The 'Urban Spacebook' Experimental Process:
Co-designing a Platform for Participation
Corelia Baibarac1
Researcher, Department of Civil, Structural and
Environmental Engineering, and Department of Geography.
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Email: baibarac@tcd.ie
INTRODUCTION
Urban planning, and urban development more generally, are
moving towards a more participatory direction due to both
external and internal pressures. The World Commission on
Environment and Development and the Rio de Janeiro Earth
Summit culminating with Agenda 21 (United Nations, 1992)
pointed to a need for greater dialogue involving many
public stakeholders at different levels-from the local,
regional and national levels through to the international
level. Nevertheless, some argue that policies and
planning interventions aimed at local sustainable urban
development have failed to consider the thoughts and
actions of urban residents. This represents a "major
obstacle to the pursuit of an 'overall sustainability' in
practice" (Jarvis, et al., 2001, 139). It is also
important to consider that cities are transformed through
the everyday practices of their inhabitants, who
collectively add meaning to places through their rhythms
and use of space (Kuoppa, 2013).
Rapidly developing Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) offer interesting opportunities for
improving knowledge regarding the everyday life practices
and experiences of local residents, thus potentially
informing and enhancing local planning and urban
sustainability processes. Moreover, the rapid expansion
of social media and web 2.0 applications has opened up
additional opportunities for people to be involved in
planning their environments through the uses of seemingly
everyday, mundane technologies and outside formal
planning processes. For example, ICTs can support
methodologies such as Soft Geographic Information Systems
(SoftGIS), which facilitates the collection of residents'
perceptions about the quality of their environments and
the creation of an experiential, or 'soft', data layer
for use in urban planning (Kahila & Kyttä, 2006,
2009; Kyttä, et al., 2013). While these forms of
participation are acknowledged in fields such as
participatory e-planning, more research needs to be done
in relation to how digital tools used for participation
are being designed; particularly how existing
technologies are appropriated and linked together as part
of broader participatory information ecologies
(Saad-Sulonen, 2013).
This article advances research in the area of
participatory e-planning by extending work on user
participation to the design of digital technology, along
with focusing on inhabitants' everyday life experiences
of urban space (i.e. experiences embedded in everyday
life practices). The author seeks to examine innovative
approaches in the design of ICT platforms for public
participation. Two specific questions are being addressed
in this paper: First, how might the communication of
experiences embedded in everyday life practices, such as
movement through the city, enhance participation in urban
planning? Second, what kinds of tools might facilitate
better public participation in urban planning processes?
Inspired by open-source digital sharing culture, the
research presented here approaches the design of a
potential digital platform as a collaborative process,
undertaken from the perspective of urban inhabitants. The
article focuses on the design process of the "Urban
Spacebook" platform and discusses three
spatial-technological experiments, which informed this
concept. It is argued that an Urban Spacebook platform
offers opportunities for sharing everyday life
experiences of, and in, urban space. It also offers
opportunities for enhancing the co-governance of such
city spaces, by creating an arena where ordinary
inhabitants and city decision-makers can come together to
discuss and envision possibilities for the future
development of these spaces.
The article will start with an outline of the theoretical
background of the research, followed by a brief
discussion of the Dublin context where the experimental
co-design approach was developed and implemented. The
methodology-which includes three distinct
spatial-technological experiments-will then be described.
Building on these experiments, the article then proposes
the prototype Urban Spacebook ICT platform for public
participation. The paper concludes with a discussion of
the wider implications and challenges of the proposed
platform.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
One way of enhancing public participation in local
planning processes, and indeed for stimulating greater
participation in the democratic process, has involved the
use of GIS in public participation initiatives, or Public
Participation GIS (PPGIS) (Sieber, 2006). PPGIS's
proponents acknowledge that a planning process cannot be
based exclusively on technical knowledge, but that it
must also consider citizens' needs and collect the
experiences of those living in a local territory
(Magaudda, et al., 2009). Developments in ICT have
provided additional opportunities for gathering data
concerning residents' perceptions of the quality of their
local environments. In combination with PPGIS, these
approaches give rise to new and interesting possibilities
regarding the collection of 'soft' data, which can be
usefully employed to complement 'hard' planning data
(Kahila & Kyttä, 2006). One example is the
SoftGIS methodology-developed at Aalto University-which
has been tested in several Finnish cities as a way to
collect experiential knowledge concerning urban
environments (Kahila & Kyttä, 2006, 2009;
Kyttä, et al., 2013).
At the same time, the rapid expansion of social media and
web 2.0 applications has introduced a paradigmatic shift
in relation to civic participation and the ways in which
geographic data are produced. It is now difficult to
differentiate data 'producers' and 'users' in an
environment where many participants function in both
capacities. One example of this is the growing impact of
collaborative online mapping tools in which the notion of
'map user' no longer implies a singular consumer of
cartographic communication (Goodchild, 2007). Platforms
such as Google Maps and OpenStreetMaps encourage
individuals to develop interesting applications using
their own data, while the increased availability of
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and websites such as
Flickr allow users to upload and locate photographs on
the Earth's surface by latitude and longitude (ibid).
Such developments open up opportunities for new forms of
participation outside formal face-to-face meetings and
consultations, in everyday life situations (Horelli,
2013). Moreover, they lay at the core of the recent field
of participatory e-planning, which acknowledges multiple
participations (Saad-Sulonen, 2013).
