Designing Digital Urban Interactions. Industry Landscape and Market Analysis
SMART CITY new
1. SMART CITY
Tracing the Problem in a Design Process
Spatial Designs & Society
K2 Project 2016
Phoebe Aust (56886), Darcy Millar (56938), Birk Diener (56890) & Dennis Haladyn (50041)
Supervised by
David Pinder
Characters: 153.937
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PRELUDE......................................................................................................................................................................1
1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................................3
1.1 State of the Art...............................................................................................................................................3
1.2 The importance of the problem..............................................................................................................6
1.3 Context: Copenhagen and beyond.........................................................................................................8
2 RESEARCH QUESTION.....................................................................................................................................11
3 THEORY .................................................................................................................................................................13
3.1 ANT and Analysis ......................................................................................................................................14
3.2 Transformation..........................................................................................................................................17
3.3 Scaling............................................................................................................................................................18
3.4 Translation...................................................................................................................................................18
ANT toolbox - glossary of terms used ......................................................................................................20
4 METHOD................................................................................................................................................................22
4.1 Participant Observation..........................................................................................................................23
4.2 Semi-structured interviews..................................................................................................................24
4.3 Writing...........................................................................................................................................................25
5 DESCRIPTIONS - deploying the controversies ......................................................................................28
5.1 The Topic Plan - setting the scene.......................................................................................................28
5.2 Observations - the enabling of the problem ....................................................................................31
5.3 Debriefing - the creation of the problem...........................................................................................39
5.4 Focus group interview - the setting of the problem.....................................................................47
5.5 Midway Report - the curtains close....................................................................................................55
6 SETTLING OF THE CONTROVERSY............................................................................................................58
7 BECOMING INTERESTING..............................................................................................................................65
8 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................................................68
9 REFLECTION........................................................................................................................................................71
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................................................75
3. 1
PRELUDE
Through the misty sea-air dozens of high rising towers peak against the sky. In the middle of
them stands the highest, the Northeast Asia Trade Tower. It is winding itself in an elegant
rotation to a stately height of three hundred meters, the diffused sunlight reflecting in its
mirrored windows.
As we are getting closer, the image starts to move. We see cars and trucks, small like ants,
driving along multi-laned main streets. But we do not only see concrete, steel and glass; there
is also a lot of greens, bordering lakes and canals. When we draw even closer, we start to
recognise single humans walking along on the pavement or cycling on bike paths meandering
through the parks. Let us follow one of them. Let us follow the woman with the green pullover.
Jeon has moved to Songdo City a little over two years ago together with her husband. They
have chosen Songdo City for its convenient location near Incheon airport, which her husband,
who has to travel a lot, can reach in just twenty minutes.
In the meantime Jeon has arrived at the apartment tower where she is living together with
her husband and their child. She holds her chip card against the reader, so we can enter the
apartment. In the moment the card reader transmits the opening signal to the door, another
message is sent to the house’ computing centre, which registers that Jeon is back home. In her
apartment Jeon has access to the computing centre through a display embedded in the wall.
She can see how much energy they have used in the last months and how they performed
compared to the average consumption.
The computing centre of the apartment tower is registering the momentary energy and water
consumption and sending the information to a central data centre in real time, where a man
named Kim and his colleagues are monitoring the incoming signals of the millions of sensors
of the first ubiquitous computing city of the world - completely planned and financed by a
consortium of private Korean and American companies.
Back in her apartment Jeon explains that they could lower their energy consumption by thirty
to forty percent compared to their old apartment, thanks to the intelligent energy system and
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the omnipresent cameras give Jeon a feeling of security - especially when she is thinking
about her daughter. But she does not like that she is filmed all the time and that her
movements are recorded independent of what she is doing, saying laconically: “Nobody has
an affair in Songdo City.”
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1 INTRODUCTION
Songdo City, home to about 36,000 inhabitants and seat of the United Nations Office for
Sustainable Development, is one of the prime examples of a smart city, for supporter and
critics alike. It praises itself as “a proving ground for next-generation ‘smart’ city solutions”,
providing “an idyllic and sustainable place [...] to live, work, and play” (Songdo IBD, n.d.).
Critics on the other hand note the lack of spontaneity that Smart Cities create, when
everything is planned, accounted for and monitored where is the space to break with the
norm and challenge prescribed top-down societal order? (Calzada & Cobo, 2015; Söderström,
Paasche & Klauser, 2014)
This paper will focus on a smart city project, albeit one at the other end of the scale from
Songdo. We established contact with a small consultancy in Copenhagen called V!gør, that
focuses on various aspects of urban development. Innovation and creative processes,
learning and communication, public participation and co-creation, temporary architecture
and urban planning and process management are all listed as areas of specialism on their
website (V!gør website, accessed 31/03/2016). Their smart city project is part of a much
wider one, an Intelligent Traffic Solutions (ITS) project, which looks at improving the
relationship between bicycles and pedestrians. The overall motivation for the project is the
creation of “dynamic urban space” (Technolution, unpublished).
1.1 State of the Art
In order to situate this paper’s research, it is important to first delve into some of the
definitions of what this “new language of smartness” encompasses (Luque-Ayala, McFarlane
and Marvin, 2016: 2). Canvassing a range of differing and contrasting understandings of the
term, including the recent and emerging critical discourse, will provide a comprehension of
the complexity of these projects and their potential for impacting society. An appreciation of
this is one motivation behind this academic project, as we feel that there is a pressing need
to address certain questions regarding smart city technologies, their development, and final
application in cities.
