Geoweb 2.0 for Participatory Urban Design: Affordances and Critical Success Factors

TL;DR

This paper explores how open-source Geoweb 2.0 platforms facilitate participatory urban design by examining their affordances and identifying critical success factors based on five field studies.

Contribution

It introduces five key affordances of Geoweb 2.0 platforms and highlights success factors for improving participatory urban design practices.

Findings

Five affordances identified: conversations, consultation, empowerment, learning, research

Evidence from five field studies supports these affordances

Key success factors for future practice are outlined

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the affordances of open-source Geoweb 2.0 platforms to support the participatory design of urban projects in real-world practices.We first introduce the two open-source platforms used in our study for testing purposes. Then, based on evidence from five different field studies we identify five affordances of these platforms: conversations on alternative urban projects, citizen consultation, design empowerment, design studio learning and design research. We elaborate on these in detail and identify a key set of success factors for the facilitation of better practices in the future.