However, while the expansion of social media and web 2.0
has increased the scope and toolkit available for citizen
participation, it has also introduced new challenges. For
example, while many e-participation projects are
initiated to increase citizens' (particularly young
citizens') participation in politics, few to date are
apparently successful. Sæbø et al.
(2009), for instance, believe that one reason for the
failure of such digital public participation projects is
a lack of involvement of citizens when designing and
developing the e-services-in essence, people do not
necessarily become more willing to participate simply
because internet-based services are provided for them.
More than representing a mere technological development,
web 2.0 environments and the forms of interaction
encouraged by social networking sites (e.g., Facebook,
Twitter) have brought about social evolution (ibid).
These media's characteristics include principles of free
access to information, self-organisation, mass
collaboration, non-exclusive services and user
participation, which are also reflected by the
'open-source' digital movement. Changes in how people
interact and collaborate with each other in the online
world have introduced new demands in relation to
e-planning initiatives and urban planning more generally.
As Saad-Sulonen (2013) argues, there is a pressing need
to expand the concept of participatory e-planning to
collaboration in the actual design of the digital
technologies involved-a form of participation that has
sometimes been neglected in the e-planning and urban
planning discourses. Two considerations are also seen by
Saad-Sulonen to be particularly important: participation
as design-in-use (i.e. users are involved in the design
also during ICT use and not only at the initial stages of
the design process); and the state of the current
technological landscape including online tools and
possibilities for digital map mash-ups (ibid).
Besides these technological advances and participatory
developments in the urban planning field, it is also
important to acknowledge that, at a local level,
"governing takes place through the everyday and the
material practices of urbanism" (Bulkeley &
Castán Broto, 2012, p.5). Urban space is thus
transformed not only through urban planning or policy
interventions, but also through the everyday practices of
city inhabitants. As well as rational considerations and
perceptions of one's surroundings, understanding
experiences embedded in everyday life practices can also
contribute to studying how people use their local
environments1, and in turn, to how the city is
shaped through the practices of everyday life. Rather
than representing a feature that can be achieved by city
planners alone, a sense of place tends to be created by
the users of those spaces, inter-subjectively through
their rhythms and everyday practices (Kuoppa, 2013). At
the same time, familiarity and attachment to place can
motivate people to become more involved in improving
their local neighbourhoods (or those areas that they use
in their daily lives) and, thus, to participate in local
planning processes (Manzo & Perkins, 2006). Moreover,
everyday life practices such as urban walking offer
opportunities for finding a much needed common ground
between planners, inhabitants and other stakeholders when
discussing spaces in the city and their future
development. Besides formal meetings, consultations or
surveys, first-hand interactions with those spaces
targeted by planning interventions offers opportunities
for learning about the local environment and better
understanding its problems, potential and local
resident's needs (Halprin & Burns, 1974; Kuoppa,
2013). Yet, it can be argued that the planning literature
has generally overlooked the importance of everyday life
practices and experiences (Kuoppa, 2013), with few
exceptions (e.g., Jarvis, et al., 2001). The next section
extends this discussion about the interactions between
local urban practices and potential participatory digital
tools in the context of Dublin, Ireland.
The Dublin urban context
The Irish capital, Dublin, represents a useful case study
partially because the current programme for local
government in Ireland promotes the use of online
platforms and social media to engage with the citizens
(Department of the Environment, Community and Local
Government, 2012) as a means for addressing concerns
about limited public participation in planning (Taskforce
on Active Citizenship, 2007). This programme, for
example, identifies a platform (FixYourStreet.ie) that
was prototyped initially in Dublin and which enables the
public to report non-emergency issues such as graffiti,
road defects, street lighting faults, water leaks or
drainage issues, and litter or illegal dumping to the
local council via an online map. Moreover, Dublin City
Council (DCC) has experimented with novel approaches in
the design of public services and urban development, such
as through the 'Street Conversations' approach, which
employs on-street questionnaires to explore what people
like, dislike or could be improved about a particular
area (Conroy & Mooney, 2011; Conroy, et al., 2012);
as well as through 'Your Dublin Your Voice', an online
citizen opinion panel seeking feedback and suggestions on
a range of issues that impact on quality of life in the
city (Cudden & Sheahan, 2011). Both approaches are
aimed at informing urban development plans and policies.
While these examples illustrate the progress made
regarding public engagement, some important limitations
of these approaches can also be observed. Rather than
improving participation and using the benefits of
interactive mapping and social media (e.g., active user
participation and collaboration), the negative reporting
promoted by FixYourStreet.ie reflects (and continues) the
reactive forms of participation noted within the Irish
planning system, such as 'negative objecting' (McGuirk,
1995). The two DCC initiatives noted here represent a
step forward through their aims to include citizens in
identifying potential local improvements before they are
developed into plans. However, in these approaches
communications remains top-down and unidirectional. For
example, the (Your Dublin Your Voice) panel members
respond to topics established by experts; and the (Street
Conversations) survey respondents do not have the
opportunity to engage in how their input will be
integrated into future DCC policies or plans.
Building on the theoretical background outlined above,
the Urban Spacebook digital platform concept and the
co-design process through which it emerged has been
designed to address the limitations in DCC civic
engagement processes. The methodological approach and
influences that shaped this process are discussed in the
next section.
METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH
The methodological approach undertaken to address the two
previously noted research questions was to start from the
ground-up, with three 'experiments' that focused on
everyday life experiences of urban space and include
potential users in the design of a potential platform for
participation. This approach builds on research into
creating open and adaptable ICT solutions for
collaborative urban planning (Saad-Sulonen & Botero,
2010; Saad-Sulonen & Horelli, 2010). Moreover, such
an approach was also seen to provide a useful and needed
alternative to the existing tools for participation
employed by city planners in Dublin.
Acknowledging the importance of everyday life practices
and experiences in the transformations of urban space
(Kuoppa, 2013), the three experiments discussed below
were designed to examine how resident's everyday life
experiences of space might be elicited and represented.
In turn this process served to inform the development of
the Urban Spacebook platform. The research employed a
dynamic approach, which focused on those experiences
associated with resident's movement through urban space.
As Kevin Lynch noted in, The Image of the City,
"people observe the city while moving through it" (1960,
47). Our approach suggests that traditional approaches to
urban planning-typically using static analyses of urban
phenomena-can benefit from a more dynamic perspective,
such as the lens of urban daily mobility (Jirón,
2008). At the same time, relatively recent developments
in ICT practices, such as location-aware technologies,
arguably have made everything and everyone potentially
locatable (Gordon & Silva, 2011). This implies that
the city's dynamics can now be fruitfully explored by
using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology as a
valuable tool to track people's interactions with the
city through movement (Calabrese & Ratti, 2007).
In addition to this choice of a dynamic methodological
lens, representational techniques and strategies were
also considered in our work. As the study included GPS
technology for tracing movement through space, it was
considered useful to search and gain inspiration from
fields with traditions in GPS-linked mapping. One such
field is the locative art domain, where GPS technologies
have been used for over a decade as a way to explore
movement and the environment, and their relationships.
The emerging art forms are typically collaborative
(between artist and the audience) and participatory
(requiring participation in order to take place). Their
representations and aesthetics can be employed as a way
to affect discourse (e.g., Amsterdam RealTime,
noted in Polak et al., 2002), or can become part of
interventionist approaches in which the explicit
intention is not to produce more data but instead to
intervene in provocative and creative ways that may lead
to change (e.g., Traverse Me, noted in Wood,
2010).
Moreover, since this study focused on experiences of
space and aimed to include potential users in the design
of the platform, inspiration was sought from the creative
and collaborative planning approaches prototyped in the
late 60s in the United Sates by Lawrence and Anna
Halprin. For example, their 'Take Part' process aimed to
facilitate citizen-formulated decisions in a more
egalitarian design approach, by enhancing people's
creativity and awareness of their environment (Merriman,
2010). It also sought to develop a "common language"
amongst those taking part, which was seen to be necessary
in order to make collaborative decisions about the future
of the community (Halprin & Burns, 1974). Halprin's
senses-focused process was employed in the Dublin
research as a way to enhance and bring to the surface
what may already be experienced, but in an unconscious
way, in movement through (and interactions with) urban
space. Inspiration was also obtained from situationist
practices, such as dérive (Sadler, 1998),
as a way to interrupt the 'usual' by slowing down, and
provoking new experiences of and in city space. This
approach also reflects the links between situationists
and locative media art practices (McGarrigle, 2010), on
which the Dublin research project draws in terms of
representational techniques. The next section discusses
three ICT-linked experiments undertaken in Dublin which
characterized the co-design process and in turn helped to
shape the development of the Urban Spacebook platform.
THREE CO-DESIGN EXPERIMENTS IN DUBLIN
The co-design process for the Urban Spacebook platform
included three urban spatial-technological experiments
variously using ICTs and which build on the
methodological approaches outlined above. These three
experiments varied in their participatory and
collaborative aspects, as well as in the extent of their
spatial focus. The approach was aimed at making the
transition from a researcher-mediated process to one that
encouraged interactions among the participants through
the use of web 2.0 tools, with the aim of enhancing their
role in the design process. The methodology used for each
of the three experiments undertaken in Dublin will be
described in the three sub-sections that follow.
Experiment 1 - Hybrid Diary-Camera-GPS Study
This experiment-undertaken from September to November
2011-consisted of a hybrid diary study, which combined
GPS-tracking, photography and text inputs, and was
developed as an individual exercise (i.e. conducted and
discussed individually with the participants). The
experiment was aimed at obtaining a written and visual
image of the participants' daily interactions with the
city through movement, as initial exploratory step in the
research process. Diaries were kept by eight Dublin-based
volunteers2 over one full week of their
choice, including the weekend and days off.
The participants were self-selected, since the aim of the
study was not to offer statistically representative data
but rather to explore how everyday experiences of space
might be elicited and represented, The diarists were
given a toolkit containing a blank notebook, a
GPS-tracking device3 and a GPS-enabled digital
camera4 (Figure 1). They were asked to trace
all of their movements over the chosen week, to record
their experiences in the notebook and to take photographs
of any elements of the city that they felt was meaningful
in their daily experiences.
