Mediation roles and ecologies within resilience-focused urban living labs

Nicola Antaki; Doina Petrescu; Meike Schalk; Emilio Brandao; Daniela Calciu; Vera Marin

doi:10.5334/bc.608

Figures & Tables

Table 1

Mediation framework of the civic resilience urban living labs (ULLs).

MEDIATION ROLES	MEDIATION CATEGORIES	INTERMEDIATION FRAMEWORK (HERNBERG & HYYSALO 2024)	RESILIENCE PRINCIPLES (LEWIS & CONATY 2012)
Catalyst, strategist	Catalyse and strategise		Tight feedback loops
Designer, supporter, host, team player, funder	Support and sustain	Configuring, facilitating and capacitating	Social capital, overlap, modularity
Negotiator, ‘double agent’	Negotiate and balance	Structural negotiating	Diversity
Connector	Connect and reach out	Brokering	Connectivity
Obstructor	Obstruct

Bagneux *Terreau* urban living lab (ULL) mediation ecology diagram.

*Urboteca* urban living lab (ULL) mediation ecology diagram.

Tensta urban living lab (ULL) mediation ecology diagram.

Hammarkullen urban living lab (ULL) mediation ecology diagram.

Table 2

Comparative framework of the mediation conditions across the four urban living lab (ULL) case studies.

ULL CASE STUDY	PROBLEM THAT NEEDS MEDIATION	MEDIATION PROCESS	MEDIATION SCOPE (AIM)	MEDIATORS	MEDIATION PLACES AND TEMPORALITIES	BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES
Bagneux, France	Fragmentation of civic ecological action; competition on influence and resources Need to scale up and connect existing resilience practices Dependency on municipal resources	Co-creation of tools to support the development and sustainability of the platform Workshops = 13 Interviews = 12 Paper co-design templates Shared calendar Website Conversation map Charter ‘Terreau’ events = 4	Build trust and co-create a collaborative platform (Terreau) (and a community of practices) Widen the network Involve both the public and more organisations	Researchers: Atelier d’Architecture Autogerée (AAA) professional practitioner and Paris La Villette Architecture School (ENSAPLV) at the university Professional: Plus Petit Cirque du Monde (PPCM) cultural centre Civic: Le Lycée avant le Lycée (LAL) experimental pedagogy, Sourous theatre company, Bagneux Environnement (BE) environmental organisation Public: Pôle Transition Ecologique Développement Durable (TEDD), two social cultural centres (CSC), local environmental citizen’s assembly (Conseil Local de Transition Ecologique—CLTE)	Lab moving in different local organisation spaces in Bagneux LAL, BE (Agrocité, Recyclab), PPCM and online Monthly, 2023–25 Builds on previous ProShare research project (Petrescu et al.2022)	Municipality’s lack of coordination across hierarchies Threats/competition between organisations Continual need to legitimise research work in front of the municipal services Sustainability: mediators needed to keep momentum Municipal partners as obstructors
Bucharest, Romania	Imbalance of power dominated by the top down Lack of dialogue for defining public resources allocation Weak connections among professionals and universities to civic initiatives	Fellowship programme to train and experiment facilitating participatory diagnosis Plenary sessions = 7 Storytelling and stakeholder mapping Collaboration between professionals, cultural initiatives and inhabitants Interviews = 14	Create a community of practice Fellows from three different fields: architecture, anthropology, arts Hosts: art and cultural organisations Communities of an area and/or of interests Convince policymakers to allocate resources	Researchers: Asociația pentru Tranziție Urbană (ATU) Professional: Masca Theatre; Replika Theatre Civic: Cismigiu Garden, community and creative industries association; Malmaison: arts space; Depoul Victoria: depot Academic: university fellows and students from architecture and urbanism: ‘Ion Mincu’ University of Architecture and Urban Planning (UAUIM); performative arts: National University of Theatre and Film (UNATC); and Anthropology Faculty of Bucharest Public: city of Bucharest	Lab functioning in different art and cultural spaces Weekly for six months, February–July 2024 Built on existing relationships with stakeholders	Insufficient time for engagement processes Recognition of fellowship within the different universities Lab seen as a short-term experiment
Stockholm, Sweden	Gap in spatial knowledge within secondary teaching (in deprived areas) Racism/marginalised communities in late modernist suburbs Problematic social framing (specific to Sweden) Transformation of cultural institutions	Intergenerational pedagogy and knowledge exchange Pedagogical workshops = 3 Witness seminars = 2 Multi-actor conversations = 2 Curriculum in education (university) = 1 Intergenerational learning, podcasting, oral history and art-based methods to engage the young people in planning, designing and transforming their neighbourhood	Expand knowledge and education, advocacy and outreach on architecture/city planning Scaling deep, out and up Socially reproduce knowledge, dissemination, outreach Change the curriculum	Researchers: KTH University Professional: Tensta konsthall (Tk—Tensta Art Centre), technicians and curators, Konstfack, and The Women’s Café Civic: teachers, students and parents Public: Askeby schoolchildren aged 11–13; Tk children and young people of various backgrounds, aged 8–15	Lab in the neighbourhood embedded in Tk Roaming for events in community/art centres in Stockholm During school holidays Builds on the previous project	Sustainability: discontinuities with the work which only happens ‘en bloc’ during school holidays Lack of funding for proper employment
Hammarkullen, Sweden	Invisible local community spatial knowledge and resilience practices Support local democratic governance with community knowledge Foreground stories and spatial knowledge in planning processes	Collaborative workshops with community pedagogies, cultural heritage, governance, sharing and solidarity practices = 8 Story-work as a framework and methodology Interviews = 8 Co-design projects in collaboration with architecture students = 3 Participatory films = 3 Community courses = 2	Co-create collective tools for learning among communities for popular education Attend to the curriculum at local educational institutions Training and hand over of story-work mediation to community networks Establish continuity within a ULL run by the community	Researchers: KTH and Chalmers University of Technology (CTH) Civic: Hammarkullens föreningsråd (HAM-SAM) Carnival committee Nätverk Hammarkullen (NHK) and Vårt Hammarkullen (VHK) community networks Hyresgästföreningen (HGF) tenants’ union Mixgården youth centre Angered Folkhögskolan local folk high school Fixoteket and Fixarna circularity space Professional and public: Nätverk Hammarkullen (NHK)	CTH premises Shared bookable venues (Folkets Hus, Aktivitetshus), tenants’ meeting spaces; public space (the carnival path, park for events) Existing engagement through architecture pedagogy since 2008 Weekly indoors; 6–10 yearly outdoors	Existing stigma and racism Top-down management Political resistance against community organising Community burnout Trust breaks: local authorities often change staff and structures Dependence on the Collective Networks for Everyday Community Resilience and Ecological Transition (CoNECT) project: resources