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A basic, working understanding of smart cities is provided by Söderström (2014) who states:
Smart cities involve the creation of new relations between technology and society […]. urban
infrastructures and everyday life in cities are optimized through technologies provided by IT
companies (Söderström et al. 2014: 309.)
However, the point has been made that cities have in fact always been ‘smart’, that technology
has always had a part to play in the development, growth and planning of urban life, from
sanitation, to metro systems, to telephone lines, and the use of information and
communication technology (ICT) is just the latest continuation of this (Sennett, 2012). While
Söderström’s terming of smart cities seems to describe a fairly uncontroversial coordination
between technology and ‘real life’ - technology merely helping to make one’s daily routines
easier and quicker - the critical discourse suggests a much more complex reality. As Hajer
comments (2014), “efficiency seems uncontroversial but does it make for great cities?”
Townsend, author of Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers and the Quest for a New Utopia,
reflects that just to ask “what is a smart city?” is in fact an elusive question in and of itself
(Townsend, 2013: 20). According to Townsend, the term ‘smart’ is problematic, meaning
multiple things and therefore being used in multiple ways. This is backed up by Hollands
(2015) who, despite the ‘catch all’ tendencies that he identifies in contemporary discourse -
i.e. the smart city tag having been attributed to anything from bike sharing to pop-up parklets
- acknowledges that something significant is taking place: ICT will have a hand in addressing,
and hopefully solving, the problems cities face today and tomorrow (ibid.). Townsend’s
eventual, and careful, formulation of what ‘smart’ could mean is,
places where information technology is combined with infrastructure, architecture, everyday
objects and even our bodies to address social, economic and environmental problems
(Townsend 2015: 21).
However, over issues of defining what counts as ‘smart’ or not, Townsend posits that the
central question should be, “what do you want a smart city to be?” (ibid.). In other words,
planners need to collaborate with citizens to work out what they need, rather than passively
accepting the innovations of engineers and large-scale ICT companies. The task of finding out
what is needed from a smart city project or what problems such a project could address is
therefore identified as a crucial first step, one that will feed into our motivation for this paper.
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Much of the criticism in the smart city discourse focuses on the tension between citizens and
governance or private business; in other words, top down versus bottom up (Calzada & Cobo,
2015; Townsend, 2013; Hollands, 2015). Some scholars have interpreted the smart city
movement as merely representing a byproduct of the “growing domination of neoliberal
urban activities and spaces” (Peck & Tickell, 2002, in Hollands, 2008: 304) or else a symptom
of the rise of entrepreneurialism in governance whereby the local is bolstered by public-
private partnerships, in order to generate risk-laden economic speculations in development
(Harvey, 1989; Wood, 1998). While there is an acknowledged lack of sufficient critical
research into smart cities (Luque-Ayala, McFarlane and Marvin, 2016), what has been done
is mostly concerned with this angle: the smart city as an ideological concept and corporate
enterprise (Hollands, 2015; Soderstrom et al., 2014).
In a similar vein, there is a recognisable trend in both smart city design and research to overly
focus on the purely technological and economic aspects of innovation (Al-Hader et al., 2009;
Paskaleva, 2011). This kind of work assumes the malevolence or at least neutrality of these
new forms of urban networks, while neglecting to focus on the potential social and political
impacts. This limited focus also has a tendency to ignore the messy reality of the world in
which the projects are rolled out. The introduction to Smart Urbanism highlights the crucial
role that the messiness of cities have played historically in their resistance to
implementations of large-scale interventions in urban systems (such as the grid system in
America), “unfolding an inherently complex and contested process - which often fails”
(Luque-Ayala, McFarlane and Marvin, 2016: 3). As such, what is needed is an approach that
remains open to the complexity and dynamism of cities - encompassing the material and
social dimensions as well as the political and technical - something apparently “beyond the
reach of social sciences perspectives” (ibid.).
Among the conflicting views over smart cities, there seems to be a central dichotomy over the
understanding of the significance of the use of ICT solutions in urban planning and how to
use and implement these new sets of spatially enrolled technologies in the material urbanity,
that is already existing. While the opinion above (Sennett, 2012) holds that technology has
always been a feature of human and urban development, it is just a matter of time before
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people know how to use them well, others see the arrival of ICT as a truly revolutionary
moment in the future of urban life.
In the introductory essay to Smart About Cities, Hajer depicts this new dawn as a complete
overhauling and restructuring of urban development, one that has the potential to do great
harm or finally bring about the good city (Hajer, 2014). The scale and potential consequences
that this moment could bring about - referred to as a “discursive shift”- therefore calls for
serious research and debate in order to properly explore the options and take advantage of
what is a “moment of opportunity” (Hajer: 29). In this way, there is a common understanding
of the need to ask, re-ask and critically examine the question and subsequent answers to:
what is a smart city? To investigate this, our paper will follow the problem setting in one such
smart city project, looking for how the project is asking and answering this critical question.
1.2 The importance of the problem
The last section has established the significance of the debate on smart cities, touched on the
competing definitions of smart cities, and lastly found some common ground regarding the
need for reflection on what is needed from smart city technology - what problems do we need
it to solve?
