This handbook offers practical, experience-based guidelines for anyone looking to address today’s complex urban challenges through collaborative experimentation. Developed by AMS Institute and based on over a decade of research and practice in Amsterdam, it provides a structured yet flexible approach to designing, implementing, and scaling Urban Living Labs. Whether you’re an urban planner, policymaker, researcher, entrepreneur, or community leader, this book equips you with a multilevel framework and eight key activities to turn local experiments into systemic change. Grounded in real-life case studies—from positive energy districts to climate-resilient neighborhoods—it connects theory with practice, helping people work together toward real change. Join a growing network of innovators using Urban Living Labs to co-create the future of cities—one experiment at a time.

Living Labs offer a promising approach to develop and test sustainable system innovations. One particular type of Living Lab that has received limited attention is the Festival Living Lab (FLL). Festivals can be considered as temporary mini-societies, facing systemic sustainability challenges in areas such as water, energy, housing, logistics, waste management, food, and behaviour. The temporary nature of festivals allows for adjustments to the overall societal system, allowing for experimentation with the mutual interrelationships between different aspects of the system. This makes festivals a distinctive setting for exploring sustainable system innovations. To assess the potential of FLLs as effective real-life experimentation environments, we introduce the Living Lab Activity Framework (LLAF), distinguishing various innovation stages and system levels. We utilise the LLAF to evaluate a selection of innovation projects from the DORP FLL held at the Welcome to The Village (WTTV) festival in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands. The analysis reveals that participating projects adapted their innovations based on new insights gained during various editions of the DORP FLL, demonstrating that festivals can support various stages of the innovation process on different system levels.

What are the lessons that applied design researchers can take away from this book? What suggestions and recommendations can be derived from the experiences presented in the preceding chapters? On the one hand, it is clear that working with Living Labs offers unique opportunities to address some of society’s ambitious challenges. At the same time, it is also clear that it’s not necessarily that straightforward to deal with the dynamics of a Living Lab. In Chapter 1, Experimentation at the Heart of Societal Change, we presented our expectation that applied design researchers can play an important role in connecting different levels of the Living Lab and its surroundings. To explore this, we first discussed the Living Lab and its relationship with societal change processes. Second, we discussed the social dynamics that take place in the Living Lab itself. Third, we discussed the actual practices of applied design researchers within a Living Lab, for instance with regard to their engagement with tangible forms. In this final chapter, we present some of the overarching insights that can be drawn from the many reflections in this publication.

Today’s applied design researchers are where the action is. They have always operated as a catalyst of change: propelling and steering design and society into brighter futures (Andriessen & Van Turnhout, 2023). But now, more than ever, design researchers teamup with a broad range of stakeholders to get things done. They surround themselves with engineers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, professionals, citizens, and take leadership in sparking ideas, making things tangible, creating meaning, and driving change. In the wake of the many societal transitions needed to combat today’s challenges, everyone needs to change their ways, their thinking, and the structures they reside in. Applied design researchers can play a crucial role in making that effort worthwhile. They can be facilitators that help others to bridge boundaries of spheres of life, disciplines, sectors, and domains (Smeenk, 2022).

The use of Living Labs is a promising approach to develop and test sustainable system innovations. A Living Lab approach that is yet to be discussed in literature, is that of a Festival Living Lab (FLL). Festivals can be considered as temporary mini societies with systemic sustainability challenges regarding water, energy, housing, logistics, waste management, food and behaviour. Since a festival is built up from scratch every time the event is hosted, adjustments can be made to its overarching system, and mutual interrelations between different aspects of the system can be experimented with. To evaluate the potential of FLLs as effective real-life experimentation settings for sustainable system innovation we present the Living Lab Activity Framework (LLAF), distinguishing various innovation stages and system levels. We deploy the LLAF to evaluate a selection of innovation projects within the DORP Festival Living Lab at the Welcome to The Village festival in The Netherlands, demonstrating that festivals can host various stages of the innovation process on different system levels.

