Speaker
Description
Spatial planning scholars have long emphasized the need for future-oriented and strategic thinking in planning practice (e.g. Couclelis, 2005). Spatial planning requires a future-oriented approach now more than ever, given the growing challenges of climate change and the transformations needed across multiple sectors to achieve sustainability goals. In this paper, I examine how imaginative design and experiential futuring contribute to strategic and long-term planning, focusing on the case of ‘Netherlands Now as Design’ (NND). Drawing on planning theory and science and technology studies, I explore how techniques of futuring help co-produce shared images of the future, paying specific attention to the dramaturgy of this futuring intervention (Hajer & Pelzer, 2018).
While calls for imagination are now increasingly made, our understanding of how imagination works in planning and design processes is still limited. More specifically, we lack a detailed understanding of how imaginative interventions in planning and design processes can be effectively staged. In that context, it is instructive to analyse the lead up to the Fourth Memorandum on Strategic Planning in the Netherlands (1988). This is widely seen as one of the most successful memoranda in Dutch spatial planning (Salewski, 2012), marking an approach that by and large still informs spatial planning in the Netherlands.
NND was a five-year design-led exploration of future scenarios for the Netherlands in 2050, culminating in a major public exhibition with 30,000 visitors. By employing speculative design, it countered spatial short-termism, broke through ‘a crisis of the imagination’, and broadened perspectives on alternative futures. I identify three key ways NND influenced Dutch planning: (1) fostering a coalition of designers, planners, and academics who shaped planning for decades, (2) informing the Fourth Memorandum on Strategic Planning (1988), and (3) demonstrating how spatial design can engage the public and make abstract planning issues more tangible. Ultimately, this case highlights how design interventions can shape long-term strategic planning.
References
Couclelis, H. (2005). “Where has the future gone?” Rethinking the role of integrated land-use models in spatial planning. Environment and planning A, 37(8), 1353-1371.
Hajer, M. A., & Pelzer, P. (2018). 2050—An Energetic Odyssey: Understanding ‘Techniques of Futuring’ in the transition towards renewable energy. Energy research & social science, 44, 222-231.
Salewski, C. (2012). Dutch new worlds. Scenarios in physical planning and design in The Netherlands. Rotterdam: 010 Uitgeverij.
| Keywords | experiential futuring; techniques of futuring; imaginative design; scenario's |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
