Christiaan Weiler architecte ir. MSc.

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Valuing and Evaluating Creativity for Sustainable Regional Development / Conference

Östersund, Sweden - 11-14 september 2016

Östersund, Sweden - 11-14 september 2016Valuing and Evaluating Creativity for Sustainable Regional Development / Conference (VEC)

“REGIONS and THIRD PLACES Explorations of (new) economic evolutions: Their potential as organizational protoypes, as agents of regional development, and the factor of scale”,

Presentation by Christiaan Weiler ir. MSc. (1.400 Words - 7 minute read)

In this presentation I will try to put culture and creativity in a speci!c context, including theoreti-cal references, but concentrating on a practical approach. With outcomes of an action-research project three connected hypothesis are proposed. To complement the otherwise rather limited quantitative data for this relatively new subject, a collaborative methodology is proposed, that will help contextualize the work and directly engage stakeholders in the process. To stay close to the title of the conference, I will focus on the elements concerning culture and cre-ativity. Giving a purpose to culture and creativity can allow us to concentrate on what it does rather than what it is. The presented research project (still in search of funding...) positions culture in a strategic role for collaborative processes, and proposes the creative stance, as an alternative to the critical stance, for innovative governance and planning development.

One of the fundamental changes that many societies have gone through in the last century is the increase in mobility and communication. These technical developments have freed organizational systems from limits in the scale of geography (space) and planning (time). F. W. Taylor pointed the way to specialized

mass production. M. Porter did the same for special-ized business management. Combined with T. Bern-ers-Lee’s internet, it triggered industrial delocaliza-tion and regional specialization leading to a dominant service economy for western economies. S. Jobs’ smart phone technology put all the tools in a single handheld tool, making it all seem rediculously simple.

There were of course innumerable developments of great in!uence in other "elds, such as geopolitics that saw the end of the soviet union and the beginning of public service privatization. The same period has seen tremendous economic growth. Unfortunately it has become apparent how socialy uneven and ecologically unsustainable it is. GDP, consumption and pollution and immigration show comparable growth curves.

The sudden "nancial crisis has presented the opportu-nity for all stakeholders to reassess the mechanisms of the dominant development model. G. Kell (UN Global Compact) summarized the risks in Davos in 2014 “... We must embrace sustainability and tackle ... global warming, rising inequalities, social unrest and vio-lence and a fragmenting world order with low trust in governments and business...”.

More recently it has become clearer how these chal-lenges are interconnected and how they can not be solved in separate sectorial approaches (UN Climate Summit report evolution - reducing carbon footprint cannot be imposed without secure economical stabil-ity). Many issues can not be contained in separate de-partments. We mostly agree now to look for integral or systemic or holistic approaches. (The pollution of rivers does not stop at admininistrative borders, this has to be tackled in supra-national agreements. The operated privatizations of government departments (for supposed ef"cient free market self-organization) now result in complex multi-stakeholder mangement. Making low carbon buildings only makes sense when

we take into account the carbon footprint of the en-tire production chain with life-cycle-costing including embodied energy - some insulation materials burn a lot of energie in order to save some later.)On the theoretical side, many initiatives have been taken to bridge the academic gap (systems thinking, GTI, Evo.Inst, Forum Urbain). Since about 40 years we speak of (business) ecosystems to embody this intergral view point. Evidently there is a biological origin to the ecosystem reference. The developments in natural sciences research gave us this term, and it is useful to have at least a super"cial understand-ing of their descriptive models and explanations of ecosystems for heuristic reasons (Dennett ‚‘co-au-thored evolution’, Shear Mccann ‚‘diversity-stability’, Dawkins ‚‘meme’. The evolutionary perspective they take on dynamic natural systems is "nding its way to other "elds of research. (ref. Turchin ‚‘EU-Brexit’, Venturi ‚‘Venice-mvp’, Kao-`Couzin ‚‘Speci"c-Generic information distribution, Damasio ‚‘prefrontal ventro-medial cortex - big data’,)

