Staging urban design through experimentation

Late modern urban planning and design is facing new challenges, as cities are increasingly characterized by uncertainties and controversies that cannot be addressed by traditional planning approaches. In this chapter, we explore current developments in the field of urban planning, and point to staging as an approach to ‘rehearse’ new futures or alternate realities in urban spaces. We adopt Thinging’ as our main approach to critically discuss the setting of the stage. Using the concepts of ‘ontological choreography’ and ‘agonistic pluralism’, we emphasize the need to carefully craft the ‘invitation’ to the stage and to inspire and challenge dominant perceptions of urban life and futures. Theoretically, we draw on actor network theory and co-design theory as well as agonistic planning theories.