Table 3

Comparative ecologies of mediation across the four case studies.

ECOLOGIES OF MEDIATION	BAGNEUX	BUCHAREST	STOCKHOLM	HAMMARKULLEN
Catalyse and strategise	One small professional catalyst and strategist; one large professional and one large academic strategist	One small professional catalyst and strategist; five civic strategists	One large academic catalyst and strategist; one large civic strategist	One large academic catalyst; seven civic (mixed size) strategists
Support and sustain	One small professional designer and sustainer; one small civic designer and host; one large civic host; one large professional host; one large academic sustainer	One small professional designer; three civic and two professional hosts and sustainers; one large public funder	One medium academic designer, sustainer and funder; one large academic funder; one large civic designer and host; three large public funders	One large civic designer; one large academic host; five civic hosts (various sizes)
Negotiate and balance	One small professional and one small civic ‘double agent’	One small professional (negotiator and ‘double agent’)	One large academic and one large civic ‘double agent’	Two large academic, one large civic, one small public ‘double agent’; many negotiators
Connect and reach out	Two public and one civic connectors	None	Three medium academic connectors	Six civic, three academic and two public connectors
Obstruct	One large public obstructor	None	None	Two small public, three large civic, one large public obstructor
Power and empowerment (new connections)	7	5	1	6
Enhanced network resilience	Scaling up by widening the network and giving agency to smaller actors	Instigating by training fellows to become mediators to instigate and sustain future civic resilience projects	Instigating and sustaining by setting up a network-related university architecture curriculum	Sustaining and deepening by empowering and making visible community practices through existing connections

Mediation roles and ecologies within resilience-focused urban living labs

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