The analysis included examining the diary contents and
interviews with the participants about their experience
of diary-making. The analysis of the photographs focused
on their subject(s) (e.g., landmarks, parks, positive or
negative features) and whether these subjects were
mentioned in the diary written text and how. As basis for
the interviews, the participants were presented with maps
showing their own contributions and also collective input
(i.e. GPS tracks and photographs mapped using ArcGIS
Explorer Desktop, and visual representations produced
using Adobe Photoshop). Because the interviews were
conducted individually, this was a way of encouraging
reflection not only on their own journeys, but also on
other diarists' input as expressed in the map synopses.
Figure 1: Diary toolkit including notepad, camera and
GPS-tracking device (Image Source: author's photographs)
Experiment 2 - Collaborative Workshop
The second experiment-undertaken in June / July
2012-consisted of a collaborative three-week workshop
taking place in Dublin5, and was aimed at
making the transition between the insights of the diary
study and the extended use of online and mobile
technologies. It explored ways of gathering and
visualising experiential aspects of the city and movement
through it, and on representing them in a collective way
mediated in a digital environment (i.e. a map-based
digital prototype).
Building on Halprin's process (Halprin & Burns, 1974)
and situationist practices (Sadler, 1998) the methodology
for this workshop experiment included a series of 'urban
awareness walks', which took place in a designated area
of Dublin. The test-bed area was centred on the location
of the workshop and was sufficiently large to allow for
different routes to emerge, but also relatively small so
that the research area could be covered on foot
(approximately 1.7 x 0.75 km). Moreover, the research
area included parts of the re-developed docklands where
DCC had conducted 'Street Conversations' (Conroy, et al.,
2012). The walks were conducted both individually and in
groups and ranged from open, exploratory dérives
(individual, Figure 2) to guided, pre-determined routes
(group, Figure 3). Their aim was to encourage direct
interaction with space, to enhance an awareness of how
the area was being used and to open up opportunities for
a better understanding of the local area's qualities,
deficiencies and potential.
Inspired by the diary study, the participants tracked
their routes, this time using a free GPS-tracking app,
EveryTrail6, which they installed on their
smartphones. They were also encouraged to take
photographs of features of interest encountered along the
way, and to make notes of their experiences. Moreover,
the participants were given stickers to place in those
locations that they identified to be of interest (e.g.,
the fence of a derelict site that could become a garden).
They were asked to photograph the sticker as placed by
using the app, which generated a unique geo-tag; and they
had the option of adding a comment (one the app) to
briefly explain their locational choice. Together with
the GPS tracks, these photographs and comments were added
to an initial digital platform prototype developed later
in the workshop.
Figure 2: Individual explorations in Dublin. Figure 3:
Group walks (Image Sources: workshop participants)
Experiment 3 - Online Study
The third and final experiment was conducted as an online
study-undertaken for a one week period in November /
December 2012-which examined the potential of locative
media and collaborative online mapping tools to translate
and adapt the previous two studies to a web 2.0
domain-thus making the transition to a fully digital
platform (i.e. Urban Spacebook). In order to do this, two
existing platforms were employed: first, a trip-recording
mobile application (EveryTrail, used also in the previous
experiment), which the participants installed on their
smartphones; and second, an online mapping platform
(Crowdmap)7 through which participants could
visualise their individual and collective inputs. Similar
to the previous experiments, ten volunteers who offered
to participate used these digital tools to track their
routes through the city (this time over a common week);
to take photographs; to make notes about features that
were relevant to their daily urban experiences; and to
share their contributions on the group website. The use
of web 2.0 tools was aimed at enhancing the participants'
role in the ICT design process, and also at making the
transition towards wider public participation.
RESULTS OF THE THREE DUBLIN DIGITAL EXPERIMENTS
This section presents the results of the three
spatial-technological experiments identified above, by
highlighting those findings that helped to inform the
Urban Spacebook digital platform concept. The three
experiments sought to address the first research question
of this study, namely, how the (digital) communication of
experiences embedded in everyday life practices, such as
movement through the city, could potentially enhance
participation in urban planning. The three subsections
below further detail the key findings from the three
digital experiments in Dublin.
Results of Experiment 1 - Hybrid Diary-Camera-GPS Study
The diary and camera study highlighted a number of
interesting issues regarding inhabitants' habitual
interactions with the city. One finding which was
particularly revealing was that the diary-making as a
whole (i.e. the diary-making and the reflective
interviews) led to seven out of the eight participants
reporting a heightened awareness of their knowledge and
daily use the city. The exception was one diarist, who
noted being interested in street photography and
therefore to usually paying close attention to his
surroundings. This heightened awareness effect, which was
discussed as part of the post-diary reflective
interviews, varied in length. For example, one
participant experienced an enhanced awareness only during
the diary-keeping week due to an otherwise busy everyday
life; for another diarist the effect involved taking more
notice of her surroundings, especially those features she
omitted to note in the diary although meaningful for her
impressions of the city. Furthermore, she became more
aware of the effects her travel choices had on her
children-specifically, the differences in their
experience of their surroundings when brought around by
car rather than by bicycle.
