SEMINAL | Supporting Creative Minds In Urban Planning

Design thinking today is talked about as a ‘new democratic and liberating form of creativity’, transforming social and economic life and revolutionizing problem-solving. Design-driven living labs as creative, collaborative, and experimental spaces have become the go-to model for cities in fostering innovation and exploring solutions to complex social and environmental challenges, such as energy transition, climate adaptation and urban inequality. The number of living labs registered in the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) has increased from 20 living labs in 2006 to 188 in 2010 and to more than 475 labs in 2020.
While being successful in creating new technologies, insights and solutions, the effectiveness of the applied models is proven to be limited in innovating strategic and foresight activities that are set to deliver evidence-based future-proof solutions. Urban planning, concerned with long-tern management of spatial activities in cities, is one of such processes that is extremely influential in shaping future of cities, and yet hard to innovate. Addressing the lack of conceptual clarity on what creative thinking and innovation means for foresight activities and urban policy making is a crucial step in bridging this seemingly unbridgeable gap between experimental design-oriented ways of thinking and delivering future-proof foresight strategies.
SEMINAL aims to develop state-of-art information system, to facilitate and accommodate for creative thinking as part of spatial decision-making processes. To do so, SEMINAL uses design science research as its main overarching methodological strategy and will bridge the works on collaborative decision making and creativity in the fields of urban planning, social cognitive psychology and design. The project is expected to have a major impact in the field of urban planning and design as it will deliver a toolkit for creative spatial strategic thinking.