Playing with the Possible - Co-Producing the Right to the City from the Bottom-Up - Kth Diva Portal Org
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DEGREE PROJECT IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT, SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN 2021 Playing with the Possible Co-Producing the Right to the City from the Bottom-Up TATIANA BODNAR KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Abstract
This thesis aims to explore possible alternatives to the current neoliberal development by developing,
implementing, and analyzing one possible alternative way of framing participation. Working under the
name of Fluke, I have co-developed a research project using participatory action research from the
bottom-up that creates a more engaging and inclusive urban co-production process using play and
games. By exploring this process from a practical perspective, I argue that playful co-design processes
applied at the local scale have potential to allow people opportunities to ensure what Lefebvre calls the
‘right to the city’ — their right to be not only consumers, but also their right to become a co-producer of
urban space.
Situating our action research in our student housing neighborhood of Stockholm, Sweden, I hope to
articulate that urban co-design processes have the potential to explore the boundless possible urban
futures in an inclusive manner. Within our process, we developed playful urban planning tools like a
place analysis Easter Egg Hunt, a playful visioning workshop, and a place prototyping game. Through
this five-month period, over 300 residents participated in different manners with the co-creation of a
temporary festival exploring the possibilities of urban space: Lappis Summer Dream Day. Through this
participatory exploration, we co-produce alternative valuations of urban space that fulfill social and
creative needs, not just the needs of capital, to co-create what Hou (2018) calls the ‘new commons’.
Key-words: co-production, possible city, right to the city, participation, play, commons
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Acknowledgments
There are so many people I could thank for making this thesis come to realization. First, I want to thank
all the Lappis residents that engaged in this research project from one way or another, even if it was for a
brief encounter. Your input was so invaluable to the process. Shoutout to all the Dreamerz that worked to
build the reimaginations – you amaze me! Thank you for taking so much time out of your days to
participate and develop something that everyone could take part in.
To those in Cluster 3, that showed us new ways to critically experiment with public space thank you.
Your way of thinking really inspired me to think more abstractly and creatively. To Adria, thank you so
much for coming to our activities with camera in hand. They say pictures can say a thousand words, but
somehow yours can say even more. To those on the LOm board, thank you for trusting us enough to give
us 3000kr to test out this experiment. Without this and the access to the communal spaces, there is no way
we would’ve been about to co-produce such a process. Thanks to my great friend Heather for helping me
edit the thesis, along with my supervisor Marikken for helping me outline my thoughts, keeping me
focused, and always bringing a critical eye to my work.
To Nicole, thank you for making Fluke such a fun thesis project to work on. I am so eternally glad that we
decided to do something completely out of the ordinary on a cold December day. Your creativity and
positivity never ceases to amaze me. Lastly, I want to thank my family for the. I can’t look at Fluke and
not see your influence. To my Mom, thanks for always listening and pushing me to be my best. To my
Dad, thanks for helping me sharpen my argumentative skills and pushing me to see a different
perspective. To my grandparents, thank you for your weirdness, creativity, and always making things with
me. Overall, this thesis took a village to co-create.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 5
1.1 Introducing Lappis......................................................................................................................... 5
1.2 Introducing Neoliberalism & The Commons ....................................................................................... 5
1.3 Neoliberalism Comes To Lappis .......................................................................................................... 6
1.4 Imposing My Right to the City & Enabling Others .............................................................................. 7
2. Aim and Research Questions ................................................................................................................ 9
2.1 Aim ................................................................................................................................................ 9
2.2 Research Questions ...................................................................................................................... 9
3. Theoretical Framework ....................................................................................................................... 10
3.1 Lefebvre and the Right to the Possible City ................................................................................ 10
3.2 Playing with the City ................................................................................................................... 11
3.3 Co-Designing the City .................................................................................................................. 12
3.4 Agonism, Conflict, and Open Communication in the City........................................................... 14
4. Methodology and Research Design .................................................................................................... 15
4.1 Participatory Action Research..................................................................................................... 15
4.2 Semi-Structured Interviews ........................................................................................................ 16
4.3 Survey................................................................................................................................................ 18
4.4 Limitations and Ethical Concerns ...................................................................................................... 18
4.4.1 Covid-19 Restrictions ................................................................................................................. 18
4.4.2 Ethical Concerns of PAR ............................................................................................................. 19
4.5 What’s A Fluke? ................................................................................................................................ 19
4.6 Fluke Collaborators ........................................................................................................................... 20
4.7 Research Design ................................................................................................................................ 21
5. Doing PAR: Our Co-Design Process ..................................................................................................... 22
5.1 Sensitivity .......................................................................................................................................... 22
5.1.1 Fluke Encounters ........................................................................................................................ 22
5.1.2 Egg Hunt Place Analysis ............................................................................................................. 22
5.1.3 Envisioning Lappis: Playwalk ...................................................................................................... 24
5.2 Staging......................................................................................................................................... 26
