citizen participation - waterfront communities project

8 2
L3
waterfront communities project toolkit
Hafen City
H a m b u r g
HafenCity is owned by the City of Hamburg and has almost no inhabitants. The strategy is mainly to
inform and bring citizens from elsewhere into the area using different means of publicity but also
public involvement including the following approaches:
� “Dialog im Ke s s e l h a u s”: A regular local public discussion forum on different topics related
to the HafenCity development - e.g. “HafenCity and arts” (Jan 2005), which dealt with
specific ideas for art projects, the appointment of an ‘arts co-o r d i n a t o r’, affordable housing
for artists, architecture academy, an art competition, etc.
� “Move of Katharinen-School and Building of Community Centre”:
The Ka t h a r i n e n -School is to be moved from the old part of the city centre to the new
HafenCity centre. Combined with this move the school will be extended to become a
community centre with a comprehensive programme for use. The project is given assistance
by the German research project VERA sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and
Research and supervised by the National Research Centre for Environment and Health (GSF).
The project’s aim is to elaborate on different patterns of work and life, it will examine these
patterns of use and interaction with urban spaces, mapping these patterns in a timegeographic
and computer based way and will identify conflicts and interrelations.
These are the starting point of ‘participatory reality experiments’ which produce laboratory
situations in which researchers observe and examine process using means of
communication, co-operation and/or practical and real intervention. Thus it is possible to
analyse and assess the behaviour of involved actors not only statically - as in classic surveys
- but also in a dynamic way regarding their willingness and motivation to change.
� “Ti m e-political reality ex p e r i m e n t s” take place in different phases. In a first step, timepolitical
issues are identified in collaboration with regional stakeholders from
policy/administration, market and civil society. The relevant problems and questions are then
‘processed’ by teams composed of researchers, practitioners and end users. Re s e a r c h e r s
support the work through scientific analysis as well as by making results accessible for
planning and participation. The outcome of a reality experiment could generate scientificallyfounded
practical changes in the planning processes (e.g. newly designed time structures,
new service supplies, etc). Scientific methods are used to identify how these results might
be replicated in different contexts in order to inform broader academic and professional
debate. Reality experiments are successful if they manage to establish continuous
professional communication and cooperation in an increasing network of actors, thereby
helping to build up trust-based relationships to underpin the mutual translation of different
logics and ‘languages’ of different actors involved in the projects such as academics and
p r a c t i t i o n e r s .