One of the criticisms of smart city projects to date is that there is a tendency to move too
swiftly between problems and solutions, thereby skipping steps that would make the
designed object or system much more successful (Hajer, 2014: 16). The importance of taking
time in the design process, ensuring reflection on the decisions made, and involving more
actants than just engineers and big technology firms in the dialogue, could reduce the number
of ‘Songdo-like’ interventions and produce solutions that better respond to the complexity of
the environmental, social and economic issues that face contemporary urban life (Cavillo et
al., 2013; Sennett, 2012).
Taking this more deliberative perspective as a point of departure, our research will focus on
the initial steps of a design process: the development of a problem. At the time of writing,
whilst the company we study, has some concepts in mind, a clear design goal or question is
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nevertheless not currently set. They are currently in a state that Gedenryd (1998: 169,
following Schön 1983) terms as ‘problem setting’. Gedenryd challenges the common
understanding of the designer as a problem solver, instead arguing that “producing the
problem is work that the designer must do” and that this is not “a minor issue; it is on the
contrary the most difficult part of the work” (Gedenryd, 1998: 69-70,).
Gendenryd (ibid.) argues that in opposition to the conventional conception of design
processes “as problem solving by pure analysis”, where the design problem is ready to hand,
in the actual designing the “design problems are anything but given”. The designer also has
to do the “problem setting” (Schön 1983, in Gendenryd 1998: 69) - to produce the problem,
in order to be able to solve it. Here lies the motivation behind studying problem setting - it is
a crucial step for designers to engage with; one that determines the fate of the designed
object.
In order to avoid the situation that Hajer refers to, with smart city designs that fail to consider,
debate, and engage in their development, merely moving from problem to solution with an
application of technology and producing what Sennett (2012) refers to as the “stupefying
smart city” exemplified by Songdo or Masdar, there is a need to actively include the problem
setting in the design process. Thereby integrating problem setting with problem solving. By
focusing on the primary steps this smart city project takes - how it establishes itself - a
“heuristic process of continuous learning” that Hajer (2014: 34), via Schön and Dewey argues
is needed for smart “urbanism” can be made possible; a process that would include
“inspiration, measurements, analyses and readjustments” (ibid.).
Luque-Ayala, McFarlane and Marvin (2016) argue that it is not just the designers and
engineers that have been overly focused on producing solutions rather than sufficiently
establishing the problems. For them, it is the accompanying research into the field that has
also has a tendency towards problem-solving, “concerned with achieving optimal outcomes
for smart systems”, while failing to reflect on the uncertainties and potentials in a critical
manner (Luque-Ayala et al. 2016:: 3). By shifting the focus from the end product to the infancy
of the design process and by using an open and inclusive methodology, our research answers,
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albeit modestly, the call made by Luque-Ayala et al. for “thinking that combines critical insight
across disciplines and places” (Luque-Ayala, McFarlane and Marvin, 2016: 3).
1.3 Context: Copenhagen and beyond
Our research is based on a smart city project produced for København Kommune and is
therefore heavily implicated in the existing planning paradigm of Copenhagen, which has
been defined by its focus on achieving high sustainability goals for the city. Reducing
pollution, with an ambitious goal of making the city carbon neutral in 2025, is part of the
vision to make Copenhagen a ‘responsible city’ - one that encourages its residents and guests
to travel in a green way by promoting bicycle and pedestrian mobility (Københavns
Kommune, 2009 ).
There is a visible emphasis on supporting bottom-up and small scale organisation in the
planning and design of Copenhagen, with slogans such as “sammen om byen” [together for
the city], adorning everything from municipality vehicles to rubbish bins, while another,
“Sharing Copenhagen”, is a framework that grew out of Copenhagen’s year as European Green
Capital in 2014, positioned to bring together key “eco-interested” actors with the city
(Københavns Kommune, 2012). While these promise to involve the users and public in the
development of the city and the attainment of its goals - environmental sustainability among
them - there is also a side to Copenhagen’s planning that remains beyond the public purview.
The involvement of smart technology in Copenhagen has thus far largely been confined to
large infrastructural projects, those dominated by feats of complex engineering that therefore
seem to justify not involving the public. For example, recent implementations of “smart traffic
lights” that promise to cut journey times for buses and cyclists by utilizing data from people
in the vicinity via their smartphones might seem like a good idea, but with an estimated at a
cost of 60 million Danish Kroners (DKKs) and the issues of privacy that could be raised, one
can speculate as to why the public were not consulted more (EU Smart Cities, online).
This is part of a wider move by the municipality to establish Copenhagen as sort of a living
laboratory for the testing and development of smart city technology, evidently the next phase
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of a lucrative position as being the sustainable showcase: “the smart city is equal to the
sustainable city”, proclaims Morten Kabell, the Deputy Mayor for Technical and
Environmental Issues (The Copenhagen Post, online). He is speaking at the launch of the city’s
new Street Lab, a centre formed in collaboration with tech and engineering giants such as
Cisco and Citelum.
The lab will be a testing ground for emerging technologies that aim to provide cities with new
abilities, such as sensors for the effective monitoring of air quality or for more efficient
rubbish disposal. While the city is very excited that the Street Lab will “ensure that we take
advantage of of the potential in new digital solutions” (ibid.), with allusions to the economic
growth it could represent, the technocratic nature of the enterprise and its dialogue with
large, multinational companies has the potential of reducing the role of the city and its
inhabitants to that of passive test subjects, providing the municipality and its business
partners with the much needed data to support their sales pitches.