5.2.1 Envisioning Lappis: Future Thinking ........................................................................................... 26
5.2.2 Fluke Dayz: Prototyping Possible Futures .................................................................................. 28
5.2.3 Place Decision: Using Participatory Budgeting .......................................................................... 30
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5.2.4 BBQ and Co-Design .................................................................................................................... 31
5.3 Mobilizing.................................................................................................................................... 33
5.3.1 Lappis Summer Dream Day ................................................................................................. 33
6 Exploring Participation ........................................................................................................................ 41
6.1 Playing with Participation ................................................................................................................. 41
6.1.1 Play Creates Opportunity For Agonism ...................................................................................... 41
6.1.2 Play Creates Sites of Encounter ................................................................................................. 42
6.2 Co-designing Participation ................................................................................................................ 46
6.2.1 The Fluke Process ....................................................................................................................... 46
6.2.2 The Business-As-Usual Process .................................................................................................. 48
6.3 Scaling Participation ......................................................................................................................... 50
7 Critical Synthesis and Discussion ........................................................................................................ 53
7.1 Exploring the Possible through Sandbox Urbanism .......................................................................... 53
7.2 The Role of the Planner in Sandbox Urbanism ................................................................................. 54
7.3 The Limits to Sandbox Urbanism ...................................................................................................... 54
7.4 Reflection on our Right to the City ................................................................................................... 55
8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 56
9 Epilogue............................................................................................................................................... 59
10 References ...................................................................................................................................... 60
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1. Introduction
1.1 Introducing Lappis
Lappis is not the norm, but that’s what makes it interesting. Perched on top of a mountain overlooking the
first urban park in the City of Stockholm, this student neighborhood is the largest in Sweden and is filled
to the brim with peculiarities. It’s weekly tradition, the Lappis Scream, where students collectively yell
from their windows at 22.00 every Tuesday, is featured as an unusual attraction in Stockholm on the the
Atlas Obscura (Atlas Obscura, 2021). Short for Lappkärrsberget, the neighborhood of Lappis was built by
the housing corporation Stockholm Studentbostäder (SSSB) set up by the student union in the 1960’s in
an effort to provide cheap and affordable housing to students across Stockholm (SSSB, 2021). Lappis is a
very international place, where students from across the world come to live when studying in Stockholm,
Sweden. Almqvist (2019) sets the context for the neighborhood:
“This is Stockholm’s largest campus residence, with more than 2000 students being housed,
located by a big lake, forests and fields, and within biking distance to universities. Students
usually arrive alone to this very multicultural area with residents from South and North America,
Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Typically, students here are between 19-30 years old and live
here from six months to two years, with many Swedish students staying up to five years. Most
students have their own bedroom and bathroom, and shares kitchen, dining area and cleaning
duties with up to 13 other people”
Almqvist (2019, pp. 5)
It is a place in constant flux: while some students come for one raucous semester, others settle in for their
PhDs, families in tow. The local tenant association, LOm (short for Lappkärrsbergets Områdesförening)
helps to manage a plethora of community spaces— from a workshop, a movie room, a sauna, a totally
free store looking to combat consumption, a dance room, and an indoor multipurpose community space.
These meeting spaces are essential in the cold and dark months of the year that can be debilitating for
social life, but because of COVID-19, have been closed. In theory, these spaces are what Latham and
Layton (2019) describe as social infrastructures, or places to socialize and encounter others. Lappis also
boasts an active Facebook page with over 30,000 members along with an Instagram meme page.
Residents describe Lappis as a world of its own. It’s bizarre. It’s a bit utopic. And it’s the perfect place to
set up an experiment.
1.2 Introducing Neoliberalism & The Commons
Compared with the idyllic community described above, the ‘real world’ doesn’t seem to pan out in a
similar light, as urban areas are becoming increasingly divided, conflict-prone, and fragmented thanks to
shifts in urban governance (Harvey, 2008). The transfer from a Keynesian welfare model towards a
neoliberal, laissez-faire model of urban development has metamorphosed cities, in rather contractionary
manners (Brenner, 2004). Increasingly in the past twenty years, global capital markets have pulsated
throughout the city and have left visible marks and spatial inequalities. From shrinking government
budgets and austerity measures that look to install market logics into urban governance (Purcell, 2009), to
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governance processes that are far too complicated (Purcell, 2013) and unengaging (Hou, 2018) for
citizens to partake in, urban space is becoming increasingly unequal. Once open-ended public spaces have
become siloed into privatized and exclusionary spaces, serving only predefined functions in the name of
profit. These urban processes have brought with them “incredible transformations of lifestyle” (Harvey,
2008, pp. 31) where you can have the acclaimed lifestyle of the city— that is, if you have the money to
pay for them. As these processes become more profound within the city, the citizens themselves become
alienated from the space that was designed for them, instead of by them – especially prominent in the
modernist area of urban development (Hall, 1989).
In an effort to break this trend of spatial inequality, commoning projects are as Parr (2015) asserts, three
specific processes happening simultaneously: first, a political process that looks to restructure power;
second, an urbanization process that looks to assert alternative values to land not based on the exchange
price, but rather based on how it could be used; and third, doing all this through collaborative activities.
What does ‘alternative value’ mean? Sometimes referred to as ‘use’ value, alternative value refers to any
other way to value urban land other than the selling price. Think of it as the antithesis of exchange value,
or any value that “dwells on social relationships and social production, rather than on materials resources
alone” (Hou, 2018). Overall, as neoliberalism development has accelerated, commoning projects look to
challenge the status-quo to urban development.
