Urban Living Lab for Local Regeneration

Nele Aernouts is an assistant professor at the Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her research focuses on the spatial design, planning and governance of social and collective housing and processes of in- and exclusion that go along with it. Theoretically, it is informed by studies and debates about participatory planning, housing policy and the commons. Francesca Cognetti is Associate Professor of Planning and Urban Policies at the Politecnico di Milano and the Rector’s Delegate to Public Engagement. Her teaching and research concentrate on public/social housing, social inequalities and the right to the city. She coordinates field labs and action research in deprived contexts, employing a collaborative, policy design-based approach. Elena Maranghi is architect and urban planner, she has been a research assistant (post-doc) at the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (Politecnico di Milano). Since 2013, she has been a part of Mapping San Siro action-research group. Her research activities focus on social housing, local competencies, co-designed urban regeneration, and urban living labs in marginalized areas. She currently works for the Municipality of Genoa (Italy).

Introduction: Framing living labs in large-scale social housing estates in Europe.- Part 1: A critical overview on urban living labs in large-scale social housing estates.- Beyond a buzzword: Situated participation through socially oriented urban living labs.- Governing with urban labs.- Urban living labs: Insights for institutionally promoted urban policies.- Part 2: Positioning research(ers) in large-scale social estates.- Beyond the presence: Dwelling with people and with their places.- 1,460 days of love and hate: An ethnographic account of a layered job.- The inside and outside of high-rise social housing: The broken institution.- From a community of practice to a community of planning: The case of the Sansheroes network in the San Siro neighbourhood in Milan.- Part 3: Approaching space in large-scale social housing estates.- Marginalization through mobility and porosity - How social housing dwellers see and live the city.- Peterbos: Living in the park, inhabiting the city.- Participation and the architect: Creative partnership or communication breakdown?- Confusing the spatial with the social: Can ethnography offer a way out?.