The technocratic and business orientated approach that arguably characterises
Copenhagen’s relationship thus far with smart cities is starkly different to the work that has
been done elsewhere in the world. Montreal has been using technology to develop
community ties and support grassroots enterprise, what has been termed as an example of
“smart community” over smart cities (Anderson, 2014). Their approach revolves around
openness and citizen engagement, making the city’s data accessible and inviting the public to
participate via popup labs and idea competitions (Ville Intelligente, online).
Amsterdam’s activity in the world of smart city technology has been similar in outlook:
attempting to engage the public via a host of online platforms, citizen labs, and crowdsourcing
initiatives, as well as an open data programme (Amsterdam Smart City, online). The core
motivation for creating an inclusive city with smart technology is exemplified by the research
project, ‘the democratic smart city’, that the Amsterdam City Council and Amsterdam Smart
City partnership are funding and partners of.
The project aims to explore how values, such as participation and ownership, can be built into
technologies, and how people can increasingly discuss and decide about their own digital
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environments (The democratic smart city, online). The group of philosophers and social
scientists involved in this task aim to work closely with engineers, council workers,
corporations and representatives of the public, in response to the issues of privacy and
uneven power distributions that are identified in contemporary smart city projects. Because
of initiatives such as this, Amsterdam has been identified as a best practice example for
increasing democratic participation in city planning and moving the smart city conversation
beyond the realm of the purely technological (Dameri & Rosenthal-Sabroux, 2014: 70).
While Amsterdam and Montreal actively work with promoting an open smart city that
encourages engagement and participation, and supports critical reflections to some extent,
Copenhagen’s equivalent organisation is the Solutions Lab. Billed as the “new governing body
for smart city projects across all sectors in the city”, it promises to “lead the implementation
of innovation and smart city development in close collaboration with knowledge institutions
and companies as well as citizens” (CPH Solutionslab, online).
This phrasing may suggest that engagement with the citizens is an afterthought, and the
reality of this lives up to this impression. The ‘Smart Citizen Borgerpanel’, or Smart Citizen
Citizen Panel, is the Solutions Lab’s most visible attempt to reach out for public involvement,
asking, “do you want to test and develop new solutions for Copenhagen?”, and promising a
role in workshops, evaluations, and problem formulation (ibid.). The lack of detail provided
and the form to fill in, in addition to the slightly uncoordinated name, does not bode well, and
it is perhaps unsurprising to hear of reports that nothing seemed to materialise from the
Smart Citizen Citizen Panel (Anderson, interview, 2016).
The palpable divide between a solid emphasis on bottom-up organisation in urban planning
and the top-down, entrepreneurial reality of smart city projects to date in Copenhagen,
indicates towards a tension that has already been identified in the discourse covered by the
introduction. How does the smart city project that we focus on fit into this framework? Is
there the potential for this design process to engage the public more in the problem setting,
move towards a more open, inclusive and reflective smart city?
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2 RESEARCH QUESTION
Our interest in the problem setting in the process of design leads us to develop a research
question that traces the evolution of the ‘problem’ from the beginning of the process to the
development of design proposals. As this design process is situated in a smart city project, it
is key to reflect on the specific ramifications of this, engaging with the critical discourse that
has faulted smart city designs for lacking in participatory elements and democratic process.
We can thus formulate our research question as,
How does the design process of a smart city project enable, create and disseminate problems?
The research will include a consideration of the following issues:
● How can one trace the development of the ‘problem’ in the design process of a smart
city project?
● How does the ‘problem’ in the design process of a smart city project develop?
● How does problem setting relate to the wider framework in which it sits? To what
extent is it the outcome of systems which have enabled the initial problem in the first
instance?
Concluding this section, it is important to state what we aim to contribute to the smart city
discourse and to the working practices of the company we study.
To do this, we outline this paper as the following: First, we draw up an Actor Network Theory
(ANT) framework, which allows us to describe the design process from a network
perspective (3.1). Second, we show how we conceptualise our methods, following the framing
introduced before (3.2). Third, we employ the theoretical and methodological framing to
describe the design process, focussing on the importance of the problem setting (4). Fourth,
we sharpen our focus and analyse the controversy leading to the settling of the problem (5).
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Fifth, based on our understanding of the design process and the development of the problem
in it, we point out possible research results that advice could be based on (6). And finally, we
conclude (7), and carry out a reflection on our own research process (8).
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3 THEORY
As outlined in the research question above we are firstly interested in tracing the evolution
of the problem setting throughout the design process. Secondly we want to generate an
understanding throughout this process in order to identify possible improvements in V!gør’s
problem setting process. In addition to the design theory perspective of the importance of
problem setting, problematization is also afforded influence in Actor Network Theory
whereby the act of problematization is the act of establishment by acting as a form of framing.
To enable the tracing we use an Actor Network Theory (henceforth referred to as ‘ANT’)
perspective to identify and follow the actants and reassemble the network of the smart city
project.
While participating in the smart city project, we do not just follow the actants - mainly the
two consultants working for V!gør on their smart city project - but also act as actants
ourselves by gathering data for V!gør, taking part in the evaluation of the data collected,
describing this process, and giving feedback. In this endeavour, employing an ANT
heuristics1gives us a beneficial perspective in getting an understanding of the problem setting
in the smart city project.
