Citizen engagement – a game-changer for development

  • CHAOS News, People Insights

What is a better way to learn more about residents and developers’ pains and gains than inviting them together for an afterwork get together?

Last week CHAOS has launched the first of its kind series of afterwork talks. The first topic that we covered was  “Citizen engagement – a game changer for development”. We discussed the latest technologies for urban planning and how digitalization can enhance project management experiences. With industry experts and guests, we touched upon some practical insights and exchanged opinions.

The keynotes of the evening were:
Aarni Heiskanen, architect and founder of AE Partners & Construction Innovation Agent. Aarni talked about how innovation and technology can facilitate increased engagement in urban planning.
Tiina Merikoski, Lead Designer of Suunnittelu Kiila, Architect & Researcher. Tiina shared with us the insights on current urban planning and design through participation practices.
Natalia Rincón, CEO of CHAOS architects, introduced new tools for analytics, and more efficient and data-driven citizen engagement.
 
 
Aarni Heiskanen extrapolaiting citizen engagement as the system built out of open-ended and close-ended sources and the type of data derived from each
Aarni Heiskanen extrapolaiting citizen engagement as the system built out of open-ended and close-ended sources and the type of data derived from each
Tiina Merikoski talking about the legal frame and urban activism within urban planning
 

Having such different expertises and different angles covered at the event was a unique opportunity to grasp the whole picture. It was agreed that there were some aspects of participatory urban planning that needed to be revolutionised and digitalised. Today, with current workshop strategy, the window of participation is very narrow and it often happens at a wrong stage, when an urban plan cannot be (or unlikely to be) adjusted anymore. Another concern dealt with the  data visualization and demographics representation.

There are definitely more topics to discuss. In the future, CHAOS will be organising more events in Helsinki under the “CHAOS Industry Talks” series, during which we would like to see more of you: professionals, experts, and just people who care about the future of their city and are ready to share their perspective.
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