On the practical side, sociology studies have identi"ed practices in existing environments, where a ‚‘sys-temic approach’ is in action (unintendedly). In ‚‘The Great Good Place’ (1991) Ray Oldenburg describes what he calls ‚‘third places’, as distuiguished from "rst places (home) and second places (work). They’re characterized as “... low-cost, refreshing, accessible, community based, welcoming, comfortable...”, and his work studies the social role of examples such as cafes, clubs or parks. The canteen of the Cavendish Labora-tory in Cambridge is said to have played a major role the cross-fertilization of scienti"c knowledge, leading to a great number of Nobel prize winning research projects. Third places defy the modernist ef"ciency of specialized programme. In strak contrast with Marc Aug#©’s study of ‚‘Non-Places’, they mix activities and display a great attractiveness that is not mea-sured in economical terms.

The EU Erasmus+ action-research programme ‘The Origin Of Spaces (OOS) is a coproduction of 5 third-places (Lisbon, Bilbao, Bordeaux, London, Pula), aiming to transmit the best practices of the 5 partners in an online toolbox. They serve as case-studies for the academic project. With help from provisional out-comes, three hypothesis are proposed for governance and regional planning to learn from third-places : 1) Can third-places serve as a multi-disciplinary gov-ernance prototype? 2) Can third-places serve as a regional development agent? 3) At what critical scale do third-places !nd their viability?

These 3 hypothesis are to be researched according to academic standards to acquire relevance. However, the existing cases are recent and there are no exten-sive records for quantitative analysis. In complement to conventional methodologies a collaborative pro-spective approach is proposed. This is where culture and creativity become object and subject of the research project.

Ad 1 & 2) Regarding the aspects of governance and agency : When cases of complex multi-disciplinary governance are identi!ed, how do their managers practice collaborative governance and business? An intermediate outcome of the OOS project suggests a descriptive approach in 5 non-chronological steps for coherent action (linking internal governance and ex-ternal agency*) : a) convictions (culture), b) commu-nity, c) assetts, d) programme, e) in"uence. It seems in OOS, that cultural aspects of initial events were fundamental for bringing together the active com-munity of third-place initiators. LX’s rehabilitation project started with an exhibition of Peter Zumthor’s works, ZAWP’s initial project was jazz concerts. Darwin’s communication strategy started with festi-vals like ‚‘Imaginez Maintenant’. What is apparent is the federating and pioneering capacity of culture and creativity, adressing an audience of many different

interest groups.

(*Both aspects are a certain extension of eachother - no organizational system emerges or survives in a vacuum. In a systemic approach, they can not be regarded separately. A viable and succesful internal system will in"uence its surroundings and attract external dynamics - in real estate terms ‘attractivity’. Of course there are also negative in"uence snowball-effects.)

Ad 3) The question of scale : The need for integral and systemic approaches brings together !elds of practice and theory that are not formatted the same. This brings great complexity. Specialized task sim-pli!cation (F. W. Taylor) was a precondition for the upscaling of governance and business - the same governance and business that are now at stake in face of the risks that George Kell summarized. When organizational systems were still geographically limited, each stakeholder was still in close touch with the effects of his or her actions. The spatial and temporal upscaling of organizations has created slow feedback loops, delaying self-regulation and leading to inertia, disempowerment, indifference, and lack of ac-countability (J. Luyendijk). If we seek to invert these developments, and when we aim to assess integral ap-proaches and multi-task complexity, downscaling the organizational system would seem like a good start, at least for research case purposes. The difference be-tween local and global (virtual) space, and the human relations they enable, must be investigated.

