From citizen innovation labs to social transformation
analysing the Conectando Cozinhas case through the lens of infrastructuring
Laryssa Tarachucky (IFSC)
Diego Hernando Florez Ayala (University of Vale do Itajaí)
Aksel Ersoy (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
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Abstract
Citizen Innovation Labs (LabICs) have emerged as experimental infrastructures for collective design and civic transformation. Operating in close partnership with public institutions, these laboratories create collaborative spaces where urban publics co-design responses to issues of shared concern. Yet, little is known about how these laboratories operate as long-term supports for community-driven initiatives beyond their initial phases of experimentation or incubation. This paper investigates how LabICs mobilise processes of infrastructuring to support broader cycles of social transformation by analysing the case of Conectando Cozinhas, a citizen-led initiative developed within LabIC Novale (Brazil). Using a retrospective qualitative case study, the research reconstructs the initiative’s trajectory across five stages: public formation, issue articulation and prototyping, public scoping and validation, incubation, and post-incubation. Findings suggest that LabIC Novale acted as an enabling infrastructure that fostered public formation, collective ownership, and translation of grassroots initiatives into institutional contexts. Yet sustaining participation beyond the incubation phase remained a challenge.
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