1.3 Neoliberalism Comes To Lappis
During my second year living in Lappis, construction began as a mysterious new development emerged
overtop a once beloved green public space. I watched the excavation from my bedroom window. What
was being created? As its form started to take shape, it resembled a misplaced cage, sterile and foreign,
reeking of one of the first articulations of neoliberal development. The development, finishing in June of
2021, turned out to be a padel court (see figure 1).
Figure 1: The newly developed padel court in Lappis. Photo taken by myself.
When I watched its construction, questions raced into my brain: Who asked for it? Were there any
dialogue processes? How much did it cost, and who paid? Most importantly, why was it placed where it
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was? Given its prime location for late-night summer sun (a precious commodity in Sweden), the green
space had been a common meeting point for gatherings of all types. To me, all I could see was a local
hangout space eroded by privatization, with a cage and a key to match— Don Mitchell (2003) spoke of
this process of neoliberalization, where once publicly accessible spaces become locked away and
privatized to boast monetary or safety concerns. Others found the development out of place and made
memes to describe this peculiar development, posting them on Facebook and the Lappis Memes for ICA
Teens Instagram (see figure below).
Figures 2 & 3 : Screenshots of two memes that centered around the newly developed padel court show the controversy of the
space; Figure 2 obtained 251 likes on the Lappis Facebook page, while figure 3 got 57 likes on the Lappis Memes for ICA Teens
Instagram.
Andreas Almqvist, a former Lappis resident who wrote his thesis about designing ‘sites of encounter’
within Lappis, argues there is a dearth of social spaces where people can interact, play, and socialize in
the city and specifically within the neighborhood Lappis; instead, a common feature of cities of today are
the re-development of public spaces that increasingly “insist on productivity (e.g. outdoor gyms) and
monetary interests (e.g. pubs)” (Almqvist, 2019, pp. 5). Or even better, they can be both at once! As
neoliberal urban development unveils itself even in the student village of Lappis, what exactly are we
supposed to do? I guess, all we can do is try out an experiment.
1.4 Imposing My Right to the City & Enabling Others
In critical urban theory, Purcell (2013) argues that there are endless accounts of all the terrible
misfortunates of neoliberalization, countless accounts of once inclusive common grounds becoming
privatized— but little on possible alternatives to the situation. I could write one more paper that critically
examines and accounts for these processes of neoliberalization within the context of Lappis. But I won’t
— I believe we need to start exploring possible alternatives. Instead, this is a story, a research project,
and a thesis on one possible alternative to the process of neoliberal urban development— a real-life
example into the commoning process that works from the bottom-up to “reclaim the commons from the
process of capital accumulation” (Parr, 2015, pp. 18).
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Through an exploratory and interdisciplinary research project, I’ve teamed up with a close friend and
accompanying student studying Integrated Product Design at KTH, Nicole Arthur, to explore how co-
creation of common space can work in practice using play. Under the project name of Fluke, we develop
and explore more inclusive and experimental engagement methods that open the avenue for community
residents to develop, create, manage, and play with their own space. Through participatory action
research, Fluke works alongside the community to explore how we can best use our ‘Right to the City’ to
create a more active way of city building for all. We use the padel court, a kind of representation of the
business-as-usual urban development, as a starting point to explore a new process that allows us to co-
create common spaces on the ground.
Through these methods, we look to invite anyone from Lappis to explore the possible different
communities and cities in a type of collaborative, yet ‘critical spatial practice’ (Hou, 2020) that allows for
“for greater flexibility and expedient change” (ibid, pp.1) compared with more formal planning practices.
Binder et al. (2015) calls these types of inquiries a ‘democratic design experiment’ arguing:
“Crafting an invitation to participate in a democratic design experiment is an active and delicate
matter of proposing alternative possibilities just clearly enough to intrigue and prompt curiosity,
and, on the other hand, to leave enough ambiguity and open-endedness to prompt the participants’
desire to influence the particular articulation of the issue.
(Binder et al. 2015, pp. 1)
It is a vision that stands in contrast to the hegemonic, predominant, and neoliberal urban development that
has dictated the transformation of cities and privatization of urban spaces in the recent decades (Hou,
2018). The padel court is a great example of a common space, once accessible for all, that became
commodified and shackled away under a price tag: around 200kr an hour, or about 25 dollars an hour
based on current exchange rates. Through this process of working in Lappis, we hope to etch out a few
ways that others can create more engaging and participatory processes to commoning and exploring
alongside residents what is possible from the bottom-up. Specifically, we want to explore a more
inclusive and engaging participation model that will allow community residents of Lappis to practice their
right to the city in a meaningful way. As Fluke holds no regulatory authority, the bottom-up is the only
way we can operate. Through this experiment we hope to explore a more practical example of the ‘new
commons’ where urban planning and design is seen as much as a social practice as it regards the
construction of the built environment (Hou, 2018).
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2. Aim and Research Questions
2.1 Aim
The aim of this study is to offer an exploratory and critical approach to the co-creation of public spaces in
order to develop more livable and participatory cities. Using Lappis, a student neighborhood located in
the center of Stockholm, Sweden as our backdrop, Fluke aims to play with different methods that allows
residents to reimagine and co-create their neighborhood from a common approach. Overall, this thesis
will add to the field of urban planning research by narrowing the knowledge gap between academia and
bottom-up design interventions from a practical and critically pragmatic (Forester, 2012) standpoint —
thus, it is a form of action research that explores where theory and practice converge.
