BackgroundA limited amount of research has examined the effect of changing public open spaces on active living. This paper will present the study protocol of a community-based intervention study co-designed in an interdisciplinary collaboration with community members to develop urban installations highly tailored to promote active living among children (10–13-years-old) and seniors (>60-years-old) in a deprived neighbourhood in Copenhagen.MethodsThe study builds on a quasi-experimental study design with two sub-studies: 1) a children study and 2) a senior study. The interventions will be developed, designed and implemented in collaboration with local children and seniors, respectively, using different co-design tools and methods. We will evaluate the effect of the interventions on children’s and senior’s use of the new-built urban installations using accelerometers in combination with GPS as well as systematic observation using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC). A process evaluation with focus groups consisting of the various stakeholders in the two sub-studies will be used to gain knowledge of the intervention processes.DiscussionThe paper presents new approaches in the field of public open space interventions through interdisciplinary collaboration, participatory co-design approach and combination of measurements. Using both effect and process evaluations the study will provide unique insights in the role and importance of the interdisciplinary collaboration, participatory processes, and tailoring changes in public open space to local needs and wishes. These results can be used to guide urban renewal projects in deprived neighbourhoods in the future.Trial registrationRetrospectively registered with study ID ISRCTN50036837. Date of registration: 16 December 2016.

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‘Move the Neighbourhood’ is a research project experimenting with co-designing playable installations for a public green space in Copenhagen through a design-based collaboration between children and design-researchers. We employed a co-design process to investigate whether deconstructing the rules for both play and design could trigger new ways of thinking about playable spaces. The aim was to test a participatory process in order to identify what might be meaningful in relation to both play and designing for play, along a spectrum ranging from rules to collaborative improvisation. Our fieldwork cultivated what Haraway calls ‘response-ability’ in a ‘curious practice’ that explores the unanticipated in the collaboration between children and designers. The metaphor of a ‘jelly cake’ from play-research was used to illustrate the messiness of play and to frame the discussion on collaborative design. We see play as a serious co-player that evokes collective worlds through productive, messy fields of action, and enables actors to engage in the co-design of playable public space. In this article, we investigate how play can create agency, spark imagination and open up practices in both artistic and academic processes. Drawing on Barad’s concept of ‘intra-action’, we investigate design/play as a dynamic engine for exploring collaborative design practices as a dialogue between art, play and co-design.

Human health and planetary health are influenced by city lifestyles, city leadership, and city development. For both, worrying trends are leading to increasing concern and it is imperative that human health and environmental impacts become core foci in urban policy. Changing trajectory will require concerted action; the journal Cities & Health is dedicated to supporting the flow of knowledge, in all directions, to help make this happen. We wish to foster communication between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, communities, and decision-makers in cities. This is the purpose of the City Know-how section of the journal. 'Research for city practice' disseminates lessons from research by explaining key messages for city leaders, communities, and the professions involved in city policy and practice. 'City shorts' provide glimpses of what is being attempted or achieved 'on the ground' and 'case studies' are where you will find evaluations of interventions. Last, 'Commentary and debate' extends conversations we are having to develop and mobilize much needed new thinking. Join in these conversations. In order to strengthen the community of interest, we would like to include many and varied voices, including those from younger practitioners and researchers who are supporting health and health equity in everyday urban lives.