On circular transitioning: An action repertoire for the BUCH

Many resources are becoming depleted, and waste is a global issue. For accomplishing sustainable growth, the European Commission set the objective for achieving a circular economy in 2050. Rijkswaterstaat pushed this ambition even further, wanting to be circular in 2030. In the province Noord-Holland, the municipalities Bergen, Uitgeest,...

Tackling loneliness amongst adolescents, a systemic co-design approach for Gemeente Delft

In this thesis, the value of design is researched within the context of municipalities and how civil servants deal with complex problems. Loneliness amongst adolescents is a complex problem that many are not aware of yet. Of the youth between 12 and 18 years old in Delft, 42% states to feel lonely (GGD Haaglanden, 2016). This issue needs to be...

Design as a new policy competency: A Learning Environment for capacity-building in public management

Public management field needs to keep pace with contemporary and evolving problems, and therefore invest in and harvest capabilities to meet future scenarios. It is crucial to have a clear vision on the back end of social advising and a staff who is aware of the wideness of its impact. Public managers need to advocate for critical discussions...

Designing for climate adaptive behaviour change in IJsselmonde, Rotterdam: A research through design project to inform design for transitions

Our society is facing a major challenge: to combat climate change. This requires transformation into a society that does not emit greenhouse gasses. This is known. However, it is not known, how to realise this transformation. This is experienced by Gemeente Rotterdam, as they are responsible for realising the sustainable transformation of the...

Connecting through Information: Design and Data to foster Democracy

Connecting through Information is a participatory tool for citizens to map their Information Ecosystem. The aim is to foster citizen participation while developing data literacies through design methods. Through the use of Connecting through Information during a participatory session, members of citizen initiatives discuss and reflect on their...

Participation for a people–centered Delft: Enabling the municipality of Delft to design people–centered cities with the local communities using participatory approaches

This graduation project is a collaboration between the Inclusive City Hub (part of Delft Design Labs) and the Gemeente Delft. This project focuses on the topic of participation for creating people–centered cities. The initial problem definition of the project was to understand how the municipality of Delft can design with the people of the city...

A co-creative development tool kit for social cohesion

The Dutch government has decentralised many welfare state tasks to municipalities, because social support is best given at a local level, close to the people who need the support (Rijksoverheid, n.d.). However, for Dutch municipalities this means more responsibilities with less resources and consequently a different, more collaborative way of...

L.A.M.A. (Local Area Monitor Assistant): Making data tangible for a meaningful dialogue

Data has become an essential asset which grows and makes possible opportunities tangible to find and make an accurate forecast for future developments and vision more certain. The role of data is evolving and expanding, resulting in being utilized in open public databases. The main objective for making data accessible is to improve and further...

Facilitating and supporting patients in decision-making about healthcare professionals’ access to their medical data

The transfer of a patient's medical data between healthcare professionals is sometimes needed to take relevant aspects of the patient's health into account to offer fitting care for the specific patient. A patient's medical data is stored in the systems of the different healthcare professionals that treat or have treated the patient, thus...

The value of Futures thinking in designing for societal challenges

A new context where designers and other professionals from different fields are becoming increasingly more involved in tackling the daily challenges that we are facing as societies has emerged. Oak & Morrow, a strategic design studio based in Rotterdam, wants to position themselves among this context, by acquiring new knowledge on how their...

Park makers: Stimulating the self-management of public parks

The stimulation of citizen participation has led to the upraise of bottom-up citizen communities. These communities grow from idealism but often have a hard time to become a durable initiative when the first challenges arise and the enthusiasm has disappeared. This graduation aims to gather an understanding of how citizen initiatives can be...

Supporting citizen initiatives: The design of a platform for the neighbourhood budget of the Frederik Hendrikbuurt

This master thesis is the report of the graduation project ‘Supporting citizen initiatives - the design of a platform for the neighbourhood budget of the Frederik Hendrikbuurt’ for the municipality of Amsterdam and more specifically the municipal participation innovation team OpenStadsdeel. The report describes the design of a platform that aims...