Myself, Dr Michael Crilly and Dr Georgiana Varna are currently engaged in developing and deploying a series of practical, urban design, experiments in the North East of England. We are doing this because we believe we can learn a great deal about how urban spaces should evolve by 'doing' as well as by observing. This approach builds on our previous efforts (Oswell & Varna, 2024, Varna & Oswell, 2023; Varna & Oswell, 2021); but we would be very interested to hear the views of colleagues, not only on how we we are planning to carry out this work, but also how they use processes of experimental urbanism if they are engaged in it themselves.
Danny Oswell
To improve our cities, we should try out different ideas like new park designs, traffic patterns, or building layouts in small-scale experiments first. This means testing things on a small part of the city before making big changes everywhere. By doing this, we can see what works well and what doesn't without spending a lot of money or causing big disruptions. For example, we could test a new bike lane on one street to see if it reduces traffic and helps cyclists. If it works, we can expand it to other areas. This way, we make our cities better by learning from these small experiments.
That's really interesting Rohit - and thanks so much for taking the time to answer. I agree with your point about scale. As well as limiting risk, it also enables more precise results from the experimentation to be identified. And it of course reduces costs, which are all important in these spending-constrained times. There are some nice examples of modest scale greening experiments carried out by Arup, under the banner of "Wild West End," in London here:
https://www.arup.com/projects/wild-west-end/
Tambien es muy importante la opinion de los ciudadanos que ocuparan esos espacios, de ellos parten las verdaderas necesidades que combinaremos con nuestra experticia tecnica. La participacion ciudadana nos aporta grandes ideas, que quiza nunca hayamos contemplado, se adapta a sus usuarios y esto permite entornos urbanos mas sostenibles.
Estoy de acuerdo con cada palabra de esa Celina. La participación ciudadana significativa en el desarrollo y la entrega del urbanismo experimental es esencial si va a ser eficaz para ayudar a crear mejores espacios públicos.
It is unlikely that transit innovations can be tested at small scale. This is because connections matter. So, a one street bike lane will not reveal the impact of bike lanes in general. City bus routes used to be evaluated one route at a time. It would be observed that one particular route is losing money. So, the planners would, of course, close that route. But this would be the case for pretty much all peripheral routes. Soon, the whole system would have to be shut down.
That's a really interesting point Peter, thank you. The issue of scale in experimentation is something that we have considered, but I think your example here shows just how seriously we need to take it - particularly in the data analysis phases. Thanks so much for taking the time to answer. It's greatly appreciated.
Experimentation is a valuable approach to enhancing urban spaces. Here are some ways to apply experimental processes:
1. Prototyping: Test and refine urban design elements like public art, street furniture, or green spaces through iterative prototyping.
2. Piloting: Implement small-scale projects to assess effectiveness before scaling up.
3. Co-creation: Engage citizens, stakeholders, and designers in collaborative experimentation to ensure inclusive and context-specific solutions.
4. Data-driven design: Use data and sensors to monitor urban dynamics and inform evidence-based design decisions.
5. Iterative refinement: Embrace a culture of experimentation, learning from successes and failures to continuously improve urban spaces.
6. Flexible urban planning: Encourage adaptive planning that accommodates evolving needs and experimentation.
7. Urban labs and testbeds: Designate areas for controlled experimentation, like smart city testbeds or innovation districts.
8. Community engagement: Involve citizens in experimental processes to ensure solutions meet local needs and foster ownership.
9. Interdisciplinary collaboration: Combine expertise from urban design, sociology, technology, and other fields to tackle complex urban challenges.
10. Embrace failure: View experimentation as an opportunity to learn from failures and apply those lessons to future improvements.
By adopting experimental processes, cities can become dynamic, responsive, and resilient, ultimately enhancing the quality of life for citizens.
Hi Faiqa
Thanks so much for giving your valuable time to provide such a fulsome answer. It's genuinely appreciated. Some of your ideas (piloting, urban labs, community engagement etc) are already an important aspect of our overall approach to experimental urbanism. But I really like your points about interdisciplinary collaboration and embracing failure. Coupling those with iterative refinement will help us set out a creative process that will help us meet of the objectives eloquently set out in your final sentence.
It was mentioned in previous comments that experimentation has to be small scale, but that doesn't has to be small spatial scale. It can be instead small/short temporal scale, such as closing car traffic for one day in an entire neighbourhood or city centre, and observing the impact at metropolitan scale. There are many examples of 'temporary' & 'tactical' urbanism that are 'experimental'.
Book Temporary and Tactical Urbanism: (Re)Assembling Urban Space
Hi Elek
Thanks for that. I agree with what you say about scale and temporality, I also take your point about the connections between tactical and experimental urbanism, We are still in the process of developing our thinking around that relationship. We have a working hypothesis relating to it; and we are hopeful that the programme of experimental works that we have just embarked upon will help us properly test it.