Innovative Sessions
IN 1 - Documentary screening: A Place in the City
Session chair
Gabriel Silvestre (Newcastle University)
Discussants
Francisco Comaru (Universidade Federal do ABC)
Hanna Hilbrandt (ETH Zürich)
Session type
Film Screening
Description
Duration: 61 minutes
Director: Gabriel Silvestre
Producers: Contested Territories; Fundación Ciudades sin Miedo
Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese
Subtitles: English
IN 2 / #20 - Playing [with] Knowledge: Inclusive Games and Experiments in Science Communication
Session chair
Agnes Matoga (Karlsruher Institute for Technology)
Anastasiya Ansteeg (Radboud University)
Description
Cities have long been arenas of inequality, where struggles over housing, livelihoods, welfare, and access to public space shape urban life. Today, these struggles are intensified by interconnected crises, such as rising economic inequality, accelerating climate change, and deepening political exclusion. In this context, urban research faces the dual challenge of analysing these dynamics while actively engaging in co-creating inclusive spaces and communication methods with those most affected by precarious housing and living conditions.
This session starts from the premise that science communication itself is a terrain of inequality. Traditional formats, such as lectures, papers, Q&A, often reproduce hierarchies and exclude communities who lack access to academic spaces or influence over research agendas. To contribute meaningfully to urban debates, science communication must move beyond academic circles, reaching those often ignored or silenced: vulnerable groups and marginalized communities.
The session explores how experimental and playful approaches can reimagine science communication as a practice of inclusion. We ask: How can communicative formats become genuinely accessible? How can “playing” with knowledge respect, rather than trivialize, lived experiences? And how might such approaches help urban researchers not just disseminate findings but reshape relationships between academia, policy, and civil society?
Rather than relying on spoken presentations, the session will function as a laboratory of formats and games that bring knowledge production to wider publics. Participants will engage directly with experimental tools, collaborative games, participatory mapping, storytelling exercises, and visual methods that translate complex urban issues into embodied and interactive experiences.
The session is structured around three parts:
1. Short provocations introducing the challenge of inclusive science communication and showcasing examples of experimental methods.
2. Hands-on engagement where participants collectively try playful communication tools designed to lower participation barriers and foster dialogue across social positions.
3. Collective reflection on opportunities and limitations of these approaches, discussing how communicative formats can invite collaboration, co-creation, and critique from those usually excluded.
By linking methodological innovation to urgent urban issues, such as housing and energy transitions, the session contributes to RC21’s concern with how inequalities are produced, expressed, and contested in cities. It emphasizes that science communication is not an afterthought but a vital arena where struggles over inclusion unfold. Through experimentation in practice, the session offers both methodological insights and thematic contributions, inviting participants to rethink how urban research can build communicative spaces that amplify marginalized voices and co-create transformative responses to inequality.
The session chairs will introduce experiences from the PREFIGURE project and other related initiatives that use playful, participatory tools to engage communities around housing justice and energy transitions.
We invite scholars, practitioners, and activists to submit a short abstract that introduces a challenge, experience, or project related to housing inequalities, energy transitions, or other urban inequalities and reflects on experimental methods for science communication, public engagement, or co-creation.
IN 3 / #108 - Methodological Visual Lab: Exploring participatory methodologies for territorial planning and research innovation in a multi-crisis context
Session chair
Elizabeth Wagemann (Laboratorio Ciudad y Territorio, Facultad de Arquitectura, Arte y Diseño, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile)
Magdalena Gil (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)
Natalia Donoso-Pardo (University of Sussex)
Description
In a world grappling with multiple simultaneous crises—including climate change, technological disruptions, democratic challenges, humanitarian crises, and social inequalities—it is imperative to rethink territorial planning methodologies. Traditional technocratic approaches and abstract diagnoses are insufficient for addressing the complexity and uncertainty of contemporary cities. Instead, planning must embrace innovative, participatory methodologies that engage civil society, academia, and decision-makers in co-producing knowledge and action. This approach also presents challenges for research and innovation in data collection across different contexts.
In this context, the ‘visual turn’ in the social sciences becomes particularly relevant. Visual tools such as collaborative maps, models, audiovisual records and graphic narratives enable sensitive socio-spatial dimensions to be captured that are often overlooked by traditional research methods. Recent research has examined the intersection between the social sciences and architecture using visual representations, thereby enhancing our ability to comprehend the intricate relationships between space, usage, and daily life. Revitalising the use of visual methods enhances analytical capacity in the face of complex urban issues. This also makes knowledge production more democratic, offering inclusive and transparent platforms to highlight conflicts and co-design territorial futures in times of multiple crises.
This session aims to explore and debate innovative, participatory methodologies — particularly visual approaches — to strengthen territorial planning in the face of contemporary, multiple crises. Using tools such as visual storytelling, collaborative mapping and participatory models, the goal is to highlight urban and territorial conflicts and create inclusive spaces for dialogue among different societal groups. The session ultimately seeks to revitalise the ‘visual turn’ in social and urban sciences as a means of understanding the complexity of cities and designing fairer, more resilient and democratic collective responses.
Specifically, the session will be a methodological laboratory in which each speaker presents and executes their approach live with audience participation. Attendees will engage with traditional tools such as maps, models and collages, as well as technological and innovative approaches based on artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, and virtual models that simulate decisions and processes inherent in the proposed methodology when applied to territorial issues in multi-crisis contexts. This format enables collective experimentation with the challenges and learning processes of each approach, turning the session into an interactive exercise in co-producing knowledge and innovative research.
We invite researchers interested in methodological innovation to participate in our laboratory. The aim is to strengthen the potential of participatory research in a multi-crisis context by applying new visual methodological tools. The main themes related to the city and its challenges during times of crisis include the following:
• Climate Crisis and the City
• Technological Development Applied to the City
• Well-Being, Health and Mobility
• The City and the Culture of Care
• Humanitarian Crises and Mass Migration
We welcome proposals for methodological innovations related to these themes, although similar topics are also welcome. Through collective experimentation, our aim is to enhance participatory research methodologies and encourage interdisciplinary dialogue to address the challenges faced by contemporary cities.