Participative design & planning in contemporary urban projects

Rasmussen, Christina

4. Term

Urban, Energy and Environmental Planning, Master

2012

2012-06-13

103 pages

Complexity and multiplicity are influencing the social and environmental context of contemporary urban planning, hereby challenging the practices of urban design and planning. But within this complex and relational urban context, new possibilities of approaches and tools can be applied in planning cultures. Taking a departure in the author's own background, the research sets out to investigate the values in contemporary urban design-based and process-oriented theories, which address this increasing complexity of urban areas and societies, then looks how those values would interrelate in the practice of urban design and planning projects. This aims to both bridge a perceived design-planning gap, and explore the potentials of the two fields' interrelations. The analysis then proposes to study the case of Dreamhamar, a participative and network design process, occuring in Norway. It offers a concrete example both of the current complexity of planning processes and of the interrelation of design and planning in practice. The case study is based on interviews carried out with 10 actors of the process. The findings show an extensive use of communication and participation tools and networks as to involve and integrate an increasing number of local and professional actors. This made the simplification of design and process interrelations pointless. Finally Dreamhamar experience illustrates an evolution of collaborative and participative planning practices, to be built on in the future.

Urban design ; Collaborative planning ; Public participation ; Network design ; Urban complexity ; Hamar ; Design-process interrelations

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