Design thinking

Cities all over the world are reinventing their positions, either driven by changes in national policies decentralizing governance or reacting to the reality of competition and collaboration on subjects such as economy, services or the changing number of inhabitants. Often this is generated out of a desire or perceived necessity to respond to the changing ambitions of industries and citizens. One only has to think of notions like ‘Creative Cities’, ‘Metropolitan Regions’, ‘City Branding’ and ‘Self-regulation’ to understand that traditional ways to organize one’s community will fail to adequately address these emerging ambitions.
There is a need to improve decision-making and policy processes just as much as there is a need to service and renew spatial structures as demands are changing. One can state that changes in urban developments are driven by changes in population and their needs. Energy and sustainability issues have become a common consciousness deserving appropriate response in terms of policy and spatial planning. One can easily add to these examples.

These current challenges are becoming more complex and interwoven. Fed by a large number of sometimes contradictory and defi nitely various ambitions, they need to be addressed in a manner that justifi es all involved. Changes are good. And by nature, changes are complex and diffi cult to implement. They are disruptive and evoke resistance. Change needs community, involvement, and commitment. The more complex a challenge is, the more actors or stakeholders need to be involved, and the more inadequate traditional means for development becomes.
One needs to build robust solutions, or better, robust environments and contexts. Solutions tend to address current situations incapable of adjusting to changing realities. It is exactly those rapidly changing realities – economical, political and social – that have led to the realization that innovation in governance and policymaking processes is crucial for a city to keep operating successfully. Intelligent ways to address and implement developments are needed. Intelligent in terms of creating effi cient and economically viable solutions for both processes and implementations; intelligent as in being informed by relevant parties.

Current notions on ‘Design Thinking’ move towards inclusive and collaborative processes. These are aimed at effi ciently producing inventories and analyses of stakeholders and context. Organizing effective prototyping presents essentially different strategic options and scenarios. Finally and foremost, these processes create collaborative structures for professionals, administrators and citizens.

Studio

During the past years the municipality of Delft has conducted several studies into aspects of Delft as a knowledge city, their relationwith the Techniocal University Delft and more recently fi nacial challenges due to the global crises. 

Delft Scenarios 03 is a casestudy based research program investigating the future of Delft. Students from the University of Kentucky took on the challenge to research potential interventions for the municipality of Delft in a global, European and regional context. Inventory of ambitions, foresights and perceptions led to a number of SWOT-analyses, both from the perspective of the individual stakeholders as well as on a ‘macro level’. Scenario specifi c information was collected and implemented in more precise descriptions of plausible futures for Delft. The scenarios present extreme positions aimed to unveil current conditions and realistic future situations. They operate as context to test current plans on their robustness and adaptability to remain significant regardless of how the future actually unfolds.