lab will therefore seek to embody the principle of self-organisation in its regeneration through the Incubators innovative design platform.
The Incubators project runs from October 2014 to September 2017 and is a collaboration between UCL, Polytechnic University of Turin, Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), Innovation Service Network GmbH, Neurovation GmbH, and the City of Turin.
The Incubators project is funded through JPI Urban Europe, with specific funding for UCL’s work provided by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
- People
Professor Stephen Marshall (The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL)
Dr Nikolaos Karadimitriou (The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL)
Professor Andrew Hudson-Smith (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL)
- Outputs
Drawing on the experiences of the Urban Living Labs, the project aims to disseminate the knowledge and contributions from the multiple actors involved to all stakeholders and to scientific communities. The communication of the Incubators methodology and technology will also assist in critical understandings of the role of new technologies in planning and public participation.