Bringing the forest around the table: How to support other-than-human participation in urban regeneration processes through design?

Complex systemic challenges such as urban regeneration projects that strive for a positive long-term impact, must take into account views and needs of multiple stakeholders, both of humans and other species (e.g. animals, plants, landscapes etc). While human actors can directly engage and articulate their own perspectives, other species depend on humans to represent them. Humans who seek to represent other-than-human needs must be equipped with relevant knowledge, empathy, and imagination to do so. Additionally, they can benefit from having communication and representation techniques to support them in this task. While participatory design suggests a rather rich toolkit to support the joint work of stakeholders, the representation of other species in this context is understudied. The purpose of the workshop is to address this gap. Through a combination of hands-on activities and discussions, participants will have the opportunity to collaboratively explore and reflect on how design can support the participation of multi-species actors in participatory workshops in urban regeneration projects.