Through our process, we will test our decentralized decision-making process, explore functions for public
space beyond exchange value and consumption, and develop possible alternatives through ‘collaborative
activities’ (Parr, 2015). Specifically, we will explore how to get “residents and community–stakeholders
are engaged in the process in a meaningful and effective way” (Hou, 2018, pp. 11) that considers the
strains of our current lifestyles. Overall, I will use the Fluke experience to highlight one ‘possible city’
and develop a theory to help extrapolate these teachings outwards, so others can help towards more
inclusive and collective ‘new commons’.
2.2 Research Questions
As this research is exploratory, these research questions will give a starting point and a framework for the
development and analysis of this project. By exploring one main and three sub-questions, we will be able
to assess if our efforts helped create a more active and inclusive citizenship in a more nuanced manner.
1. How can playful co-production enable a more inclusive citizens participation model that allows
residents to articulate their right to the city?
1. How can a playful approach enable a more inclusive and engaging participation?
2. How can a co-design approach allow for different types of participation?
3. At what scale does participatory co-design processes have the most impact?
To better contextualize these research questions, we will further explore theoretical underpinnings in
section 3. In section 4, I argue for my methods and research design, while in section 5, I take you through
the step-by-step process of our research-in-action process with Fluke. Within section 6, I explore the sub-
questions of play, co-design, and scale more in-depthly based on the different methods employed, while
in section 7, I synthesize and discuss our findings into theory and discuss the implications. Within section
8, I look to interweave these points together to make an argument for the right to the city. To conclude, in
section 9, I look towards an example from the past to urge the timelessness of bottom-up approaches.
93. Theoretical Framework
3.1 Lefebvre and the Right to the Possible City
The French urban theorist Henri Lefebvre explored the connection of the city to capitalism— within a
capitalist order, space becomes valued by its exchange value, the market price, rather than how it is
actually is used or could be used for, i.e. its use value. Stemming from Marx’s theories on alienation,
Lefebvre argued that the commodification of urban space has resulted in a ‘passive citizen’, a citizen that
had become alienated from the public spaces they inhabit as they play little role in shaping it. The right to
the city is a right to not only be a recipient of the city and its services, but the right to be an ‘active
citizen’ within its production of the space and the city. Lefebvre argues this right is very multifaceted and
argues for the right to social and creative spaces:
The right to the city . . . stipulates the right to meeting and gathering; places and objects must
answer to certain ‘needs’ generally misunderstood, to certain despised and moreover
transfunctional ‘functions’: the ‘need’ for social life and a centre, the need and the function of
play, the symbolic function of space.
(Lefebvre, 1996: pp. 195, emphasis in original)
Thus, the right to the city is both a cry and a demand — a demand for a radical form of enfranchisement
“based on nothing more than inhabitants of the city” (Iverson, 2013, pp. 945). Within Purcell’s (2013)
understanding of this seminal text, the right to the city refers to a radical democratization of cities which
“ongoing and collective struggle by urban inhabitants to manage the city for themselves” (pp. 311) — a
constant call for citizens to appropriate their own ideas of space and to shake up decision-making power.
Thus, the right to the city involves two principal rights for urban inhabitants: the right to participation,
and the right to appropriation (Purcell, 2002). In this way of thinking of democracy, Purcell draws on
Lefebvre’s understanding of democracy as a “horizon that we can travel towards but that we never reach,
because a horizon always recedes” (Purcell, 2013, pp. 314). Thus, a society will never ‘be democratic’ but
must always remain in a constant struggle of ‘becoming’ democratic and the citizens must be active in
contributing towards this goal.
Lefebvre (1961, pp. 192) argues that the space where we can see radical democratization happen within is
what he calls an ‘experimental utopia’ — or spaces for “the exploration of human possibilities, with the
help of the image and the imagination, accompanied by a ceaseless criticism and a ceaseless reference to
the given problematic in the ‘real’”. Lynch (1975) too sees the ‘grounds for utopia’ rooted in everyday
practices, as the possible city can be found when searching “for underused space and time, and its
readaptation for a desired activity” (Lynch [1968] 1995, pp. 776) within the already existing city. In more
recent years, political philosophers like Mouffe (2007) argue these grounds for utopia can best be
articulated in the public space— the fight against the hegemonic order must unravel within this stage. In
her conception, agnostic space becomes the “place for making visible and exploring the many different
possibilities for the future that exist in the public sphere” (Munthe-Kaas, 2015, pp. 220).
10Pulling from design theory, Enio Mazini proposes that to explore the possible alternative use values, we
need to radically change how we spend our time and what we value. In his book, the Politics of the
Everyday, Manzini (2019) asks us to re-appropriate with what we have and give it new meaning and
value practically. Within these new uses, connected residents will be able to explore together the creative
potential and encourage them to co-produce oeuvres—which as Lefebvre would describe as “unique
works rather than standardized commodities” (Purcell, 2009, pp. 318). Instead of a focus solely on
exchange value— the city becomes a place to nurture human development or what Maslow (1948)
regards as self-actualization. Overall, the right to the city is the right to be able to participate and
appropriate urban spaces to explore new possible futures.
