Abstract
How public space is designed, who it is designed by, and the events embedded within it can have a huge impact on the lived experiences in a city. Traditional ways of developing urban space have been generating an increasing distance between citizens, the spaces they inhabit, and the processes for creating these spaces. This can be seen in the reduced interactions between people in public space, the little use of public space and the disengagement of citizens from existing development processes. In view of this a playful co-creation approach of temporary urban spaces is explored within a community in Sweden as a new way of developing urban space, using playfulness to enable active and extended involvement of residents. Both playfulness and co-creation present multiple benefits when it comes to bringing people together and facilitating creativity, and this process combines these terms and applies them in the context of developing urban space. A resulting low-budget, playful process ignited activation, fostered closeness, and brought change led by residents to the neighbourhood.
Keywords
closeness, playfulness, co-creation, process, space
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.805
Citation
Arthur, N., and Sopjani, L. (2022) Playful co-creation in urban space: Igniting activation, closeness, and collective intervention of residents in neighbourhoods, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.), DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.805
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Research Paper
Included in
Playful co-creation in urban space: Igniting activation, closeness, and collective intervention of residents in neighbourhoods
How public space is designed, who it is designed by, and the events embedded within it can have a huge impact on the lived experiences in a city. Traditional ways of developing urban space have been generating an increasing distance between citizens, the spaces they inhabit, and the processes for creating these spaces. This can be seen in the reduced interactions between people in public space, the little use of public space and the disengagement of citizens from existing development processes. In view of this a playful co-creation approach of temporary urban spaces is explored within a community in Sweden as a new way of developing urban space, using playfulness to enable active and extended involvement of residents. Both playfulness and co-creation present multiple benefits when it comes to bringing people together and facilitating creativity, and this process combines these terms and applies them in the context of developing urban space. A resulting low-budget, playful process ignited activation, fostered closeness, and brought change led by residents to the neighbourhood.