To broaden the body of research on a regional level, the project proposes to co-author a part of the research thesis with local third-place manag-ers, businesses and governments. This inverses the conventional critical research thinking, and proposes experimental creative ‚‘design thinking’. ‚‘Design Thinking’ is not about shaping object but shaping

processes. It has proven it’s worth in the management environment, beginning with H A.Simon publication of ‚‘Sciences of the Arti!cial’ in 1969, and ackowledges the relevance of the ‘user-experience’ for steering product and business innovation. Even consultant !rm McKinsey has acquired Lunar Design for strategic reasons. The ‘user-experience’ is the common goal of all stakeholders in a given production-chain. This shared common goal, a common intent, a conviction, a service or a culture) self-organizes the business process. Placed in the context of governance, this ap-proach and its tools should be studied and translated to the public realm of regional development. It can offer tested techniques in multi-stakeholder process management, by common culture assessment, col-laborative prototyping, and user orientation - what I would call, in echo of ‚‘customer- and user-experience, the ‘denizen experience’.

The cause for sustainable development should be helped by all means available, and mustn’t rely solely on government compliance and respect of interna-tional agreements. Civil initiatives are taking steps and their experiences could be of great value for the governance challenges ahead. Culture, creativity and entrepreneurship, as seen in this context of reciprocal common good, could be the essential resources to en-able all stakeholders to engage in a common future.

INCREASE IN MOBILITY AND COMMUNICATION (FORD / TAYLOR - 1911) SPECIALIZED MASS PRODUCTION

INCREASE IN MOBILITY AND COMMUNICATION (PORTER - 1985) SPECIALIZED BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

INCREASE IN MOBILITY AND COMMUNICATION (BERNERS-LEE 1990) REAL TIME DELOCALIZED MONITORING

INCREASE IN MOBILITY AND COMMUNICATION (JOBS 2007) HANDHELD MANAGEMENT UNIT

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FOSSIL FUEL CONSUMPTION (1990 2 2012)

MIGRANT POPULATION (WORLD / EUROPE / UK 1960 - 2010)

GDP PER CAPITA (1965 - 1995)

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS (1900 - 2010)

UN GLOBAL COMPACT - GEORGE KELL (DAVOS 2014)

EARTH SUMMIT RIO DE JANEIRO (1992) - SOCIO-ECONOMICAL FOCUSUN CLIMATE SUMMIT STOCKHOLM (1972) - ECOLOGICAL FOCUS

TRANS-BORDER ISSUES

MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PLATFORMS

DANIEL C. DENNETT (1995) DARWIN’S DANGEROUS IDEA

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RAY OLDENBURG (1989) THE GREAT GOOD PLACE

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MARC AUGE (1992) NON-PLACES METRO STATION COPENHAGEN

THE ORIGIN OF SPACES (2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017) - INNOVATIVE PRACTICES FOR SUSTAINABLE MULTIDISCIPLINARY CLUSTERS

COWORKING SURVEY (2011 - 2015) COWORKING IN AQUITAINE (2015)

THE ORIGIN OF SPACES - MULTIDISCIPLINARY (CO)WORKING - LX FACTORY, LISBON, PORTUGAL

THE ORIGIN OF SPACES - LOCAL PARTNERSHIPS - ZAWP, BILBAO, SPAIN

THE ORIGIN OF SPACES - ECOLOGICAL TRANSITION - DARWIN, BORDEAUX, FRANCE

THE ORIGIN OF SPACES - PARTICIPATORY GOVERNANCE - ROJC, PULA, CROATIA

THE ORIGIN OF SPACES - SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP - LEWISHAM CITY HALL, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

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LX FACTORY (2008) PETER ZUMTHOR EXHIBITION

ZAWP (2015) CHARLIE PARKER TRIBUTE

DARWIN (2010) IMAGINEZ MAINTENANT

DARWIN (2016) OCEAN CLIMAX

P. TURCHIN - (2016 ) VALUES MISMATCH IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

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J. LUYENDIJK - (2015) SWIMMING WITH SHARKS

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DESIGN THINKING FOR THE DENIZEN EXPERIENCE - PROTO-TYPE (2016)

MCKINSEY ACQUIRES LUNAR DESIGN - (2015 ) H. A. SIMON - (1969) THE SCIENCES OF THE ARTIFICIAL

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