3.2 Playing with the City
Play is a useful theory to include in this participatory action research because of its collaborative,
imaginative, and transformative potential. Its application has been widely discussed within academic
circles and implemented within the field of urban planning (Vanolo, 2018). But what exactly is play? As
sociologist Johan Huizinga argues in his book Homo Ludens, play is the genesis of culture and can be
characterized:
“a free activity standing quite consciously outside ‘ordinary’ life as being ‘not serious,’ but at the
same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected with no material
interest, and no profit can be gained by it.”
(Huizinga, 1949, pp. 13)
Caillois (2001) took this conceptualization further by arguing between two types of play: paidia, a more
spontaneous and intrinsically motivated free play, and ludus, a more rule-based and goal-oriented gaming
style. Both these types of play revolve around the idea of a ‘magic circle’, or a space where the usual rules
of reality become suspended and replaced by new rules in “an alternative and ephemeral reality” (Vanolo,
2018, pp. 321). Overall, through the magic circle, play can provide room for innovation, offer a safe space
for experimentation and collaboration where error doesn’t result in horrific consequences (de Lange,
2015). In his book Ludic City, Stevens (2007) argues that public spaces in cities should be designed in a
way that playful interaction with them is enabled— he argues that play is inherently social and creating
spaces where these developments can unfold will allow us to redefine needs. Taking from Caillois (1961),
Stevens (2007) explores four ‘forms’ of playful activity: competition, change, simulation and vertigo.
Historically, playfulness has inhibited the cities in many facets — from a way to unleash creativity for
children in Van Eyck’s playground designs (de Lange, 2015) to a the more subversive nature of the
Situationists who aimed to destabilize and criticize capitalism by using everyday experiences that
combine play, spontaneity, and critical thinking (Sadler, 1998). While play is usually connected to
positive children development, it also has a similar impact on adults— play has been found to be
beneficial for adults by improving social capital, social connection and interpersonal relationships, and
positively impacting mental health (Mahdjoubi & Spencer, 2015).
11As a result of these positive benefits associated with playing, academics, urban gamers, ‘hacktivists’, and
the likes have been experimenting with the use of play and games to engage citizens with their city and
one another. Play has a transformation potential to allow citizens to come together in a pragmatic manner
in exploring the contours of the possible by recreating new worlds with new narratives. In games, players
are not only end users but can even bend the rules of the game itself in a ‘meta-play’ where subversions of
rules and hacking the game becomes the name of the game (Vanolo, 2018). De Lange (2015) describes
two different strands of play being implemented in the city, which he describes as the Playful City versus
Playable City: the former looks to incorporate play and games onto the urban realm, while the
latter looks to do the reverse by making urban infrastructures and services more playable.
He points out four ways that play and games can foster citizen innovation and participation on various
levels, from “building trust and forging collaborations” (De Lange, 2015, pp. 432) to creating space for
more playful encounters with other residents and they place they inhabit. Overall, the inclusion of play
and games seems like a compelling manner in allowing residents to transform from passive consumers of
space towards active roles as co-creators of an ‘experimental utopia’ (Lefebvre, 1961). As Lerner (2014)
argues in his book Making Democracy Fun, collaborative and democratic engagement will be more likely
when democracy is designed in a playful manner— especially as games and democracy have a lot more in
common than you think. Using play, residents can become more active within experimenting with city-
making, but this will require urban planners to “relinquish control, accept uncertain and ambiguous
outcomes, and to allow failure to possibly occur” (de Lange, 2015, pp. 434). Through our project, we will
explore the different types of play and gamification elements to create a more engaging process. Plus, it’s
fun!
3.3 Co-Designing the City
Within the world of process and product design, design thinking is an approach to quickly test out ideas
through quick iterations and prototyping. Ever so recently, the world of design has been working towards
a different way of designing prototypes that looks to rethink the role of the designer: co-creation and co-
design. Co-creation refers to “any act of collective creativity, i.e. creativity that is shared by two or more
people” (Sanders and Strapper, 2008, pp. 6) while co-design is a specific variation of co-creation— within
co-design, designers take over the role of facilitator of the design process done in collaboration with
various stakeholders, users, and designers (Koskinen et al., 2011).
While this ‘new strand’ of designing has been present within the world of product design, Sanders and
Strapper (2008) argue that that the “domains of architecture and planning are the last of the traditional
design disciplines to become interested in exploring the new design spaces that focus on designing for a
purpose” (pp. 16). From a public space perspective, Munthe-Kaas (2015) describes the co-design process
as “facilitated processes or interventions in which the participants work together to imagine and improvise
possible future socio-material configurations in urban space” (pp. 221). This approach to designing
public space allows for a wide variety of stakeholders to be included within the imagining, designing, and
prototyping of different urban futures, rather than the more traditional, top-down approach where
institutions decide the ‘official future’ for urban development. Thus, co-designing looks to combat the
“disconnection of people from the institutions of urban governance” that has left many citizens feeling
12that the future was created for them, rather than co-created and owned by all parties (Hassan, Mean, and
Tims, 2007).
In order to explore a more inclusive way of participation and collaborative activities, it is useful to look
towards Manzini (2015) mapping model to explore participation in a more nuanced manner — using a
two-dimensional matrix, the map allows us to explore collaborative activities between active involvement
on one hand and collaborative involvement on the other (see figure 4 below).
