An Interdisciplinary and Intersectoral Action-research Method: Case-Study of Climate Change Adaptation by Cities Using Participatory Web 2.0 Urban Design

Abstract

This paper discusses the last segment of a three-year interdisciplinary and intersectoral action research on climate change and urban transformation. The project had, as one of its core missions, the role of imagining urban and architectural adaptations for urban neighbourhoods that would contribute to minimizing the negative impacts of climate change on people's comfort, health and safety. The first part of the paper describes the collaborative design and augmented participation method used in the context of Québec City, Canada. These include the design process conducted to imagine adaptation scenarios, the visual strategies undertaken to make these understandable for the population, and the Web 2.0 crowdsourcing approach forwarded to measure feasibility and social acceptability of the design and visualization strategies. The second part discusses three positive outcomes of the process. First, collaborative design conducted with intersectoral groups of experts constitutes a promising avenue to identify adaptations and evaluate their relevance. Second, crowdsourcing is a powerful tool to inform the general public about climate change including both negative and potential aspects. As well, the crowdsource model allows access to particular knowledge which empowered users to make changes around their homes and neighbourhoods or advocating action from their local government. Crowdsourcing is also an efficient tool to help understand what people know about the potential impact of climate change and how it bears on their comfort, health and safety. Third and finally, the design proposals and the evaluation comments generated by working closely with various stakeholders, along with the public on-line consultation, allow for the induction of pragmatic recommendations that can be used as decision aids by elected officials and civil servants to better prepare their municipalities for climate change.

Planning adaptation based on local actors’ knowledge and participation: a climate governance experiment

“…Workshop participants were asked to share comments and classify adaptation measures by colour: green-coloured measures were considered legally feasible and socially acceptable; yellow-coloured measures were desirable but barely feasible or acceptable; redcoloured measures were undesirable and unfeasible. Their comments were recorded on a continuous basis by the research team using crowd-sourcing software (Crowdbrite TM ) to enable participants to offer their feedback directly, but also for research purposes (Vachon, Chouinard, Cloutier, Dubois, & Després, 2013). Each participant could therefore classify adaptation measures according to their perceptions of the pitfalls that might be encountered in integrating these into urban planning and during implementation (Table 1).…”

The Complex Case of Carbon-Measuring Tools in Landscape Architecture

“…Pathfinder utilizes the following metrics (Figure 1) across an industry-standard project life cycle stage model using data from the Athena Impact Estimator and the Forest Service for sequestration data, with a verification of environmental consultants [50]. The tool's creators readily admit its limitations, stating that users needing a "more accurate inventory" should utilize itree, Athena, Tally, Gabi or SimaPro [51] suggesting a degree of inherent measurement ambiguity within the system. This is particularly concerning given the existing barriers to adopting measures to reduce emissions identified by Jackson and Kaesehage [4].…”

Material and Social Construction: A Framework for the Adaptation of Buildings

“…This framework is intentionally limited to the scale of the building and its users and not to the urban form, which has a different range of calculi and associated sets of methods and ontologies (Vachon et al 2013). This limitation of scale does not exclude from analysis the natural and urban ecological forces which shape the use and performance of a building.…”