This experiment reconfirmed that besides concrete,
rational factors, such as getting from A to B, people's
movements throughout the city are also affected by
experiences embedded in everyday practice, typically
difficult to be consciously rationalised or recognized
(Spinney, 2010) because of their habituality. Diarists'
examples include experiences of noise and the visual
effects of street litter, which prompted them to avoid
certain areas; or places from which their children could
watch trains passing by and which they included as part
of their everyday routes. Taking part in the diary study
enabled some of these experiences and related aspects of
the city to be noted and expressed by the diarists, as
discussed above. This took place 'on-the-move' through
the lens of the camera, which brought about an increased
sensitivity to what was being captured; and was also
linked to the post-diary activity, by visualising the
collective GPS-based maps (of all eight diarists), which
prompted further discussion and reflection. When seeing
their individual traces in the context of those of the
other diarists, the maps made participants more aware
about their own uses and knowledge of the city. They
realised that they shared their everyday routes with
others and also that the same space may be seen, known
and used very differently by different people. For
example, one diarist realized that he might take the same
route everyday without properly knowing its resources or
amenities-as was the case when another participant who
shared his daily route identified a local park that was
previously unknown to the first diarist, even though he
lived nearby (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Park photographed by one diarist but unknown to
another participant who lived nearby (each of the two
diarists is represented in a different line colour)
Thus, even if they were conducted individually with the
diarists, the map-based discussions suggested the
importance of sharing experiences and local knowledge
among the participants, and indicated the potential value
of expanding the diary-making process to a wider
audience, which could generate engagement amongst those
taking part. This was taken forward in the next two
experiments, which focused on facilitating interactions
between the participants and exploring tools that are now
pervasive (e.g., locative technology and collaborative
online mapping tools) as a way to enable this
collaborative process.
Results of Experiment 2 - Collaborative Workshop
While the individual urban awareness walks were more
passive in terms of participant engagement (i.e.
individual route mapping), the group walks had the
important characteristic of concluding with collective
discussions of the individual experiences through
organized reflection and brainstorming sessions. These
workshop discussions indicated that although experienced
(and reflected upon) individually, the urban walks
offered a common basis for discussing the local city area
where the workshop was conducted and opened up ideas
about its potential by encouraging first-hand
interactions with urban space. The experiment also led to
an initial digital prototype8, an online map,
which served to visualise the collective contributions of
the diarists (i.e. their GPS traces, photographs and
notes taken using the EveryTrail app). One of the
features of this prototype map was the absence of a
'base-map'. Instead, building on the diary study, the
city was seen as being 'drawn' by inhabitants' movements
(i.e. GPS traces) and 'coloured' according to how each
person experienced it, mediated via their photographs and
notes about experiences along their routes (Figure 5).
This recalls the concept of 'city image' (Lynch, 1960),
which suggests that each person holds a different 'mental
map' of the city based on how it is experienced. The
prototype is therefore conceptualized as a re-drawing of
the city based on inhabitants' movement, and it
encourages sharing and discussion of individual
experiences and local knowledge of the city.
Figure 5: Digital prototype (image based on existing
website: http://eclectronics.org/infinitecity/)
By providing a space where individually-created maps can
be shared and visualised together, a digital platform can
offer opportunities for enriching and expanding
individual city images. In turn, not being limited by
one's own experience through a process of learning from
each other might also increase individual awareness of
how the city is used and experienced by others, thus open
up alternative possibilities. Moreover, the prototype
also allows users to identify, annotate and discuss
routes and urban spaces that they consider interesting or
with unused potential. Such spaces, which may be
neglected by formal planning and policy-making
procedures, are important for how people move through and
experience the city; using a digital platform, they can
be identified by inhabitants (i.e. made visible) and
brought to the attention of the city council
decision-makers.
Results of Experiment 3 - Online Study
The limited time of this experiment (i.e. one week) did
not allow for deep interaction and extensive
communication among the participants, their contributions
consisting mostly in recording and sharing their routes
through the city. However, there was some dialogue on the
group website regarding features such as the speed of a
route and participants' personal knowledge about
particular places. The possibility of commenting on other
group members' input (i.e. GPS tracks and photographs) in
similar ways with other commonly-used social media, e.g.,
Facebook, proved particularly useful for this. Moreover,
the collective maps proved useful for visualising all the
input in one place. Crowdmap, the platform employed to
create these maps, is particularly suited for localized
content, e.g., geo-tagged photographs, but less so for
GPS tracks (Figure 6). This suggested the need for a more
dynamic platform, which could allow contributors to
upload both localized and also continuous data points
(i.e. GPS traces).
Figure 6: Localized input (red dots) and static GPS
layers (routes)
The two platforms used in this experiment indicated the
value of merging the communicative and networking aspects
of social technology (e.g., Facebook) with the visual
aspects of maps. This allows bringing conversations
conducted through social media channels in one place, on
a map, which makes such conversations locatable and
easier to relate to. However, while this experiment was
part of the design process for a platform that could be
used in planning, feedback from the participants
indicated that people might actually be more willing to
use such a tool if it was not targeted specifically, or
primarily, at urban planning. This concern referred
particularly to its potential uses as a crowdsourcing
platform for commercial interests. Instead, what was seen
to motivate people to use it was the possibility of
sharing, and finding out about, 'quirky' features of
routes or spaces in the city (e.g., unusual building
details, 'secret' gardens or quiet places in the city).
This could offer a personal interpretation of the city,
make one's habitual journey more interesting and even
make it appear shorter when perceived to be long. The
overall results therefore address the first research
question and provide valuable findings, which inform the
'Urban Spacebook' platform concept put forward in the
next section.