Figure 4: Manzini (2015) two-dimensional map of involvement
Distinguishing between the two axes, Teder (2018, pp. 291) describes each:
“The degree of active involvement refers to how much participants (as individuals) are expected
to do in practical terms and ranges from passive to active participation. The degree of
collaborative involvement indicates the level to which the participants are engaged in some form
of collaboration with others. It ranges from doing everything alone to doing everything together”
Through this matrix, we can see certain typologies to give form: ranging from being served (or business-
as-usual), do-it-yourself, co-management, and co-production. Within our project, this framework will be
useful as an analytical tool to explore how ‘collaborative’ our activities are (Parr, 2015) and how much
each activity asked for participants to be active citizens. Within exploring collaboration through co-
design, multiple theories remind us to be cognizant that not all participants and co-designer are the same.
Sanders & Strapper (2008) argue that within co-design, facilitators must be aware that different users are
operating under different ‘levels of creativity’ based on the level of expertise, passion, and creativity of
the ‘users’ of the space (see figure below).
13Figure 5: Sanders and Strapper (2008) different levels of creativity
To best guide them and give them agency within the process, each participatory intervention or task
should allow for variation between the four levels. In addition, facilitators of the co-design process must
give participants the “appropriate tools for expressing themselves'' (Sanders & Stappers, 2008, p. 12) in a
way they feel comfortable with. Overall, these theories will be helpful and co-design will be very useful
in developing and analyzing the collaborative activities that will be made.
3.4 Agonism, Conflict, and Open Communication in the City
In her Nobel Prize Award winning research, Ostrom (1990) found that a prerequisite to successful
communing processes was that self-governing communities had open lines of communication among
community members. This prerequisite, along with trust, would allow for communities to circumnavigate
the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’, the imposition that Hardin (1968) argued would create disarray in
collective resource management. To explore the prerequisite of open communication, a good starting
point is Chantal Mouffe’s agonism, a concept that argues that opening up space for conflict.
Mouffe rejects and refutes the tenets of Habermasianian inherent goal of consensus— and instead asks us
to reframe our ideas that conflict is seen as a negative. The complexity of power structures will always be
present and “reveals the impossibility of establishing a consensus without exclusion is of fundamental
importance for democratic polity” (Mouffe, 1999, pp. 757) and brushing the controversy under the table
will only make matters worse. Through agonism, we can bring our concerns to the table, hear one another
out, and in the end, we don’t really have to agree with one another— in urban practice this approach of
focusing on controversy can paradoxically, bring people together. As Mouffe (2016) argues that we
should view conflict as a ‘struggle between adversaries’ rather than a “struggle between enemies”. Thus,
an agnostic approach “implies a deep respect and concern for the other'' (Chambers, 2001).
Mouffe explores the relationship between conflict and public space. In her essay Art and Democracy: Art
as an Agonistic Intervention in Public Space, Mouffe positions this open-communication in the public
sphere— creating the public space as the battleground for different hegemonic projects. In her writings,
through art is where you can open possible different futures— critical art questions the dominant
hegemony and “gives a voice to all those who are silenced within the framework of the existing
hegemony” (Mouffe, 2008, pp. 12). Through this open communication that encourages and accepts
conflicts, this approach tries to look past the ‘right answer’ and instead implores us to explore the many
possible answers for urban development. Overall, this agonist approach to conflict acknowledges that
conflict will exist in any community, but this should not be seen as something negative.
144. Methodology and Research Design
Within this section of the thesis, I will explain the methods used and research design of this project. In
order to co-create and execute this research project, I am working alongside Nicole Arthur, a great friend
and masters student completing her Master of Science thesis in the program Integrated Product and
Service Design at KTH. She has also been a Lappis resident for two years and we met previously while in
Lappis. There were three main methods used to develop this thesis, and those are participatory action
research, semi-structured interviews, and survey. We will first dive into the methods used during the
research, an introduction of our research project and the organizations and projects we collaborated with,
our research design process, and some insights into how we approached the project considering COVID-
19.
4.1 Participatory Action Research
This research will explore these research questions by implementing a participatory action research
(PAR) project centered on delving into the processes behind play, co-design and digital tools in the
process of repurposing public space. To test out these more exploratory methods in the real world, PAR
‘represents a well-documented tradition of active-risk taking and experimentation in social reflectivity
backed up by evidential reasoning and learning through experience and real action’ (Chevalier & Buckles,
2019, pp. 4). Through PAR, we take risks to explore the potential transformative change through
collaborative design practices in urban space (Kemmis et al., 2014). By stepping out of the ivory tower of
academia, we can explore the messy “journey of collective action, critical thinking and learning by doing”
(Chevalier & Buckles, 2019, pp. 6). One specific type of participatory action research is called
collaborative space design. In this collaborative and action-oriented approach, researchers take on the role
of the facilitator where design decisions are taken by the community (Sanoff, 2000). Through this
participatory action research, Hou argues the design process be not only participatory but also “contribute
to capacity building in the community so that participants and stakeholders are empowered to act and
create networks and interventions on their own’ (Hou, 2018). Our approach took risks by trying to do
research at a more hands-on and at the eye-level. Sara et al. (2020, pp. 5) sum it up well within their
participatory process in Bristol:
“On the one hand, we were teachers, designers, and activists interested in ‘urban interstices’
(Petrescu et al. 2013, 61) and the role their creative reimagining and reuse might have in urban
placemaking. On the other hand, we were researchers and observers, engaging in the processes,
conversations, and events over the six-month process”
Similarly, as this process was active, I drew from photographic observations, informal exchanges and
discussions with participants throughout the process, and one long unstructured interview with a very
involved participant after the culmination of the Fluke project. Others see possible pitfalls to be careful
of: St. Denis (1992) argues that if people do not understand the intention of the research, or do not have
opportunity to change the direction of the research, they will be reluctant to participate. This is an
important note to be aware of when developing our playful design process and we looked to remain
reflexive in our process— we looked to bring in double loop learning where we could modify the project
15considering experience and feedback we received from participation. In addition, we notified participants
throughout the process that they were taking part in a thesis research project and were able to opt-out if
they didn’t want to participate (see figure 6 for an example).