First of all, the ANT heuristics of conceptualising the social as a network (see: Latour 2005:
131) makes it possible for us to reduce the gap between researcher and researched. In a
network understanding, “[…] the distinction between big and small is a relational effect” (Law
2007: 8). This idea of the social as being totally symmetrical, as proposed by Latour, offers a
perspective where there is no differentiation within the social (Potthast & Guggenheim 2010:
9). This means that the above named categories are not on different levels, but are part of the
same network and that therefore our intervention into the design process can be
conceptualised within the theoretical understanding used for the description produced.. The
same is true for the relation between the general discourse about smart cities and the
1
We understand the term heuristic as meaning a practical, but uncertain, approach for discovery,
including methodological and theoretical parts. Wieser (2012: 9) uses the term heuristic in order to
account for the aspiration of ANT to be neither, theory nor methodology, and both, theory and
methodology, averting a lock up in a category.
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particular smart city project we research. Because of that, Latour (2005: 144) altogether
rejects the idea of framing or contextualising, arguing that the frame is either influencing the
network - therefore is part of the network - or the frame does not add anything to the
description and so should be left away. This means, that we do not conceptualise our project
as a particular case for a general problem, rather we understand our project as investigating
a part of a (smart city) network.
On the other hand the conceptualisation of the social as a network also brings challenges. Not
at least the question of where to start and end our descriptions. For this reason we turn to
Latour’s (2005: 31) concept of spokespersons, which speak for a network and render it
visible, this is a point that is also elaborated on in Callon’s analysis of a sociology of
translation, which we will look at in more depth later. In our project, this is the two
consultants working for V!gør, who we will follow as long as our time permits. This openness
towards the further development of the network during the whole phase of our research
allows our research to be very flexible and to account for the messiness of a (smart city)
design process. But at the same time it complicates an understanding as it allows for no
external justification for the size and form of the described network.
The flexibility of the network and an ANT heuristics has a further advantage. Namely that it
allows and even encourages changes in perspective in order to allow for greater objectivity
in understandings (Latour 2005: 145). This is important as our perspective will change while
we accompany the design process.
3.1 ANT and Analysis
Actor-Network-Theory as an heuristic provides many advantageous points - as introduced
above - and therefore offers a convincing perspective for doing research. At the same time it
can seem that it only allows for an analytically worthless, purely descriptive perspective. This
is evoked by Latour’s (2005: 147) rejection of explanations and call for “good description”,
which is based on his critique of what he calls the “sociology of the social” and especially of
“critical sociology” (Latour, 2005: 9). This leads Latour (2005: 151) to explicitly reject the
17. 15
idea that research should lead to an advice. And other authors (e.g. Yaneva 2005) are clearly
not focusing on advice giving in their use of ANT. This section therefore asks how we can still
give an ANT based advice.
Latour (Latour, 2005: 1-17) introduces ANT or what he also calls the “sociology of
association” in distinction to the “sociology of the social”. According to Latour (2005.: 8), the
“sociology of the social” confuses the explanandum with the explanans. This means that the
social should not be the explanation, but the explained. In ANT the explanation of the social
happens through the description of how the non-human network ties assemble the social
(ibid.). As this is a process of reassembling symmetrical ties, one can say that in ANT “nothing
can ultimately be explained, and the sole purpose of the analysis is to tell a story”
(Leydesdorff, 2007: 377).
But what is an analysis? The Merriam-Webster dictionary (online) offers two definitions of
the term: firstly “a careful study of something to learn about its parts, what they do, and how
they are related to each other” and secondly “an explanation of the nature and meaning of
something”. While the “sociology of the social” can be categorized as following the second
understanding, at least when following Latour, a “sociology of association” or ANT analysis is
doing the former. In this way, ANT could be reduced to mere storytelling - as Leydesdorff
does above - or presented as a return to the roots of sociology (Latour, 2005: 13).
In order to do more than mere storytelling, two connected aspects of ANT are of central
importance. First an ANT analysis has to be understood as a synthesis. What sounds
oxymoronic - when understanding ‘to analyse’ as separating something into its parts - means
that the “[n]etwork is a concept, not a thing out there” (Latour, 2005: 131), an ANT analysis
synthesises or reassembles a network. And secondly this also means that the network can be
reassembled from different perspectives, allowing for the researcher to move between
subjective and objective understandings within the network.
These two points are of course also true for “mere” storytelling, but what we mean is that an
ANT analysis can use these points consciously to gain a certain relevance, or as Callon
(1986:200) puts it: the observer “can not simply repeat the analysis suggested by the actors
18. 16
he is studying” , but he can choose from an infinite number of other possible perspectives.
This brings us back to the assignment, “to indicate workable solutions through analysis”
(Curriculum SDS), which challenges us to figure out a way to translate an ANT analysis into
an indication of a workable solution. Which translates into the following question: From
which perspective can we do a relevant description?
Before we can choose a perspective, we need to conceptualise how the description can be
transformed into an indication. As should already be clear, an ANT analysis will not figure as
an explanation to a social problem, which subsequently can be solved. Following Latour
(2005: 160) the social sciences can only be relevant for studying human relations when they
are able to fulfill three tasks:
[I]t should be able to deploy the full range of controversies about which associations are
possible; it should be able to show through which means those controversies are settled and
how such settlements are kept up; and it can help define the right procedures for the
composition of the collective by rendering itself interesting to those who have been the object
of study (ibid.).