THE 'URBAN SPACEBOOK' PLATFORM
The three experiments discussed above were conducted as
part of a co-design approach to devising a participatory
digital platform, which employed mobility as a
'conversation starter' for expressing and sharing
experiences of the city. The first experiment indicated
the need for increasing awareness of individual habitual
interactions with the city as a prerequisite to
communicating such experiences. This was achieved
'on-the-move', through the lens of the camera, and also
through the use of collective maps, developed by seeing
individual mobility traces in the context of others.
Locative media and collaborative online mapping tools can
extend this process to a wider audience and enhance
awareness at a collective level. As illustrated in the
second experiment, an online collective space offered
opportunities for enriching one's personal local
knowledge of the city and it opened up alternative
possibilities (e.g., routes or uses of space). It also
allowed for identifying spaces of interest or with unused
potential from the perspective of their everyday users,
which can augment the knowledge of city planners.
Moreover, the last experiment highlighted the value of
merging the communicative and networking aspects of
social media with the visual features of maps. This can
enhance interaction among users so that a collaborative
process can take place, while making the content of the
discussions locatable.
By alternating between spatial/physical and
technological/virtual features, and encouraging
first-hand interactions with urban space, the three
experiments identified the importance of 'provoking' an
enhanced awareness of local urban knowledge. This
highlighted the importance of those urban experiences
embedded in everyday practice and sometimes taken for
granted to come to the surface and be expressed. Thus,
the three experiments indicated the importance of
complementing technology (e.g., GPS tracking) with
reflective methods (e.g., written diary) and/or spaces
for reflection (e.g., collective maps). This approach
allows individual experiences to be expressed and shared
among users-and potentially between city inhabitants and
decision-makers.
Based on the results of the three spatial-technological
experiments, the prototype ICT platform, dubbed Urban
Spacebook, is discussed here in relation to the
second research query of this study. As the name
suggests, Urban Spacebook is conceptualized as an
interactive map-based platform-essentially a website and
a mobile app-which merges the communicative and
networking aspects of social network technology (e.g.,
Facebook) with visual representations of movement and
city experiences (e.g., GPS-based maps). At a broad
level, the concept employs mobility as a starting point
for discussions about the city and GPS technology as a
tool that can facilitate a re-mapping of the city from
the perspective of its inhabitants. The prototype
consists of an open-source web 2.0 platform (i.e. a
map-based website and a mobile application) for
geo-tagging user-generated content. Users can share their
experiences and connect with others through interactive
maps that include their uploaded photos and notes (e.g.,
images, text, sound recordings) plotted along GPS traces
of their routes. Besides findings from the experiments
conducted, the website and app features and potential
uses are also informed by feedback from the participants
to the experiments, and from DCC planners to whom a
prototype platform was presented. Each of the two core
elements of the Urban Spacebook concept are further
elaborated upon in the two subsections below.
Mobile App
The mobile app offers improved functionality compared
with the experiments in two key areas: it allows for the
provision of location-related information and data
logging on the move. Drawing on the work in Experiment 2,
the location-aware feature encourages the user to take a
detour from his/her usual routes or ways of experiencing
them, and discover what others may have shared (Figure
7). As suggested by the participants in Experiment 3,
this may include 'quirky' features, local uses or
activities that may be found in the area. This can offer
an augmented experience of the city, which can break the
routine of everyday movements and allow users to notice
features of routes usually taken for granted, as
discussed in Experiment 1.
Moreover, looking at everyday spaces with the eye of a
tourist (or from the perspective of other residents) can
enhance one's awareness of the environments people
inhabit and their familiarity with such places (Gordon
& Silva, 2011). By becoming more aware of their
environments through first-hand experiences, users can
better define existing issues and suggest relevant
improvements such as through the use of geo-tagged
photographs and comments. Furthermore, increased
familiarity with, and attachment to, places in the city
can motivate efforts to improve them and enhance
participation in related planning processes (Manzo &
Perkins, 2006). Rather than promoting 'negative
objecting' (e.g., FixYourStreet.ie), the mobile app can
enable a proactive role for those who use it. The
possibility of proactive engagement was an important
feature for the planners to whom the prototype was
presented as it can contribute to a more positive and
collaborative relationship between them and city
inhabitants.
Figure 7: Location-based suggestions of alternative
routes and/or places of interest
The city council could also use the app to communicate
with the users 'on-the-move', through a form of
location-based notifications. By using social media
instead of surveys, a conversation could take place and
also expand-not only between the council and the
individual user, but also amongst other users-in a
potentially less resource-intensive and more
comprehensive way than by conducting on-street surveys
(e.g., Street Conversations). Such discussions would be
geo-located and time-related, thus allowing the
contextualisation and documentation of potential issues
and suggestions. This can make city inhabitants'
participation more flexible and spontaneous, and offers
opportunities for transforming their civic engagement
into an ongoing process, which can enhance current forms
of participatory planning consultations (presently
undertaken at discrete moments in the Irish planning
processes).
