Extract from the Dossier’s Editor’s Preface

Today, living in this Anthropocene era, means admitting that society’s problems can no longer be ‘solved’ in traditional terms. Sustainable urban development and transformation in particular demand tools and techniques for working with evolving situations that evade simple answers. In the 21st century, unpredictable economy and complexly interwoven societal and environmental sustainability challenges call out for new modes of problem framing and knowledge production. 

Underlying this research is the question of how to deal with unpredictability in urban planning and design contexts: How to strategically exploit ever-changing and uncertain conditions to frame beneficial long-term urban development and transformation results? How to work with dynamic situations? Recognizing potentials already in place, the ‘Scape 16 dossier forms part of an ongoing project to extract generalizable knowledge from everyday practice. It focuses on the potential derived from design’s long history as a practical means of generating ideas – as a knowledge-producing activity sharing with the sciences and the humanities a mission to contribute to the betterment of society.  

The dossier showcases the work of design practitioners and researchers who share a commitment to problem-framing, information-sharing, and knowledge-creation; who see value in ‘crossing the line’ -- collaborating between the academy and the professions; and who strive to seek out good ideas and learning from the experiences of others, no matter where or how that useful know-how is produced. Design-minded thinkers identify relationships between things that others differently trained may deem separate. Design thinking ‘creates’ new value by speculating (projecting) new ways of assembling materials that exist elsewhere in other configurations. It works with and upon the specifics of always changing situations to envision potential new ones.

To “do sustainability” differently means reconsidering, reflecting, reviewing, refining, and remaking how the physical planning and design disciplines typically approach theorizing and practice. Working with tools and techniques that “work with” uncertainty means less time lost on solutions that don’t fit, more ideas recycled for reuse in new places and novel ways. Accepting uncertainty reduces waste at all stages of sustainable urban planning and design processes. 

Established disciplines and professions deliver keys to understanding and modes of operation to handle problems in conventionally disciplined and professional ways. Yet, disciplined or professional mindsets can get in the way of seeing situations in another light, from grasping opportunities for further learning when problems cannot be simply scrutinized or easily ‘solved’. 

Problems resisting standard solutions offer up more than frustration. When approached with the right mindset, they invite us to look beyond professional business-as-usual and academic discipline-based knowledge creation. This is the moment to un-discipline and de-professionalise– to cross old lines drawn between academy and profession, one discipline and another, one profession and another. More engagement between practice and research leads to more testbeds for exploring processes aimed at sustainable urban development and urban transformation.

What sustainability practices should we pay attention to and how can we navigate across theory considerations and practice experiments to foster common learning outcomes? Each contributor to this dossier aims at reducing unneeded effort, reusing what works, discarding what doesn’t, recycling ideas in ground-breaking ways. Some describe tools for doing sustainability differently - others describe techniques for their application in, on and through particular projects.

Uncertain situations create genuine opportunities for bi-directional dialogue, learning and knowledge transfer. Working together, researchers and practitioners can not only evaluate if projects achieved pre-defined goals, they can also identify and document unexpected (positive and negative) outcomes and effects. These opportunities should not be squandered. They establish a foundation for real innovation. Interrupted, non-linear and circular processes are open to ‘in-process’ analysis, describing lessons learned and pointing to possible applications elsewhere. They also allow for reflection on the outcomes of executed projects, identifying questions meriting further research and issues yet to be theorized. Research and theories provide useful practice tools. Practice provides fuel for research.

If we distil from the varied dossier contents some synthetic message, it would be that an iterative method using design-thinking as a planning tool has real positive effects. Leveraging the inevitable gaps between projected change visions and ever-evolving real-life circumstances supports more resilient, sustainable urban development and transformation by producing know-how for working smarter, and more economically, for use today and in the future.