Project R-11548

Design with/for trust; Design research into platforms for sustainable learning on how to share space in more caring ways (working title) (Research)

The public space - the street - belongs to all of us. However, during the last century, in many European cities, the mobility system, and more specifically the dominance of the car, has gradually reduced and divided the space for people literally, but also figuratively. There exists a growing uncertainty and disagreement about how to deal with the complex challenge of increasingly busy car roads: their economic and functional necessity is weighed against their disadvantages for social cohesion and ecological balance (Illich, 1974; Gehl, 2010, Verkade, 2020). Within the context of the complex North-South Limburg project (Studio NZL, 2019), which focuses on the redesign process of a very busy and important regional connection in a rather rural part of Flanders, called Limburg, we question the current mobility system as something that for years has "divided" the community and its politics by rediscovering it as a shared space. We are developing a platform-methodology based on what connects us. In this context, we decide not to start from what divides people, but examines "sharing" as a stepping stone for a sustainable mobility transition. We questioned the current mobility system as something that "divides" by learning together about mobility and its interactions with everyday life: how do we think about mobility and its interaction and how do we want to shape it. By researching together "what we share" (Huybrechts, Palimieri and Devisch, 2018), we build on a tradition of participatory design research that looks at "commons" (Berlant, 2016; Gil and Baldwin, 2014; Marttila, Botero, & Saad- Sulonen, 2014; Seravalli, 2014; Teli, 2019) and "partial economies" (Avram, Choi, De Paoli, Light, Lyle, & Teli, 2017). Today, a participatory process is often a "moment of alignment and knowledge exchange". The question is whether such a process today should or could not do more? On a methodical level, we say that, in an increasingly uncertain world, a spatial process should provide a home - a "Platform" - where closer, more caring connections can be made between people to create stronger and learning communities with confidence in each other and for the future. On a thematic level, we say that if we approach mobility and the street as a theme we share, it opens a new dimension of living together. In general, we can decide that this platform-methodology provides both methodological and thematic guidance through the collaborative learning of future-oriented skills in shaping space in increasingly uncertain circumstances.

01 January 2019 - 31 August 2023