Map-based Website
Building on the findings of Experiment 3, the map-based
website offers a space where individual users can come
together through the generation of collective data
visualisations, interactions and communications among
users. Besides making visible shared routes (and
potentially different types of local knowledge regarding
them), the visual and interactive aspects of the digital
map website can bring to light shared concerns or ideas,
and connect users that might not have been able to meet
or enter a conversation otherwise. This interaction can
develop into suggestions for improvements that are
meaningful to them, such as the 'kids'-only garden'
suggested by some of the participants to Experiment 2
(Figure 8). While some of these proposals may be dealt
with by groups of inhabitants, others can be brought to
the attention of the city council. These may refer to
spaces, buildings or other urban features that are
currently outside of formal city plans-yet mediated
through the map, can make planners aware of their
importance for the ordinary city users. As noted by the
planners with whom the prototype was discussed, this
could offer opportunities for new ideas regarding the
public realm that might not have occurred to them
otherwise.
Figure 8: Location-related suggestions for improvements
('energy points')
The visual features of the map-based website also
represent a way to spatially indicate the outcome of the
public engagement process and monitor progress. For
example, an increased concentration of GPS traces could
show an increased use of a formerly avoided area or
improved pedestrian links. This was an important feature
for the DCC Principal City Planner9
interviewed in relation to the prototype, which he saw as
a potential way of complementing current quantitative
metrics with visual representations of 'soft', abstract
data. The map website also allows the recording and
documenting of the process through which a proposal has
emerged, thus improving its transparency-something which
currently is not possible. The concluding discussion, in
the section below, addresses the implications of the
three experiments in Dublin and identifies the
possibilities raised by the proposed Urban Spacebook
prototype.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
This article has discussed how the communication of
experiences embedded in everyday life practices, such as
movement through the city, could potentially enhance
public participation in urban planning. It also described
a prototype tool-the Urban Spacebook platform- as a
medium which could facilitate such participation. This
experimental and co-design approach arguably represent a
potentially innovative and effective addition to recent
endeavours to expand the role and means for participation
of ordinary inhabitants in the planning and development
of their everyday urban environments.
The aim of this work-to understand people's experiences
of their local urban environments-is not new, as
illustrated by the renowned work of Kevin Lynch (1960)
and the more recent developments involving the uses of
web-based GIS technologies to facilitate the collection
of location-based experiential knowledge (Kahila &
Kyttä, 2006, 2009; Kyttä, et al., 2013). The
Dublin-based research discussed in this paper was
intended to extend these aims to those everyday
practices, which are difficult to access, including
unconscious elements of people's everyday interactions
with the city (Brown & Spinney, 2010). In order to
access everyday life experiences of city spaces, our
study combined spatial and technological aspects with
qualitative and reflective methods, and undertook this
process on two levels-the individual; and the collective
level. The hybrid diary-camera-GPS experiment sought to
elicit and represent everyday experiences of urban space
at an individual level. The two subsequent experiments
investigated possibilities for conducting a similar
process of digital data collection and spatial
representation on a broader scale-a collective level. The
diary study (Experiment 1) indicated the value of
enhancing awareness of participants' surroundings (e.g.,
everyday routes) in order to access everyday experiences
of space. This notion was extended further in the urban
awareness walks (Experiment 2), which were explored as
de-constructions of experiential aspects that could be
transposed into digital features. The alternation between
physical and virtual features highlighted the need to
complement technology (e.g., GPS tracking) with
reflective methods (e.g., written diary) and/or spaces
for reflection (e.g., collective maps). This allowed
individual experiences to be expressed and digitally
shared among users-and potentially between Dublin city
inhabitants and decision-makers.
The experimental co-design process indicated how everyday
experiences of urban space might be communicated using
technology. Moreover, the tool put forward, Urban
Spacebook, offers opportunities for enhancing the
co-governance of urban spaces which people use in their
daily lives, by creating a digital arena where they can
discuss such spaces and their future development with the
decision-makers. The research employed the notion of
mobility as a 'conversation starter', which offers a
common starting point for expressing and sharing
experiences of the city. When complemented by technology,
mobility becomes a tool that can facilitate a re-drawing
of the city from the perspective of its inhabitants-by
using GPS-tracking, inhabitants can produce
user-generated maps of the city. While GPS technology has
already been used in tracing city maps with the help of
inhabitants (e.g., OpenStreetMaps), this paper suggests a
new purpose for its use. Sharing mobility experiences and
drawing city maps can become part of a collaborative
process between ordinary city inhabitants and city
decision-makers, aimed at rebalancing power relations and
at placing inhabitants in a co-productive capacity.
Rather than using ICTs only to gather or count data,
technology can become a tool for a collaborative
production of knowledge for, and about, the city. Beyond
the present role of data-generators, Urban Spacebook
offers therefore opportunities for ordinary inhabitants
to become part of the important process of local
knowledge production about urban spaces and their future
development.
Thus, the Urban Spacebook encourages a framework for a
form of urban governance that is based upon a
collaborative, ongoing and iterative process, as distinct
from the usual one-time participatory initiatives
(Jarenko, 2013). This conceptualization is inspired by
open-source approaches, which place an emphasis on
collaborative forms of knowledge production rather than
consumption (Haque, 2007). From this perspective,
ordinary inhabitants are seen as co-producers of the city
together with the decision-makers, and not simply as
passive participants in planning processes or mere
consumers of services. This suggests that residents can
become active participants in the development of their
city, by sharing its quintessential (yet very little
known) aspects-what city living is about and how it is
experienced in daily life. Moreover, expanding on the
notion of GPS-drawing (Wood, 2010), such digital maps can
become a way of critically engaging inhabitants in the
development of the city. For example, its visual
qualities with concentrations of traces and 'energy /
activity points' clusters can be employed to draw
attention to those spaces that have been neglected and
raise awareness of potential solutions, as envisaged and
needed by their inhabitants and users.