It is at this point - where the project ‘renders itself interesting’ that we see an opportune
moment to adapt the system at play, and deliver an advice of sorts to V!gør.
The key for a successful ANT analysis is, that the three steps are made in succession and that
the steps are not mixed up (ibid.). While the second and third step go along with Callon’s
(1986) use of ANT, the first is not totally in sync. In his analysis of the domestication of
scallops in St. Brieuc Bay, Callon (1986: 196) has chosen to focus on a “scientific and
economic” controversy and to use the “vocabulary of translation” as “repertoire”. Callon
(1986: 200, footnote) argues that the possible foci - controversies - are infinite and that the
researcher has to choose the most suitable focus in order to start his/her observations. Callon
(ibid.) is not explicit how this selection process should proceed, but made clear that the
researcher's background are influential.
In our own research, we are in between these two positions, we chose to focus on the
controversy of the problem setting (i.e. the ongoing process of disagreeing problem
interpretations determining the problem), but did not do so from the beginning of our
observations. We would not go as far as to claim that the V!gør actants chose this position for
19. 17
us and we only passively reacted, rather, our choice is based on our discovery that problem
setting can be seen as an important controversy in two parts of the smart city network we
are reassembling.
Staying in between these two positions, informed by both writers, we follow the two
consultants, working for Vigor, in the three steps introduced by Latour (see above, 2005:
160): In the description (Chapter 4), we will try “to deploy the full range of controversies
about which associations are possible”(ibid.); In the following synthesis (Chapter 5), we will
try “to show through which means those controversies are settled and how such settlements
are kept up” (ibid.), by using Callon’s (1986) concept of translation; and finally we try to
render ourselves “interesting to those who have been the object of study” (ibid.).
Based on the description of the network we reassemble in this project, we hope to be able to
help V!gør in refining the process of settling the problem setting controversy. This third part
- the ‘rendering itself interesting’, will not be part of this report in its written form, but will
take place after the project description has been finished, and presented in the oral
examination.
We use three concepts - perspectives - to follow the controversy of problem setting. Firstly
the concept of transformation, secondly the concept of scaling and thirdly the concept of
translation.
3.2 Transformation
Latour uses the concept of transformation in his essay “Paris - Invisible City” (Latour &
Hermant 2006). While Latour himself does not define transformation as a concept, he heavily
uses the idea of transformation to describe how the network evolves. One of his examples
takes place at a university, where “the transformation of signs into notice boards, notice
boards into scribbles, scribbles into adjustments, adjustments into decisions” (ibid.: 8) is
necessary to make the schedule - as planned by the administration - work, making the
students and lecturers appear at the same right time and place. The concept of transformation
stays a little fuzzy in Latour’s text e.g. is the example above one transformation, a series of
20. 18
transformations or constituting a whole network of transformations? Latour congruently
uses the term translation (Buzelin 2007: 138) - which differs from Callon’s concept of
translation as introduced below. Transformation is “transport with deformation” and
thereby“a process and effect” (Crawford, :2).
3.3 Scaling
Scaling is the act by which data is moved from and across varying levels of abstraction. In
Yaneva’s (2005) observations, scaling is a practice used by architects to gain and develop
knowledge about an unknowable factor - something that is yet to be built - by a movement
across model scales at rapid frequencies. This movement across abstractions allows for ideas
to be tested and refined and so for knowledge and data about the building-to-be to develop.
The architects work in a continuum between large- and small-scale models to secure the
design process of the building, so that changes and iteration can be tested from model to
model. “By following the particular rhythm of scaling in design, we will have the chance to
observe the appearance of a building as it emerges from the architects’ hands” (Yaneva 2005:
868). Yaneva’s narrative aim in her article reflecting upon her visit is to “expose the
materialization of successive operations, and to trace the developing appearance of the
building” (Yaneva 2005: 869), where the many models and mock-up samples produced are
seen as material world stabilizations of the translation process of scaling. Whilst Yaneva is
tracing the scaling involved in the processes of creating a building, so do we follow the scaling
processes in translating data and knowledge into an implemented smart city system.
3.4 Translation
Translation, as theorised by Callon (1986), is the act by which various diverse actants are
aligned towards a single course of action, being constituted, maneuvered, negotiated and
delimited within a singular network. It is used to denote the way that networks are brought
21. 19
together to navigate certain terrains and reach certain ‘passage points’ which mutually
benefit and are necessary to all involved actants. Translation consists of a framed
‘problematization’ - which brings the actants together, a stage of ‘interessement’ by which the
individual actants are ‘locked’ in place within a network, a definition and coordination of each
actant respective roles and finally a mobilisation of the variety of allies through ‘spokesmen’
of the network, which may or may not represent the respective actants.
Using these three concepts we can describe the (temporary) settling of the problem setting
controversy. The description should be of interest for V!gør for at least three reasons: First,
we offer a shift in perspective, by focussing on the problem setting controversy. Second, we
conceptualise the problem setting controversy, making visible how the problem is settled and
suggesting how alliances are forged. And thirdly, we link their problem setting controversy
to the problem setting controversy visible in an academic discourse on smart cities in the
social sciences.