Figure 6: Throughout the process, we communicated to community members that
these interventions were for research purposes. Photo taken by Fluke.
It should also be noted that PAR can be easily affected based upon “whom they align themselves with
upon initial contact with communities and/or groups” (Bennett, 2004, pp. 26) especially considering it is
more easily facilitated through organizing alongside dominant stakeholders and ‘leaders’. On the other
hand, working outside “the power structure can weaken the potential impact of the project at a wider
level” (Benett, 2004, pp. 27). Overall, Cornwall and Jewkes (1995) reminds us to remain reflective as
researchers in order to not invite “manipulation of the research according to the agendas of the powerful”
(ibid, pp. 1673). Overall, because we explore co-design from the bottom-up, we decided to refrain from
collaborating with SSSB, but did conduct interviews with senior staff to learn their perspectives.
4.2 Semi-Structured Interviews
To both help guide the participatory action research, along with gathering individual perspectives from a
wide array of practitioners and stakeholders, interviews are practical for ‘obtaining information, opinions
and perspectives from people with special knowledge of a phenomenon’ (MacCullum et al., 2019, pp. 49)
and allow for greater perspectives of both practitioners and stakeholders (ibid).Specifically, semi-
structured interviews create a set area of focus, but could allow for unexpected information to be gathered
(MacCullum et al., 2019).
When Nicole and I were exploring and developing how the participatory action research would function
in the beginning phases of our process, we mostly held the interviews together. These semi-structured
interviews were not recorded or transcribed, but extensive notes were documented. Nicole also took on
her own individual interviews during this stage with an urban game designer, a lecturer who teaches
improvisation in art school, and others involved in more playful engagements with the city. These
interviews were more informative in nature to our research design, allowed us to explore a more reflexive
process, and gave us key case studies to use as a basis for designing our own research process that would
work with the context of Lappis. These interviews were more informative in nature to our research
16design, allowed us to explore a more reflexive process, and gave us key case studies to use as a basis for
designing our own research process that would work with the context of Lappis.
While the participatory action research was taking place, I undertook six more interviews between our
different scheduled collaborative activities. The objective of these interviews was to foster insights
regarding the practicalities and challenges of contemporary participation models, placemaking and co-
design of urban spaces, along with the use of digital tools within these processes. These interviews were
used to analyze our participatory action data and were taken during the process and allowed me to ask
more reflexive interviews as I too was currently undertaking the co-design process. All interviews were
recorded with a table of interviews are included below:
Table 1: Recorded and transcribed interviews
Interviewee Date Role
Interviewee 1 March 2021 Urban Co-Design Researcher and Consultant in Copenhagen
Interviewee 2 April 2021 Co-Design and Civic Tech Researcher (and former Lappis resident in
2000)
Interviewee 3 April 2021 Participatory Placemaker in Oslo
Interviewee 4 April 2021 Participatory Process Developer in Stockholm
Interviewee 5 April 2021 Placemaker in Stockholm (and former Lappis resident from 2015-
2017)
Interviewee 6 April 2021 Employee of SSSB
Overall, through these interviews, I looked to gain insights into the process, along with exploring (most of
the time, by coincidence) with those working in Lappis at the organization. Interestingly enough, 25% of
the interviewees had lived in Lappis as a resident all at different periods in time and in their life — one as
child from birth to the age of six, one as a bachelor's student, and another as an exchange and masters
student. That part wasn’t really planned, it was a bit of a Fluke.
174.3 Survey
In order to gather insights into our participatory action research after the process was over, we decided to
use the method of surveying to explore how the participation, experiences, and insights into our final
collaborative activity. Within this survey we asked what activities participants participated in, along with
open-ended question asking about how they participated and about their thoughts on how the spaces were
transformed. Open-ended questions “offer respondents an opportunity to provide a wide range of
answers” (Hyman & Sierra, 2016, pp. 3) and allow for participants to better express their feelings, which
we thought was useful within an experimental appproach. While useful in our approach, this can have
disadvantages as it can be much harder to quantify these results (ibid). After our process was completed,
Nicole and I did think it may have been constructive to add more surveys during different parts of the
participatory action research and collaborative activities. We were a bit worried that too many surveys
would create respondent fatigue (Lavrakas, 2008) and impact the communities the frankness of the
interactions we had with the community. We were a bit worried that too many surveys would have
respondent fatigue if we sent too many out.
