Springer Human Smart Cities: Rethinking the Interplay between Design and Planning (Urban and Landscape Perspectives)

Within the most recent discussion on smart cities and the way this vision is affecting urban changes and dynamics, this book explores the interplay between planning and design both at the level of the design and planning domains’ theories and practices. Urban transformation is widely recognized as a complex phenomenon, rich in uncertainty. It is the unpredictable consequence of complex interplay between urban forces (both top-down or bottom-up), urban resources (spatial, social, economic and infrastructural as well as political or cognitive) and transformation opportunities (endogenous or exogenous). The recent attention to Urban Living Lab and Smart City initiatives is disclosing a promising bridge between the micro-scale environments, with the dynamics of such forces  and resources, and the urban governance mechanisms. This bridge is represented by those urban collaborative environments, where processes of smart service co-design take place through dialogic interaction with and among citizens within a situated and cultural-specific frame. Review “The book provides a comprehensive account of the topic of smart cities as a human-driven approach for supporting urban transformation. … useful reading for spatial planners, policy makers and place managers that are more concerned with a search for answers to questions such as, what does it mean for citizens living, working and playing in a smart city?” (Eduardo Oliveira, Environment and Planning B, 2017) From the Back Cover Within the most recent discussion on smart cities and the way this vision is affecting urban changes and dynamics, this book explores the interplay between planning and design both at the level of the design and planning domains’ theories and practices. Urban transformation is widely recognized as a complex phenomenon, rich in uncertainty. It is the unpredictable consequence of complex interplay between urban forces (both top-down or bottom-up), urban resources (spatial, social, economic and infrastructural as well as political or cognitive) and transformation opportunities (endogenous or exogenous). The recent attention to Urban Living Lab and Smart City initiatives is disclosing a promising bridge between the micro-scale environments, with the dynamics of such forces  and resources, and the urban governance mechanisms. This bridge is represented by those urban collaborative environments, where processes of smart service co-design take place through dialogic interaction with and among citizens within a situated and cultural-specific frame. About the Author Grazia Concilio has a PhD from the University of Naples, she is assistant professor in Urban Planning at Politecnico di Milano. She carried out research activity at the RWTH in Aachen (D), at the IIASA in Laxenburg (A) and at the Concordia University of Montreal, Canada. She is component of several national and international research projects, responsible for a CNR young scientist project and, coordinator of two European projects for Politecnico di Milano, namely Periphèria and My Neighbourhood. She is author of several articles and publications. Francesca Rizzo was a researcher at the Design Department of Politecnico di Milano and is currently a researcher at University of Bologna. She has a PhD in Telematics and Information from the University of Siena. She taught Human Computer Interaction and Interaction Design at University of Siena and at Politecnico di Milano. Fields of interest: User Centred Design (UCD), user studies and usability of interactive products. She is author of many articles and worked in different European Research Projects and coordinated, for The Design department of the Politecnico di Milano, Peripheria and Life 2.0 projects.