Developing and Implementing the Design-led Nexus Approach for Sustainable Urbanisation

Yan, Wanglin and van den Dobbelsteen, Andy and Keeffe, Greg and Thün, Geoffrey and Roggema, Rob (2021) Developing and Implementing the Design-led Nexus Approach for Sustainable Urbanisation. CITIES 20.50 – Creating Habitats for the 3rd Millennium: Smart – Sustainable – Climate Neutral. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2021, 26th International Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 251-260. ISSN 2521-3938

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Abstract

The design-led nexus approach aims to integrate design thinking and nexus thinking for urban food-energy-water (FEW) management. The approach was originally proposed in the M-NEX project with a grant by the Sustainable Urbanisation Global Initiative (SUGI) and has been developed through a series of participatory design workshops since 2018 in six consortium cities, including Amsterdam, Belfast, Detroit, Doha, Sydney and Tokyo. This article describes theprocess to develop the methodologies and applications about this unique approach, for SUGI peers to share and learn from each other. The M-NEX design-led approach is developed reflectively in a series ofdesign workshops in six target cities. Through the iterative practices in different contexts, we found that (1)the food-as-entry approach serves as a trigger to attract stakeholders’ attention, and the FEW nexus provides a common ground for stakeholders to rethink the sustainability of cities by breaking down the barriers of siloed thinking, (2) the design-led method works by combining design thinking and systematic nexus thinking iteratively in visual and scientific languages, (3) the iterative application of a scientific evaluation tool, FEWprint, makes the performance of design solutions visible and comparable through communication, and (4) living labs play a key role in networking actors, practicing ideas, and scaling up to the policy landscape. We also learned that (1) FEW issues and solutions are sensitive to contexts, (2) redundant resources and the potential for improving self-sufficiency can be discovered even in developed cities by creatively integrating knowledge, technology and policy, and (3) the nexus approach is beneficialfor all actors, including governments, companies, and community leaders who are looking for collective ways of working towards policy goals such as zero carbon emissions and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	urban living lab, FEWprint, design workshop, moveable nexus, supporting platform
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Depositing User:	REAL CORP Administrator
Date Deposited:	27 Sep 2021 11:51
Last Modified:	08 Nov 2021 11:38
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/753

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