In 2023, the Netherlands is strategic partner of the Business of Design Week held in Hong Kong, with Circular Design as the central theme. One of the objectives of this partnership is to foster enduring international cooperation. As an initial step towards future collaborative efforts, the Network Applied Design Research (NADR) made an inventory of the current state of Circular Design Research in the Netherlands. This publication represents the results of this effort. Inside, readers will find a summary of six promising ‘gateways to circularity’ that may serve as entry points for future research initiatives. These six gateways are: Looped Systems; Extension of Useful Lifetime; Servitisation; New Materials and Production Techniques; Information Technology and Digitization; and Creating Public and Industry Awareness. The final chapter offers an outlook into topics that require more profound examination. Our hope is that this publication will serve as a starting point for discussions among designers, entrepreneurs, and researchers, with the goal of initiating future collaborative projects between Dutch knowledge organizations and their counterparts in Hong Kong. It is our belief that only through intensive international cooperation, we can contribute to the realization of a sustainable, circular, and habitable world.

Creativity and innovation have become prominent in higher education curricula. Applying a design paradigm has been frequently used to build innovative and creative skills in graduates across different discipline domains. Besides the design approach, another element that is important to increase innovation in organizations and society involves multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral cooperation. This observation triggered the establishment of the Aalto Design Factory in Finland in 2008, establishing an integrative, multidisciplinary education platform for design and experimentation. Offering vision, space, and courses focused on building capabilities to collaborate and innovate, Aalto Design Factory started sharing its reference model with other universities, supporting the establishment of other Design Factories worldwide. In 2022 the Design Factory Global Network (DFGN) included 37 co-creation platforms in 25 countries across the world. Sharing and learning from these experiences has become a crucial resource to develop DFGN operations further. One avenue where this takes place is a yearly meeting between the partners of the DFGN. In order to broaden the discussion beyond current Design Factories, as well as extend considerations from teaching and management to research, the first Design Factory Global Network Research Conference (DFGN.R) was piloted. In October 2022, 68 participants from 11 countries presented 22 studies at the first DFGN.R that took place at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. This special issue presents five selected papers that were first discussed at the DFGN.R 2022. The studies approach innovation and education from complementary perspectives and methods. Most of the studies have been conducted at one of the Design Factory hubs, showcasing the range of collaborative activities that happen in these hubs to increase innovation capabilities. Taken together, these five papers from three different continents give a glimpse into the activities taking place in the various Design Factories around the world. They explore how new approaches to innovation and creativity in Higher Education can take place, through applying effectuation theory and social learning theory, featuring metaphors such as cooking and sailing to inspire co-creation in action. We hope that these experiences will inspire educators, researchers, students and organizations active in Design Factory’s and similar co-creation platforms, to continue experimenting with the design paradigm, by exploring approaches and skills towards innovation and creativity that are imperative to champion change.

This epilogue synthesizes the diverse viewpoints presented in the book "Applied Design Research: A Mosaic of 22 Examples, Experiences and Interpretations". Rather than fixing a final definition of the concept of Applied Design Research, it embraces the plurality that characterizes the field and acknowledges the often subtle distinctions that occupy academic debate. The chapter highlights key questions that emerge from practice: how situational knowledge can be distinguished and generalized; which quality criteria adapted or derived methods must meet; how to address power dynamics among stakeholders; and what values and ethical standards should guide research that intervenes directly in people’s lives. These questions shift the discussion from relevance toward scientific rigor, pointing to a research agenda that can strengthen methodological foundations and support the maturation of applied design research across a broader range of domains.

Research into the relationship between innovative physical learning environments (PLEs) and innovative psychosocial learning environments (PSLEs) indicates that it must be understood as a network of relationships between multiple psychosocial and physical aspects. Actors shape this network by attaching meanings to these aspects and their relationships in a continuous process of gaining and exchanging experiences. This study used a psychosocial-physical, relational approach for exploring teachers’ and students’ experiences with six innovative PLEs in a higher educational institute, with the application of a psychosocial-physical relationship (PPR) framework. This framework, which brings together the multitude of PLE and PSLE aspects, was used to map and analyse teachers’ and students’ experiences that were gathered in focus group interviews. The PPR framework proved useful in analysing the results and comparing them with previous research. Previously-identified relationships were confirmed, clarified, and nuanced. The results underline the importance of the attunement of system aspects to pedagogical and spatial changes, and of a psychosocial-physical relational approach in designing and implementing new learning environments, including the involvement of actors in the discourse within and between the different system levels. Interventions can be less invasive, resistance to processes could be reduced, and innovative PLEs could be used more effectively.