In summary, the prototype Urban Spacebook platform
potentially provides viable opportunities for sharing
everyday life experiences of urban space and also for
enhancing the co-governance of such spaces, by creating
an arena where city inhabitants and city decision-makers
can come together to discuss and envision possibilities
for future spatial development. We suggest that future
work needs to be conducted to develop the platform beyond
its conceptual stage (outlined here), by potentially
prototyping it in various urban locations in order to
compare different contexts and to experiment with
different types of data; different visualisations; and
distinct applications such as commercial applications or
local public initiatives from city governments or
community groups. Challenges to implementing such ICT
prototypes are also acknowledged, including issues around
data privacy and local motivations for initial and
ongoing participation in urban planning processes. For
example, GPS data represents a sensitive issue because of
its potential negative connotations, such as surveillance
(Crang & Graham, 2007). Participation could also be
challenging if the platform is perceived as a one-way
data mining tool, not giving something back to its users;
or it could be limited to particular groups, thus
deepening contrasts between city areas and leading to
biased results. However, based on the findings of the
experiments conducted in Dublin, it is believed that if
the platform is carefully designed and offers individuals
a meaningful exchange for their time and effort these
challenges could potentially be overcome.
Finally, the experimental and co-design approach
discussed in this paper illustrated how the communication
of everyday experiences of urban space could enhance
participation in urban planning. By alternating between
physical and virtual features, the experiments discussed
above indicated the need to complement digital
technologies (e.g., GPS tracking) with physical
reflective methods (e.g., written diary) and/or spaces
for reflection (e.g., collective maps). These approaches
allow individual experiences to be expressed and shared
among users-and potentially between city inhabitants and
decision-makers-representing the substance of the
collaborative approach proposed. By using mobility as a
conversation starter and GPS technology as a tool,
ordinary inhabitants can produce user-generated maps of
the city, which can complement those drawn up by city
planners. This potentially frames a new form of urban
governance, which is based on a collaborative, ongoing
and iterative process, and could expand the role of city
inhabitants to that of co-producers of the city together
with the decision-makers. Acknowledging the need for
deeper cultural and practice changes regarding how public
participation is implemented in urban planning processes,
the Urban Spacebook platform embodies the potential for
enhancing interaction between those who inhabit and those
who govern cities.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the research participants for their
time and contributions to this study, Dr Niamh Harty and
Professor Anna Davies (Trinity College Dublin) for their
support in my work, and the reviewers for their
invaluable advice and help with this article. Infinite
thanks also to the Interactivos?'12 workshop
collaborators: Gabriela Avram (University of Limerick),
Alessio Chierico (University of Art and Industrial Design
Linz), Christine Gates (independent artist),
Eulàlia Guiu (University of Girona) and Kathryn
Maguire (independent artist); and technical advisors: Tim
Redfern (independent artist) and Max Kazemzadeh
(Gallaudet University).
This research was part of a Graduate Research Programme
in Sustainable Development, in conjunction with the award
of a grant from the Irish Research Council (former
IRCSET/IRCHSS).
ENDNOTES
1 A useful discussion regarding the
differences between the rational, deliberative thinking
system and the irrational, intuitive and 'auto-pilot'
system as related to people's decision-making processes
can be found in the work of psychologist Daniel Kahneman
(e.g., Kahneman, 2012). In relation to the study reported
here, this refers to the difference between rational
considerations such as way-finding and perceptions of
one's surroundings, and those aspects of everyday
practices of movement, which are habitually repeated and
contribute to 'auto-pilot' forms of interaction with the
city.
2 The diary participants had been involved in
the previous research stages of a wider study into
mobility practices and participatory approaches to urban
planning (e.g., Baibarac, 2014).
3 The GPS tracking device used in the diary
experiment was a Trackstick Mini
(http://www.trackstick.com/products/mini/intro.html).
4 The camera model used in the diary
experiment was a Casio Exilim Hybrid-GPS.
5 Experiment 2 was conducted during a workshop
entitled Interactivos?'12, part of "Dublin Hack the City"
Exhibition. This was organized as an open call by Science
Gallery, Dublin, together with MediaLab Prado, Madrid
(http://sciencegallery.com/interactivos).
6 EveryTrail is a free iPhone and Android app,
which allows tracing one's route on a map, geo-tagging
photographs and uploading the GPS files on the user's
webpage. Users can comment and vote on others' trips and
photos, create groups and share their trips via Facebook
and Twitter (http://www.everytrail.com/).
7 Crowdmap is a ready-to-use online mapping
platform, which allows users to set up their own projects
without having to install the platform on a web server
(https://crowdmap.com/).
8 The digital prototype was developed with the
help of Tim Redfern (independent artist) using open
source code-OpenStreetMap and Leaflet, among others,
during the Interactivos?'12 workshop in June / July 2012.
The website was populated with the data collected by the
participants using EveryTrail.
9 The DCC Principal City Planner has overall
responsibility for strategic / forward planning and
development management in the city, and has introduced a
sustainability framework as part of the current
Development Plan, based on Natural Step principles. The
City Planner was interviewed by the author in January
2013 in relation to the research reported here.
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