Planning processes often cause tensions between institutions and citizens because the local knowledge and values of the citizens are not included in the decision-making process, which can cause mistrust. This article builds on an ongoing PhD research that explores the potential of experiential evaluation as an alternative and experimental approach to “hybrid forums”: an approach to open the participatory planning process for diverse actors and values. In order to render tensions visible and constructive in the participatory planning process, experiential evaluation creates “risky situations” in these hybrid forums. To discuss this approach of experiential evaluation, we use a methodological and analytical framework based on the four steps of strategic navigation techniques: tracing, mapping, diagramming, and agencying. We use these techniques to analyse two risky situations that were created through experiential evaluation within the participatory planning process of the neighbourhood spatial plan (NSP) of Zwijnaarde (Ghent, Belgium). Based on the analysis of the case, we observed that experiential evaluation was able to render tensions visible, but did not yet make them constructive. However, as a framework for a dialogue between institutions and citizens, the NSP leaves room to continue the experiential evaluation process that was initiated and to take further care of tensions on a smaller scale.
Spatial densification is an ongoing process in most cities today, but has an uneasy relation with the liveability of our environments. In this article, we approach this uneasy relationship between densification and liveability as a ‘matter of scales’ and work consciously with the tensions which arise, such as a lack of communication and mistrust. We analyse a case of urban design and discuss how the participatory design approach of ‘experiential evaluation’ as a ‘scaling device’ was deployed to support the formation of a ‘scaling platform’ around this matter of scale. This scaling platform has the ambition to connect the multiple actors across multiple scales to make the tensions between scales constructive. In the discussion, we present the learnings of the design process and the challenges that we encountered.
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