22. 20
ANT toolbox - glossary of terms used
Network Processual and performative, networks are constructed and defined
by the actants out of which they are composed. Encompasses social,
technological, political and economic dimensions. Latour’s alternative
term, ‘worknets’, stresses the network's state of flux. (Crawford, 2006)
Actor/actant Any agent, collective or individual that can associate and disassociate
with other agents. Actants can be both human and nonhuman,
material and social - for example machines, animals, texts, and hybrids
all count (Crawford, 2006).
Translation Both a process and an effect, translation, via acts of displacement,
establishes identities and the conditions of interaction between
entities in the network (Crawford, 2006).
problematization A framing of a problem which can define the obligatory passage points
(Callon, 1986:6)
Obligatory passage points An outcome of problematization, these set a frame of context for which
actants must position themselves (Callon, 1986:7-8).
Interessement The process by which individual actants are ‘locked’ in place within a
network, a definition and coordination of each actant's respective
roles (Callon, 1986:8-10).
23. 21
Spokesmen/Spokesperson Actants that have positioned themselves as leaders of a network by
acts of translation, enrolment and interessement - ie focal actant,
enrolling others (Callon, 1986:13-14)
Enrolment A set of strategies by which the spokesmen in a network define the
roles of and interrelate the other actants. This is only possible
depending on a successful interessement (Callon, 1986:10-12).
Scaling In a process of working with prototypes and models this term is
applicable to the modelling practitioners; human actants in changing
the format of the prototype.. Models created through scaling can be
considered materialisations breaking free from a process of
translation.
Black-boxing The closing of a controversy, when the network has stabilized and
seems unquestionable. This is the point at which they are taken for
granted (Callon, 1986; 16).
Mobilisation Making sure that supposed spokespersons for relevant collective
entities are properly representatives of those.
[Transformation] A de- or reconstructing change in an actant not necessarily bound to
materiality. The term is relatable to both scaling and translation
Used to describe how the network evolves. These are the various
adjustments or changes in scale or between forms that further define
the identity of the network (Latour & Hermant, 2006:8).
24. 22
4 METHOD
We approach this project as ethnographers with an ANT orientation. This is also the academic
approach that will primarily be presented throughout this report, but it is important to
mention that the project makes us work in dualism; on one hand as the students researching
and trying to understand the dynamics of urban space, the practice of urbanists working with
a participatory design framework and the phenomena of Smart Cities and the case-related
and latent concept of Intelligent Traffic Solutions (still very invisible and secret to the public).
On the other hand, we are interventionists working in close cooperation with V!gør
consultants responsible for the analogue testing of the new technological solutions and of
evoking information from the everyday commuter in order to identify urban areas or
situations in Copenhagen that can be improved.
We use participatory observation as the main observational mode and perform several semi-
structured interviews with the consultants in order to unfold the ongoing design process as
it progresses over time.
We become a part of the network studied through our studying of it, and we need to be aware
of this as it positions us in multiple roles altering the course of the design process studied.
Design Research can be divided into three overall categories here we can align these these
modes with the different categories of narrative perspectives that we switch between during
our descriptive part. Synthesising the definitions of Jonas (2007) with the definitions of
Simonsen et al. (2012) we can place our 3rd person perspective as research über/in design
(Simonsen et al. (2012): 3 & Jonas (2007): 4) as it is the most passive observational mode, we
keep our distance to the field. The direct quotes from interviews are research für/into design
(ibid.) presenting the methods, process and design solutions as well as difficulties of the
company in their words. By using a 1st person perspective we engage in research
dürch/through design (ibid.) having a descriptive account scratching the surface of how our
involvement shape and change the design process.
The design situates us in a multifunctional position as students/researchers and, in relation
to the notion of reflective practicum by Donald Schön (1983), we are engaged in a master -
25. 23
apprentice relationship with the company central to the design process that we are
investigating. Awareness about this dualism is key while interviewing so that contrasted
aspects can be kept separate. Following Donald Schön’s theory of the reflective practitioner,
the practitioners (such as architects, industrial designers and engineers) have their own
‘esoteric’ knowledge codes woven directly into their practice (Waks 2001: 40). When
researchers take on the role of designers the reflection-in-action becomes essential to
understanding the living, ongoing design process because it is a learning process where
designer (master) and designer (apprentice) (ibid.) both learn from each other and the
material surroundings because they all have to cooperate in order to obtain success.
4.1 Participant Observation
How ANT can be used as a theory and method in participant observation is demonstrated by
Schepelern Johansen & Schepelern Johansen’s (2014) ethnographic investigation of a Heroin
Clinic in Vesterbro, Copenhagen - where they trace the challenges and problems implied in
the transformation of heroin from drug to medicine and how this was handled by treating the
non-human actants of the spatial layout and the application of the drug with the same
seriousness as the drug users and the institution itself (Schepelern Johansen & Schepelern
Johansen, 2014: 89). Likewise, in Michael’s (2000) study of mundane technologies linked to
hiking, the relations between body, boots and environment were seen to come together and
affect each other in the experience of long distance walking.
Participant observation is accepted almost universally as the defining and central method of
research in cultural anthropology (DeWalt & DeWalt 2010: 12). It is a method that enables
anthropologist and social scientists to take part in the everyday activities, rituals, reciprocal
actions or influences and created events of a community or group of people. The researchers’
participation in daily activities of ‘the field’ and the people in it can help the researchers to
obtain knowledge about explicit and tacit aspects of life routines and the culture they are
situated in (ibid.).
