Transforming streets into accessible urban oases through consensus building
What is the best for our communities?
How can we support change?
How do we negotiate with residents, road users and the authorities to find a consensus to reduce traffic and improve liveability in our neighbourhood?
The StreetForum Toolkit will help to answer these questions by developing a set of analogue and digital tools available free-of-charge to local communities to support their efforts of neighbourhood street transformation, reduce car traffic and improve liveability. The tools will be demonstrated in Istanbul, Brussels, Vienna and Stockholm working with local communities to transform car-dominated streets into streets for people.
Our approach to consensus-building
Our cities are facing numerous challenges, such as concerns regarding justice and accessibility. To face these challenges and create a more sustainable society, our urban environments need to change. However, these changes must be undergone while keeping an eye on fairness, resistance from stakeholders, long-term effectiveness, and consensus.
To reach a consensus on change, we must build a common understanding of the problems we face – and what potential solutions would mean. We need to establish a relationship of trust between communities and authorities. These local communities must be heard and empowered to act upon their own needs. Lastly, all actors and stakeholders should be aware of the impacts potential changes would have on their lives.
To ensure that all of the above considerations can be taken into account better in urban change processes, the StreetForum Project aims to create an adaptable toolkit. The objective of these tools is to enable consensus building and negotiation at all stages of urban change processes.
RESEARCH APPROACH
Applied research, innovation and living labs
The project combines applied research and innovation. The project will advance knowledge on the key stakeholders of street transformation and their needs and develop tools to support consensus making. The tools will be tested and validated by experimenting in urban living labs under real-life conditions. We will evaluate their impact, transferability and scalability and develop recommendations and build capacity, strategies for scaling up and transfer.
01
Development
We will develop stakeholder personas and narratives representative of street transformation, a collaborative digital crowdsourcing tool, a consensus making design game, an online ‘street value assessment’ platform, a physical mobile co-design cart, guidelines for using art installations and cultural events as well as governance guidelines.
02
Testing
The toolkit will be tested in four living labs (Brussels, Vienna, Stockholm, Istanbul) to evaluate its impact, transferability and scalability and will be available as free-to-use resources for the broader community.
03
Evaluation
Rigorous research on the impact and scalability of the proposed tools and interventions building on the Street Value Model, Multi-actor multi-criteria analysis (MAMCA) and Stakeholder-based Impact Scoring (SIS).
Who are WE?
A European consortium with twenty organisations
The Streetforum Project brings together university research centres, non-profit organisations, public institutions and private organisations from Austria, Belgium, Sweden and Turkey. The project is funded by four national agencies and coordinated by the Mobilise – Mobility and Logistics Research Group, of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
Project team
Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Vienna University of Technology, space and place, Spacescape, Cultureghem, Alain Tisserand architect, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and Bogazici University.
Cooperation partners
Several organisations contribute to the project as cooperation partners: nonprofit organisations, research organisations and public bodies.
Funding agencies
FFG (Austria), Innoviris Brussels (Belgium), Vinnova (Sweden) and Tübitak (Turkey).
Project locations
The living labs
Brussels
This living lab is situated in the neighbourhood of Kuregem/Cureghem in the municipality of Anderlecht, including two locations: Ropsy Chaudron and Bv. de la Révision.
Istanbul
This living lab is located in the Kadiköy district, at the east side of the Bosphorus. This is a very dynamic area of Istanbul, limited by the sea in the south and the highway in the north.
Stockholm
This living lab includes two central locations within the municipality of Stockholm: Söder Mälarstrand and Mäster Samuelsgatan.
Vienna
This living lab includes two locations in different parts of Vienna: Rahlgasse, situated in the central area, and Lambertgasse, at the west of the city.
ANY questions?
Please send us an email
This project has been funded by the Brussels Capital Region – Innoviris (Belgium), the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), Sweden’s Innovation Agency Vinnova, and TÜBİTAK (Türkiye).