In order to construct a shared body of knowledge, research involving the relationship between the psychosocial learning environment (PSLE) and the physical learning environment (PLE) needs a commonly-accepted conceptual framework. By means of a thematic literature review, we collected the main aspects of the PSLE and PLE, their definitions and their relations as identified by earlier research. These findings led to a conceptual framework that structures the dimension of the PSLE into the sub-dimensions of personal development, relationships, and system maintenance and change, and the dimension of the PLE into the sub-dimensions of naturalness, individualisation, and stimulation. For each of these sub-dimensions, the framework distinguishes an intended, implemented and attained representation. A conceptual PSLE-PLE Relationship (PPR) model enables relations to be visualised. The review confirms that PSLE and PLE are interrelated in interactions between different sub-dimensions and their representations. However, evidence regarding these relationships is still weak because of the limited number of studies and their methodological limitations.

This paper presents an insight into end-users' perception of smart grid products for households. The analysed products included three types of home energy management products (HEMPs) namely: smart thermostats, smart plugs and smart wall sockets. The analysis involved existing commercial HEMPs, as well as newly designed HEMPs from a students' project executed at University of Twente (Netherlands) in 2013 and 2014. Various industrial design methods were applied, and an online survey was utilised for data collection. The smart thermostat was considered the product with the greatest potential to stimulate energy-efficient behaviour. Features most preferred by end-users are: 1) visual display of energy information; 2) monitoring of energy use of appliances; 3) remote control, and expected ease of use. Appearance also appeared to have influenced the preferences of end-users regarding specific HEMPs. This study highlights the main features that household end-users desire in products that could stimulate energy-efficient behaviour.

The Circular-Design - Learning for Innovative Design for Sustainability (L4IDS) project is a three year (2016-2019) Erasmus + Knowledge Alliance financed project. The goal of the project is to promote sustainable consumption and production of products and services in Europe. This is achieved through a knowledge co-creation process and the development of training materials in order to teach and train students, faculty and enterprise staff of the design sector in Innovative Design for Sustainability (IDfS) strategies. The project is aligned with European Circular Economy policies and contributes to the realization of a more sustainable society. There is an abundance of learning schemes, courses, and teaching materials in higher education on DfS but few of these focuses on Knowledge Co-Creation and Innovation and none through continuous professional development. This paper will present an overview of previous initiatives around DfS in higher education, focusing on those that rise above the level of a single institution. By mapping these initiatives on the triangle Design for Sustainability (DfS)-Knowledge Co-Creation - Innovation, we will articulate the gap which the L4IDS project aims to bridge. For this, we will use an adapted version of the DfS Evolutionary framework. The mapping will be based on a case study publication on knowledge co-creation processes in design for sustainability. Specifically, the study will focus on the position of Digital Fabrication Labs (DFL) in this innovative design for sustainability triangle.

Two residential Smart Grid pilots, PowerMatching City, Groningen (NL) and Pecan Street, Austin Texas (USA) have been compared regarding their energy performance and the experiences of users in these pilots. The objective of the comparison was to gain new insights that could support the successful deployment of future residential Smart Grids. Measured data on electricity generation and electricity consumption of households in 2013 and 2014 were evaluated. Existing reports with results of surveys of users were also analyzed. The energy performance revealed that the average domestic electricity consumption of households in PowerMatching City was lower compared to Pecan Street (2.6 GW h versus 10.1 GW h). At the same time, households in Pecan Street generated a higher amount of electricity compared to PowerMatching City (6.8 GW h versus 1.14 GW h). Households in Pecan Street consumed on average, 8% less electricity with respect to the USA average household domestic electricity consumption of 10.9 GW h; while households in PowerMatching City consumed 19% less electricity compared to the Dutch average household domestic electricity consumption of 3.1 GW h. Households in PowerMatching City appeared to have a higher potential to contribute to electricity demand and supply balancing, because their electricity consumption from the grid was largely reduced with increased self-generation. User experiences revealed that end-users in both pilots preferred technologies that automatically shift their energy use, since this requires minimal effort from them. We conclude that the pattern of households’ electricity generation and consumption in Smart Grid pilot projects, and their contribution to peak load balancing in the electricity network is largely influenced by existing Smart Grid set-ups, local climate and related needs for heating and cooling, the average capacity of installed energy generating technologies and the prevailing energy behavior.

