A Spotlight of Co-creation and Inclusiveness of Public Open Spaces

Abstract

This chapter focuses on co-creation as the way to engage different stakeholders with everyday urban environments based on equality, diversity and social cohesion. It presents the relationship of co-creation and inclusiveness of public open spaces together with different aspects of co-creation related to issues of publicness and space. It discusses why and how co-creation must take into consideration the characteristics of the comprehensive spatial development processes. It suggests that co-creation is a wider concept than co-design and is a multistage process that contributes to inclusive public spaces, providing measures for social sustainability of place. This chapter argues that digital tools may help to overcome challenges of co-creation and provide an opinion on the contribution of digital technologies to the co-creation process by engaging people in the design, use and management of public spaces, providing new resources for interaction and users' empowerment. For that it presents an overview of the possible contribution of digital technologies to support inclusiveness of the co-creation processes that is structured by typologies of digital tools and their possible interlinking with the steps of the co-creation process. To improve the understanding of such possibilities it critically addresses strengths and weaknesses of using digital tools for co-creation and inclusiveness and provides recommendations for their further development.

Clustering public urban green spaces through ecosystem services potential: A typology proposal for place-based interventions

“…In other words, in spaces experiencing socioeconomic and environmental deprivation, the PUGS ecosystem services potential is lower than in the others (Vidal et al, 2021c). Set against this background, the current PUGS planning literature highlights the need to develop methodologies that combine both data collection and monitoring in the citizen co-creation framework (Bisschops and Beunen, 2019;Davis and Andrew, 2017;Erjavec, 2017;Guti´errez et al, 2018;PROGRESS, 2017). The proposed clustering process for identifying PUGS typologies based on ecosystem services potential proved to be adequate to the objectives of the study, with a high rate of accuracy.…”

Children's Green Infrastructure: Children and Their Rights to Nature and the City

“…Azevedo's proposal (Azevedo, 2020 ) of an intergenerational space can be easily adapted to the development of CGI, in accordance also to a place-based and place-conscious perspective that values local knowledge and community participation (Malone, 2016 ; Villanueva et al, 2016 ), including the knowledge and participation of children and young people. In the case of CGI, it is believed that cocreation between communities and decision-makers (Sanders and Stappers, 2008 ; Lund, 2018 ; Šuklje Erjavec and Ruchinskaya, 2019 ; Costa et al, 2020 ) may better promote children's participation in urban planning and design process. Furthermore, and of utmost importance, community involvement goes far beyond the creation of CGI.…”

To Play and To Be Played: Exploring the Design of Urban Machines for Playful Placemaking

“…Looking ahead beyond existing designs of public benches with dual functionalities of utility and play, I Have Feelings Too can also be envisioned as a future concept that positions urban machines to be co-creators of playful experiences in public spaces. From the perspective of placemaking with playful interactions, this notion of co-creation (Eggertsen Teder, 2019;Šuklje Erjavec and Ruchinskaya, 2019;Mengi, 2020) can be understood as a partnership or a collaboration between stakeholders with shared responsibilities in the process of making play. Since intelligent, learning, and personified public benches would be artificial, spatial entities that are representing the identity of places, they are also inevitably a "Playmaker" and a stakeholder of public space (see Figure 10).…”