Implementation handbook for the urban living labs

What is a Looper Living Lab?

The Looper project is setting up Looper Living Labs in three cities (Brussels, Manchester, Verona).

Each city is the site of a ‘Urban Living Lab for Learning Loops in the Public Realm’:  this is called from now on, a ‘Looper Living Lab’ (or just ‘Lab’ for short).   These Labs are similar to other Urban Living Labs, such as those on energy or smart technology, but here there is a particular focus on the Learning Loops, which enable good ideas to transfer or scale up.

• An Urban Living Lab is a new model for experimental design and innovation at the urban and community level.It can address practical problems such as air quality, road safety, noise, crime or greenspace.
• A Learning Loop is the process of turning problems into solutions. The Learning Loop is a cycle which transforms information into knowledge: knowledge into learning:learning into action: and action into feedback. This works with citizens and communities, and with policy-makers and other stakeholders.
• Each of these works well in the local Public Realm, i.e. the local neighbourhood or built environment: where community development and social enterprise can best show their potential, to help create cities which are more sustainable, prosperous and liveable.

How to set up a Looper Living Lab?

The Looper Living Lab is an overall structure and program of action. Inside the Lab, we can have any number of loops, for different kinds of problems, from the purely technical to the wider social.  For the Lab as a whole, we aim to learn from what goes on inside, in order to improve.

Each Lab generally includes six main components (i.e. a ‘6P model’):

• Place: we need to define the place (a local neighbourhood, landmark, landscape, or other area on the ground), where the lab is to be based.  Future versions might look at other kinds of units, such as organizations or supply chains.
• People; we need to gather the people to be involved (networks, organizations, groups or communities). We need ways to mobilize their energy and commitment, to mediate conflict, and to turn problems into opportunities.
• Priorities: we work with the people in the place, to explore their priorities (problems, issues, challenges, risks, opportunities, etc).  There are many negative issues, but we need to keep in mind the positives which can inspire and motivate.
• Platform: we develop a system for the exchange of information, learning, debate, analysis and insight.  Such online platforms see new and exciting technology every day, but the real purpose of the platform is about human interactions.
• Process-setup: we set up the Lab as an experimental process, which includes all the above, within the resources and time available.
• Process-evaluation: we look for the overall learning and insights, which come from the whole experiment, in order to improve and transfer to others.

How to run a Looper Living Lab?

To run the Lab, we select the ‘interventions’ to work on (e.g. air quality, greenspace etc), and plan the phases of work:

• A problems & opportunities phase, sets the scope and gathers data.
• A Co-design &evaluation phase, creates design options and decides which to go forward.
• An implementation & feedback phase, makes interventions (physical or social) and measures the results of the experiment.

The ‘experiment’ in this case is not only the solution to a particular problem: the experiment is about how people, communities and organizations ‘learn’ about this problem or solution along with others.  In practice, there are different levels of learning loops (with a scheme based on organization learning theory):

• Functional or ‘single loop’ learning, is about how to directly solve specific problems with technical solutions: (e.g. how to fix a street light).
• Strategic or ‘double loop’ learning is about wider and deeper problems or opportunities, (e.g. how to make the streets safer).  By learning the community can gain empowerment, and policy-makers can gain insight.
• For the Lab as a whole there is a kind of research or ‘multi-loop’ learning: on how the loops work, and how they can improve and transfer and scale up.

What is the program and timescale?

Within the overall Looper project timescale, the Lab work program is designed for a timescale of 19 months:

Problems / opportunities phase:

• Months 4-9: Inception of Lab & scoping of problems
• Months 10-13: Participatory data collection & visualization

Co-design &  action (implementation) phase

• Months 13-17: Co-design & evaluation of alternative solutions
• Months 18-23: Implementation and monitoring

Months 24-31: a second cycle then runs (as far as possible) up to the co-design stage.

After the Looper project is complete, we aim for other users to build on the gathered experience, and set up similar Labs in other places, at other levels, for other purposes.  For these, the timescale will depend on the resources available, but the general guidelines should be useful. 

What are typical interventions?

The Looper project is working with a range of interventions and ‘use-cases’, i.e. common examples of practical problems and responses in urban communities. Each one has a different set of problems, opportunities, design issues, political pressures etc.  Each one has some combination of ‘functional’ loops for technical considerations, and ‘strategic’ loops for social / political considerations. In these guidelines, we use the Lab Summary Template and Implementation Template to analyse the components of each (details in section 4).  First, here are some brief notes:

• Air quality: to analyse the problem, citizens can use hand-held monitors, compare their data with official measurements, and analyse with mapping and visualization.  For the co-design of responses, there are some local actions (planting trees, sealing of buildings), and social innovations (public health info, travel adaptation). But major progress would require city-wide policies for industry and transport. This points to a ‘strategic’ learning loop: getting information into the hands of the community enables and empowers them to argue their case.
• Road safety & parking: the community can map the problem with technical data and other media, and compare with official data.  For the co-design of actions, the options include technical responses (traffic calming etc.), policy responses (regulation, enforcement), or social responses (a ‘walking bus’ or helping kids to cross the road). There are also strategic issues raised by parking by outsiders, in the context of gentrification etc. Here a strategic learning loop should help to empower the community, mediate conflict and guide policy.
• Noise pollution: this may be a local issue, which calls for local data and participative debate. The co-design process will look at social innovation for collaboration between neighbours or different parts of the community.  Also it may be an issue coming from outside the community, from roads, industry, sports or leisure. This might call for physical solutions (barriers, traffic calming etc which can be expensive), and/or policy solutions (regulation, enforcement etc). 
• Crime and security: this involves several kinds of problems and responses: perceived insecurity, harassment, and anti-social behaviour which calls for social mediation and/or enforcement; property & personal crime which needs physical action and/or law enforcement; organized crime / terrorism needs higher-level intelligence & enforcement (generally outside the Looper scope).  In each case, the technical data (crime incidents etc) needs to go alongside social deliberation and co-design for possible solutions.
• this often shows problems of anti-social behaviour, conflict between users, or local pollution, for which data can be gathered and mapped.  Greenspace also brings many creative opportunities, not only for physical works, but including nature conservation, education, health, local food, cultural events and festivals.  For community participation in co-design of the built environment, greenspace is a good place to start.
• Technical services: this covers a range of activities or services in the public realm like street lights, holes in the road, broken fences etc. Each has a clear definition of problem and solution, with a functional learning loop. Such loops are suitable for ‘smart’ technologies which can greatly improve monitoring and technical decision making.

What will be the results?

The Lab in each city will make direct contributions to solving practical problems like air quality, noise, traffic safety, security and greenspace.

It should also help local empowerment by community learning and capacity building. And it should help with local governance by policy learning and strategic policy  intelligence.

It will also help to advance the state of the art, with knowledge transfer and scaling up to other cities. It will do mapping and analysis of the learning loops at all levels, with new insights on barriers and opportunities (‘multi-loop learning’).

Overall this will contribute to ‘urban innovation’, both for technical problems and social opportunities, for policy-makers and providers, for analysts and researchers, and most of all for citizens and communities.