This report presents the Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship Methodology developed within the EU-funded InnoLabs project (2014–2016). The project aimed to establish student innovation laboratories that foster cross-sectoral, multidisciplinary approaches to complex societal challenges. Drawing primarily on practices from Aalborg University and insights from partner institutions in Latvia, Estonia, and Cyprus, the manual outlines organisational guidelines for integrating large, problem-based student projects into higher-education curricula. Key components include semester themes, project catalogues, group formation processes, supervision structures, and assessment approaches. The report consolidates experiences, templates, and examples to support universities in implementing and refining innovation labs as platforms for sustainable, co-creative learning and regional development.

In health care, the design, development and commercialization of innovative products is often found frustrating due to the slow inefficient and difficult nature of its systems. One part of this problem is the fact that health systems are highly regulated complex systems that include various stakeholders and unique challenges. Nevertheless, designers and other innovators are
often unaware of these unique features of health systems. It is important that designers and managers are able to understand the system, anticipate challenges and account for them in their work.

We therefore aim to establish and evaluate an overarching conceptual model, which can delineate both the systems of health care innovation process and the relevant stakeholders in these systems. This paper reviews the application and potential benefits of one of the promising models called Multilevel Design Model (MDM) by employing an expert-participatory testing on multiple cases in documented clinical reports (n=8). The evaluation of the MDM model followed by further adaptations and changes to the model itself, as well as to the accompanying user guidelines. With some adjustments, the MDM was able to visualize and explain the systems of the health care innovation process in a systematic and shared manner usable for health product designers, innovators and health organizations. We propose the adjusted MDM model for further use in the design and development of health care innovations in order to avoid the typical stagnation of product dissemination after implementation.

Participatory design or co-design is defined as the active engagement of all
stakeholders in a design process. However, in many co-design projects, only end
users are involved. Participants are often considered as the traditional
representatives of a generalized stakeholder group, without prior analysis made
on each individual’s specific interest. These assumptions fail to capture
opportunities for integration and satisfy multiple stakeholders simultaneously,
which is required to design successful products in complex systems like health
care. To maximize the benefit of collaboration, it is important for designers to
improve understanding of the participants and their role as a stakeholder in their
product’s ecosystem.
This study aims to contribute to this understanding by discussing a potential
visualization method that maps different stakeholders’interest in the
development of new products within the health care system. The method is
based on a Multilevel Design Model and was tested by means of a researchbased-
modeling approach, in which several design experts where asked to map
or position several design phenomena on a pre-defined template. Both the
selection of the phenomena and the mapping results of the various experts
where evaluated through comparison.
A positive correlation was found between the type of expertise of the different
experts, and their specific interest in the innovation system. This led to the
conclusion that the visualisation method may prove to be a useful instrument for
analysing stakeholders at different levels of institutional and nontechnical
systems. Therefore, it may potentially help to manage the problem of complexity
and resolve equivocality in the design process.

The transition of the electricity system to smart grids requires residential end-users to be more involved in managing energy demand and supply. New innovative products and services could help to support end-users to play a more active role in the management of the future electric power system. This paper evaluates the role of Industrial Design Methods (IDMs) in the development of new innovative smart grid related product concepts at the household level. Based on students' design projects, carried out within a master study programme, various IDMs were systematically utilized to develop new innovative products for smart grid households. Our study shows that five IDMs, namely: platform-driven product development, delft innovation model, theory of inventive problem solving, technology roadmapping, and innovative design and styling were mainly applied in the development of the conceptual products. This study shows that a thorough and careful application of various IDMs helped to develop inspiring potential smart grids product concepts that could support end-users at the household level to gain more insight into their energy use, and contribute to balancing energy demand and supply. These concepts include various in-home displays, smart plugs, and smart wall sockets. The resulting product concepts are presented in this paper. We conclude that the systematic use of various IDMs helped to identify and incorporate various technological, societal, market, and end-user aspects necessary for creating innovative smart grid related products that meet end-user and future market expectations.