From urban experimentation to management transformation: Applying urban living lab findings to challenge business-as-usual management practices

Recently, there has been a concern about the lack of information transfer of knowledge we learn from experimental projects to practice making the transition to sustainable cities possible. Previous studies have focused on what we learn from experimental projects. However, we know little about how to implement the lessons learned in business-as...

Experimenting with collaboration in the Smart City: Legal and governance structures of Urban Living Labs

Urban Living Labs (ULLs) have been implemented in many cities, but their organizational and legal structure has not often been analyzed. ULLs aim to provide a space for different parties to research, develop, and test solutions to urban problems whilst engaging with local communities. Their experimental approach to urban innovation and to...

Urban Living Labs: Pathways of Sustainability Transitions towards Innovative City Systems from a Circular Economy Perspective

Urban living labs (ULLs) are progressive forms of interventions that aim to fulfil the sustainability ambitions of cities and communities. They provide opportunities to translate new ideas into practice. The increasing interest among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in understanding sustainability transitions (ST) has brought new...

Urban living labs during COVID-19: Exploring the relationship between social cohesion and urban living labs

Climate change is and will have a severe impact on urban areas. Dutch cities are actively searching ways for successful climate adaptation. One way to do this is by experimenting with sustainable innovations in urban living labs (ULLs). This is a place where different urban actors, such as governments, businesses, knowledge institutes and...

Challenges of Urban Living Labs towards the Future of Local Innovation

Finding new approaches to overcome complex urban problems such as climate change has always been of interest to policymakers and academics. The changing dynamics of urban development result in the diversification of new practices during which experimentation is used to inform urban practice. Amongst these approaches, urban living labs (ULLs)...

Managing the Transition towards Circular Metabolism: Living Labs as a Co-Creation Approach

Resource consumption and related waste production are still rapidly increasing all over the world, leading to social and environmental challenges and to the production of the so-called ‘wastescapes’. Peri-urban areas—in-between urban and rural territories—are particularly vulnerable and prone to develop into wastescapes because they are...

A Geodesign Decision Support Environment for Integrating Management of Resource Flows in Spatial Planning

Improving waste and resource management entails working on interrelations between different material flows, territories and groups of actors. This calls for new decision support tools for translating the complex information on flows into accessible knowledge usable by stakeholders in the spatial planning process. This article describes an open...

Facilitating circular economy in urban planning

A shift towards a more Circular Economy is crucial to achieve a more sustainable and inclusive built environment that meets future demands. Circular Economy is a promising concept for industry and society. If implemented well, Circular Economy can deliver environmental benefits and economic advantages for which innovation is essential. To...

Applying an RRI filter in key learning on urban living labs' performance

Urban living labs is a practical methodology in improving sustainability in cities by facilitating collaborative learning and innovation in a real-life environment, thereby mainly responding to the needs of users (citizens). The paper aims to filter a list of key learnings on urban living labs through the lens of Responsible Research and...

Urban Living Labs: A living lab way of working

Urban living labs have become a popular phenomenon in today’s cities. The Living Lab approach would provide real life research with its multiple stakeholders in a co-innovating inclusive setting, crucial in creating metropolitan solutions with impact, that will be adopted smoothly and swiftly by all involved, and thus help achieve prosperous...

The Defining Characteristics of Urban Living Labs

The organization of supported and sustainable urban interventions is challenging, with multiple actors involved, fragmented decision-making powers, and multiple values at stake. Globally, urban living labs have become a fashionable phenomenon to tackle this challenge, fostering the development and implementation of innovation, experimentation,...

Circular Buildings the Urban Living Lab Way: A Practical Facilitation Tool as Guidance for a Circular Building Process as Collaborative Ecosystem

The Master’s programme Industrial Ecology is jointly organised by Leiden University and Delft University of Technology. The coming decades, the building sector is facing challenges to reduce its impact as one of the major contributors on global problems, like resource depletion, pollution and climate change. The concept of Circular Economy,...