Abstract
Urban living labs (ULLs) have been widely adopted as collaborative experiments for tackling urban challenges, yet are critiqued for privileging institutional leadership, technocentrism and limited grassroots engagement. An alternative approach is introduced where ULLs are informed and guided by grassroots perspectives. Experiences are presented from the co-production of the Commoning Kirklees (CK) toolkit in West Yorkshire, UK, involving participatory workshops and feedback cycles with active citizens and activist groups. What processes and forms of knowledge emerge through this co-production, and how do they reframe the methods of living labs? Grassroots knowledge and embedded research inform living lab practices, generating situated knowledge and practical tools that embed grassroots epistemologies, redistribute authorship and sustain collective agency. In contrast to toolkits made by professionals or institutional actors for community use, the CK toolkit embeds grassroots actors in the centre of the co-production process from inception, honing in on their lived experience as the main source of situated knowledge. This approach challenges the dominant institutionalised conceptualisation by highlighting the potential of locally embedded, bottom-up experimentation. A collaborative action between citizens and researchers can produce resources that are not only situated and practical but also innovative in their emphasis on spatial and social justice.
Practice relevance
The CK toolkit, a workbook co-produced with grassroots engagement, was created to help local groups navigate bureaucratic challenges, sustain their bottom-up initiatives and activate public spaces. It showed how tool-making and co-production can be driven by and emerge from priorities, lived experiences and practices of grassroots groups, and where experimentation is not driven by formal partnerships. This grassroots approach can inform the practices and framework of ULLs beyond its institutional framing. Small-scale, self-organised and community-engaged platforms initiated and led by civic actors can foster social and environmental change. By centring grassroots-situated knowledge and local agency, the study offers insights into a reflexive approach and a bridge between informal groups and formal structures.