Abstract
This paper describes and presents a workshop conducted with partners of a European research project that reinterprets a former industrial site – now a small urban forest – as an Interspecies Playground, a living lab of multispecies coexistence. Through systemic design, more-than-human perspectives, and transdisciplinary collaboration among scientists, experts, designers, the municipality, and local communities, the project introduces a theoretical framework of relational ecology that seeks to challenge anthropocentric urban models and promote a new conception of green urban areas. By showing the project framework – articulated along the three interconnected layers of agents, phenomena, and contexts – and the validating workshops with partners, the paper draws on and supports the idea of design as an interspecies practice of regeneration, capable of bridging science, imagination, and collective participation to transcend anthropocentrism and foster new models of coexistence.
Keywords
interspecies design, more-than-human, relational ecology, co-governance
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2159
Citation
Vergani, F., and Fassi, D. (2026) Grounding the Interspecies Playground: A More-than-Human Framework for the GOCCIA Project, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.2159
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Grounding the Interspecies Playground: A More-than-Human Framework for the GOCCIA Project
This paper describes and presents a workshop conducted with partners of a European research project that reinterprets a former industrial site – now a small urban forest – as an Interspecies Playground, a living lab of multispecies coexistence. Through systemic design, more-than-human perspectives, and transdisciplinary collaboration among scientists, experts, designers, the municipality, and local communities, the project introduces a theoretical framework of relational ecology that seeks to challenge anthropocentric urban models and promote a new conception of green urban areas. By showing the project framework – articulated along the three interconnected layers of agents, phenomena, and contexts – and the validating workshops with partners, the paper draws on and supports the idea of design as an interspecies practice of regeneration, capable of bridging science, imagination, and collective participation to transcend anthropocentrism and foster new models of coexistence.