Copyright: © Wolf Sondermann

In the face of the challenges of future-proof sustainable urban development “city makers” and “space entrepreneurs” are ascribed a potentially transformative role and the ability to mobilize local “Eigenart” – the characteristic potentials and intrinsic logics of specific cities. From a transition perspective, these groups can be understood as niche actors piloting alternative logics of urban development. Bachmann investigates this role from a political science perspective, focussing on Utopiastadt (“Utopia City”) in Wuppertal. His central research question is: How do “city makers” influence the governance of urban development beyond their specific projects?

Copyright: © Estelle Evrard

Planning is at the heart of cross-border cooperation: cross-border planning schemes are under negotiation and infrastructure projects under development. Yet the notion ofcross-border spatial planning remains difficult to grasp: how to define it, how does it coexist with domestic planning? Drawing upon the concept of planning culture, Dr. Evrard uses the planning game method to observe how planners from different national backgrounds 1) mobilise key planning concepts; 2) negotiate their respective visions with one another and 3) relate to the border.

Copyright: © Emilia Smeds

In recent years, urban researchers and practitioners have intensely discussed and explored the potential of experiments to offer opportunities for collaborative innovation and even result in transformative change within the city. However, there is still little empirical evidence on the extent to which experiments actually scale up to generate city-wide, institutional or structural impact. Smed’s research has compared how municipal governments in Bristol and New York have sought to govern urban mobility through experimentation. Tracing the impacts over 60 experiments in time, the research has found that the degree of upscaling has been high.

Copyright: © Robin A. Chang

Despite the strong orientation towards long-term and strategic planning through urban planning and policies, interest for temporally undefined and tactical interventions grows. Temporary Use (TU) is the focus of Robin A. Chang’s work that seeks to pursue a critical understanding of how such initiatives are developing in scholarship and in reality. This presentation will share initial insights in the institutionalization of and meaning production through TU in urban studies using classic literature review and bibliometric methods.

Copyright: © joern Hekmati

The growing demand for mobility in line with the more and more differentiated range of modes of transportation pose a new challenge to existing infrastructures. The existing multimodal nodes originally were designed neither for present frequencies nor diversity of services. Bjoern Hekmati describes infrastructure as a part of a mycelium, permeating western industrial nations. The mycel forms a symbiotic relationship with the (post)industrial society, with the inhabitants of the living environment within its range. He views accessibility as the capacity of the membrane between system boundaries and describes hubs that can only be designed using integrative strategies and methods borrowed from design thinking.

Copyright: © Maddalena Iovene

What turns space that is public into a public space? Why are some streets and squares valued, yet others shunned? Why do people tend to prefer some places rather than others? How does this affect their behaviour? This study summarises existing research into why people like some squares and streets and avoid others. It sets out new primary research with a review of 18,966 streets and squares in six British cities. Using this evidence, Maddalena Iovene proposes Ten Steps for developers, architects, planning authorities and landowners to follow to design beautiful and popular public spaces.

Copyright: © Olivia Kummel

Many people in urban areas around the globe, especially in countries of the South, still live under abject conditions. The inhabitants of these ‘underserved’ settlements fight for improve­ments in their living conditions and organize themselves when the public institutions cannot fulfill their responsibility. Olivia Kummels work deals with the development of self-provisioning neighbourhoods in Cairo, Kathmandu and Ulaanbaatar in general, and the actors and their constellations in detail, examining the actors’ influences in improvement of living standards in self-provisioning neighbourhoods.

Copyright: © Yassine Moustanjidi

The increasing permeability of political boundaries to the thick­ening flows of goods, people and resources has pushed beyond the very notions of space, place, city and governance as we know them. Yassine Mosutanjidi presents a case study of the SIJORI Growth Triangle, a term that refers to the strategic interweaving of the comparative advantages between the city state of Singapore, the Province of Johor (Malaysia), and the Province of Riau islands (Indonesia). His research investigates the role of non-state actors in shaping the geography of the extended urban region in the absence of a state-driven territorial agenda.

Copyright: © Cornelis van Eesteren

In recent decades, The Netherlands has seen an increase in the use of regional design-led practices in national indicative planning. Despite this, the interrelations between design and planning decision making are not well understood, and attempts to involve the expertise and ambition of designers in planning have had unclear outcomes. Verena Balz’ analysis reveals forms of discretional control that shape the creative design practice. Her work contributes to the discussion of how design can contribute to an understanding of the multiple planning experiments emerging in this post-regulative era.