Urban Innovation through Co-Design Scenarios: Lessons from Palermo

This paper aims to contribute to current research on learning through designing for urban innovation. It provides a framework methodology for a multidisciplinary ecosystem as a participatory method developed in the context of Mobility Urban Values (MUV), an EU Horizon 2020 project (2017-2020), that addresses the issue of behavioral change towards (more) sustainable mobility lifestyle in EU cities. The paper frames the MUV method through the combination of theories on collaborative urban planning and participatory design with a background rooted on governance of public participation, as the interplay between co-creation (thick participation) and co-design (thin participation). MUV participatory method is envisioned as a learning infrastructure that engages at different levels communities, citizens, and stakeholders. This paper addresses the question on how enabling urban innovation through sensitive phases of sociological and technical components to produce learning. The conceptual background of the MUV method and the first application phase of co-creation/co-design for the old city center neighborhood in Palermo, Italy, provide lessons on the results of this approach for a future research agenda and the loop learning. While the method is adopted specifically in relation to mobility urban values, MUV method can inspire a variety of other cases questioning urban innovation through socio-technical learning.