4.4 Limitations and Ethical Concerns
4.4.1 Covid-19 Restrictions
This research project was conducted during the pandemic after the first ‘COVID-19’ winter. Sweden’s
approach to the pandemic was quite different from the rest of the world, to say the least. Early on in the
process, all activities were done outside, distanced, and without much interaction with other residents (see
figure 7). In some instances, collaboration happened but it could be done at a distance or already within a
group that had been meeting.
Figure 7: During our process, we made sure to keep all activities safe but still fun.
Photo by permission and use by Adria Cruz.
Portions of the project that needed to be held inside were at a maximum eight persons. The more active
and collaborative parts of the thesis were done in the summer when gathering restrictions were limited
and the process could be done outside and distanced. Throughout the process, we kept in line with
Swedish COVID-19 regulations, offering hand sanitizer, disinfecting of any material that had contact, and
kept 2-meter distance.
184.4.2 Ethical Concerns of PAR
As you work directly with participants in participatory action research, there are valid ethical concerns
that must be accounted for like informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity (Löfman et al., 2004).
All of our activities were voluntary, and we participants had accurate information regarding how the
information would be used to the best of our ability— within PAR this is sometimes seen as ‘stepping
into the unknown’ or giving consent to unknown changes (Löfman et al., 2004). Within our PAR, we
looked to create an open dialogue with participants about the intentions of the process. In addition, we
kept confidentially on our social media pages, we opted to use photos with no faces, or blurring out faces
when needed. In addition, it should be noted our embeddedness into the community— both Nicole and I
have lived in Lappis for two years and have grown to know people in the community and tenant
association. Thus, this must be taken to account when assessing the replicability of this research.
4.5 What’s A Fluke?
The Oxford Dictionary describes a fluke as ‘an unlikely chance occurrence, especially a surprising piece
of luck’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2021). It is also the name we decided to give our participatory action
research project with a collaborative space design approach within the community Lappis. Fluke uses on-
the-street interventions, word of mouth, posting on social media, and through street advertisements. Fluke
has both an Instagram and Facebook account that it uses to communicate to the masses, along with
regular posting on the Lappis Facebook group to spread information about our participatory activities (see
figures 8 and 9 below). Through our social media posts and advertisements, Fluke holds a certain tone
that is playful, self-aware, and a bit cheeky — we are a bit inspired by the Situationists approach but a bit
more pragmatic. Overall, this approach allowed us to go outside the usual suspects, but possibly may have
excluded people that were not comfortable with approaching in public.
Figure 8 & 9: Screenshot of Fluke’s Instagram as of 7/8/2021; and Fluke’s logo
19My role within the thesis regarded more focus on the project management, the ‘stitching together’ of the
different actors, writing out outreach and focusing on social media— Nicole focused more so on the
process development, the visual communication, and any work that needed to be done in the KTH
Product Design lab. But as the process went on, our roles merged — both of us worked evenly on the
project, from the more creative work, towards the more administrative work.
4.6 Fluke Collaborators
To make this project a reality, we partnered with a few different organizations and projects. First, we
worked alongside and were funded by the local tenant association, Lappkärrsbergets Områdesförening
(LOm), where we explored a more decentralized decision-making framework. In addition to collaborating
with LOm, we were able to use the common facilities provided like:
• Lappis Workshop — a workshop and builder space filled with tools, materials, and even a 3D
printer where we built, painted, and constructed
• Studio Pica — a open-ended event space where we held our vision workshop
• Kostnix— a non-commercial ‘free’ store fighting consumption in the community
• The Family Room — a space and lounge currently being revitalized by the organization
Second, we worked with the developers of a new Plato Placemaking tools that “looks to make life easier
for participant-driven and decentralized organizations” (Plato Project, 2021). As we were helping them
improve their tool as beta testers, we provided insights to them to improve their processes— we also were
able to learn from them based on their experience creating, using, and testing the tool. Lastly, during our
process we became involved with ‘In memoriam / In futurum’ an experimental zine (short for magazine)
project at Stockholm University’s contemporary art museum Accelerator for their exhibit ‘The
Experimental Field’. For this project, we worked alongside one curator and two artists (two of which also
lived in Lappis) and used Lappis as a starting point for experimentation and using artistic research to
develop interdisciplinary methods (In Memoriam / In Futurum, 2021). Through this exchange, artists put
artistic interventions in public space revolving around reimaginations of space and the padel court.
Overall, these three collaborators helped us to make a more impacting and engaging process. Keeping in
mind what Munthe-Kaas & Hoffman (2017, p. 292) argues, that “the larger the network built, the more
negotiations will have to be made as more actors are stitched together, rendering the network itself more
intricate and complex to keep together” we worked to keep all of this moving parst stitched together.
Latour (1988) explains the paradoxes that take place in partnering actors together through a concept he
calls ‘The Prince’s project’:
“Either no one helps you out and so no power is granted to you; or they do help you out but then
they pursue their own goals, not yours. The more grandiose the Prince’s projects are, the more
paradoxical his task becomes. The name of the game is thus always to solve this quandary: how
to control those that are enrolled?”
(ibid, pp. 20–43)
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