Socio-ecological inclusion and the impacts of climate change on the built environment are two shared concerns central to the design and planning of the just transition in cities. The just transition leans heavily on inclusive convergence processes that are grounded in knowledge integration and transdisciplinary practice. However, there is a paucity of effective methods for the inclusion of so-called weak signals from actors situated at the periphery of these convergence processes. Building on the concept of structured flexibility, we introduce a building-blocks approach as a modular architecture for constructing methods for distributed engagement and knowledge integration beyond conventional small-group settings. By engaging in research through design, the Amplifying Weak Signals approach was prototyped with students in the context of dealing with heatwaves in The Hague and tested with expert users from the region who facilitate resilience strategy-making processes. Out of 900 possible building block combinations, 18 methods were created during prototyping. The resulting heatwave strategies that were drafted based on the collected peripheral knowledge showed the integration of new socio-ecological issues rather than a drastic departure from the baseline resilience strategy of the city. We discuss the research findings and their use in the production of guidelines for the construction of methods to integrate peripheral knowledge in convergence processes. Ongoing work to develop the guidelines in the form of an open-access, interactive repository of knowledge elicitation methods for urban resilience spatial planning will also be described. Recommendations for scaling the approach are provided.@en

Covid-19 has dramatically changed life in cities across the globe. What remains uncertain is how national policies and appeals to comply with suggested rules translate to changes in the behaviour of citizens in urban areas. This lack of local knowledge leaves urban policy makers and planners with few clues as to the determinants of social resilience in cities during protracted crises like a pandemic. Methods are required to measure the capacity of people to conduct routine activities without risking exposure to a prevalent disease, particularly for those most vulnerable during a health crisis. By spanning the fields of urban resilience, human geography, mobility studies and the behavioural sciences, this study explores how to measure social resilience in cities during a protracted crisis. Using a public participation GIS online platform, we observe changes in citizen behaviour within urban spaces during the Covid-19 pandemic. Inhabitants from three districts of a Dutch city mapped their activity routines during the lockdown period and during the year before the pandemic. Spatio-temporal analysis reveals changes in the clustering of activities into what we describe as ‘activity bubbles'. We reflect on the influence of the urban space on these changes and assess the contribution of this exploratory research methodology for gaining insights into behavioural change. Implications for urban planning and resilience theory are discussed.

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The objective of the study is to illustrate the use of the frame game, RElastiCity as a framework to learn about the resilience of urban areas and the shocks and stresses in those areas. The question is if use of the frame game as a basis for game co-design is a useful approach to explore complex systems and its dynamics. This study covers the exploratory application of the approach in two university courses in the Netherlands. The results show divergent student experiences between the two courses. The main difference between the courses was the scope of the co-design assignment and the amount of time students had to complete the design process. It was found that using frame games as a framework for understanding complex systems is useful if students have sufficient time to investigate the topic, develop the game and playtest the game.@en

The ability to integrate knowledge that is distributed across a broad range of research disciplines and professions is crucial to responding effectively to the grand challenges pressing our societies. Urban resilience being one of these challenges requires coordinated responses to the shocks and stresses that threaten our highly interconnected social, technical and environmental systems in cities and regions. Using the Weblinx strategy-making frame game, a group of resilience engineering assistant professors and other academics prioritized key topics of urban resilience originating from their various domains of expertise. The adaptable frame game methodology also proved to be effective in an online setting when used by civil servants working in diverse professions to prioritize shocks and stresses threatening their municipalities. From this cross-sectoral perspective, we explore the use of the frame game methodology to facilitate strategy making and we discuss the role that frame games can play in supporting other aspects of the participatory modelling process. @en

A frequent criticism of knowledge-based planning tools is the apparent mismatch between information frameworks used in their spatial models and the information needs of planning actors. Increasingly, these actors are contributing their context-specific knowledge during the development of such tools. Transferring this knowledge from actors to the model remains a challenge. This study establishes a set of design requirements for knowledge elicitation in small group settings and introduces game co-design as a method allowing planning actors and planning support experts to meet halfway between the technology and user domains in the so-called third space. We present an initial case where in three nominal group sessions, actors encountered and critiqued parameterized assumptions of their planning issues in a tangible game environment. Findings indicate that the method can elicit different types of knowledge (divergence) about a spatial system in operationalized terms (formalization). We discuss the potential of tangible game co-design as a modeling as learning exercise and its complementarity to dedicated digital technologies for more holistic planning support.@en