Leveraging design activism to guide public projects towards citizen inclusion: a case study of Copenhagen Street Lab

This paper explores a case wherein design activism was leveraged to
guide the governance of a public project towards greater citizen inclusion.
This exploration, part of a master’s thesis in Service Design at Aalborg
university, centres on Copenhagen’s Street Lab – a living lab where
technological smart city solutions are developed and tested. Though an
interesting and innovative public project, at the time of this work Street
Lab’s citizen inclusion strategy was minimal. This was perceived as a
problem, as smart city development without citizen inclusion introduces
risks, and can neglect the needs of real users.
In this case study, Street Lab’s governing actors were slowly pushed
towards a more citizen-centred mindset with the introduction of a series
of gradually more disruptive designed artifacts. This process produced
some positive outcomes, and we therefore argue that design activism is
a method worth further exploration for guiding public projects towards
participatory design.