26. 24
Participant observation operates in the spectrum between full participation and voyeurism.
Often the most suitable level of participation and observation is found somewhere close to
the middle and in between the two poles, but in this project our close involvement with the
V!gør designers and their design process encourages us to move up and down the scale of
distance and closeness in our observations. When performing data-collection on the streets
for the company our practice becomes intertwined with the practice of the consultants – it is
full participation. Meanwhile at another point in the course of our learning [about] the design
process and tracing the problem setting we have occupied the role of passive observers,
trying to affect the field that we were situated in as little as possible by employing fly-on-the-
wall style observations when the consultants conducted their own focus groups.
Participant Observation is a strategic method (DeWalt & DeWalt 2010.: 13) of collecting data.
Field notes work as a tool for documenting. Observation guides perception, decision-making
and interaction (action and reaction) with the world. To define observation as sense-making
is relative to the idea that it cannot exclusively be based on what the observer ‘sees’ but also
includes the embodied experience of being in a place.
The methodology of Participant Observation can be used as a cover term embodying all of the
observation, informal and formal interviews that the researchers engage in, but black boxing
in the methodological substance of this project report we can understand it as consistent of
a whole set of qualitative methods including pure observation, the collection and analysis of
texts and the use of structured and semi-structured interviews (ibid.) but also a quantitative
set of methods, primarily merged into the process to support the research für/into design
aspect; helping V!gør with data-collection at street level.
4.2 Semi-structured interviews
All of our conducted interviews have been performed based on semi-structured interview
guides and the empirical body of the report is constituted by three interviews with the
consultants of V!gør, a recorded debriefing session, and one meta-reflexive interview with an
27. 25
architect from Gehl Architects. All interviews are documented as audio files, and full length
transcriptions are attached to the report as appendices.
Semi-structured interview guides served us as tools; as documents that helped to guide the
dialogue between V!gør and us. We applied this type of structure to stay open towards an
explorative yet ordered approach. We came prepared for each interview with an agenda of
bullet points, so that the direction could be set but with space for possible detours that could
lead to new knowledge.
Our interviews are with experts and are thereby categorizable as elite interviews (Kvale &
Brinkmann 2014: 120). A notable difference between this form of interview, and other types
described by Kvale and Brinkmann (2014) is that once the interview is ‘put in place’ the
uneven and asymmetrical balance between interviewer and interviewee can be equalized
due to the powerful position the expert interviewee is in (ibid.), meaning that the authority
of the interviewer might be less dominating than in interviewing a child or a pedestrian on
the street; or in the situation of a focus group interview as exemplified later in the report.
4.3 Writing
This report is a product of ethnographic writing based on empirical data. The report is
written from three different positions throughout the descriptive sections, which we employ
depending on the mode of data being explored; field notes, recorded interviews or reflections
of the students. The table below illustrates differences at key levels in the three positions:
ANALYSIS V!gør SAID WE EXPERIENCED
What? What happens and
how are these events
connected?
How does V!gør explain
their action in the
interviews/recordings?
What did we do and
how was our
experience?
Basis? Reflections Audio recordings from
interviews & debriefing
session.
Field notes while doing
observations.
28. 26
Perspective? 3rd person/fly on the
wall
Quotes (direct/indirect) 1st person
Focus? Describes what
happens, connects
analysis and
description; analyses
how the problem
changes.
How does V!gør make sense
out of the design process as
it is happening? Focuses on
presenting V!gør’s
perspective as unaltered as
possible.
What did we do,
working for V!gør?
Focuses on our actions
while working
for/with V!gør.
To Humphrey and Watson (2009), ethnography is writing, and they emphasise that “the
(con)textual essence of the research is the most important aspect” and that it, to a certain
degree, is in contrast to the intensive fieldwork that ethnographers undertake (Humphrey &
Watson 2009: 40). First comes the being there - in situ in casu - experience, that can be messy
to the ANT-oriented researcher searching for the unknown and the invisible elements and
actors in an explorative fashion. Then comes the written account based on the conducted
fieldwork. We slightly expand on the idea that the academic paper is reserved for ‘the
insiders’ at the university, due to our aim to provide a theoretically informed advice to the
company we research, but still the academic treatment holds the highest priority. In this way,
our project attempts to bridge the gap between academia and practice.
For Humphrey and Watson (2009), there are four ideal types of ethnographic writing that
can be located within a continuum of minimum and maximum manipulation of the empirical
data collected (Humphrey & Watson 2009: 43). In semi-fictionalised and fictionalised
accounts, the manipulative treatment is higher than in plain ethnography and enhanced
ethnography (ibid.). Enhanced ethnography seems to fit the scope of this report the best
Humphrey and Watson define it as:
An account of events occurring within the investigation of a single case which uses the
presentational techniques of the novelist: descriptive scene-setting; use of dialogues; author
as a character in the narrative; inclusion of emotional responses by author and subjects;
attention to the perspectives and stories of subjects. (ibid.)
29. 27
The use of enhanced ethnography allows us to distinguish in our description between the
three perspectives described above and to intertwine them, in order to keep a reader-friendly
flow. To allow for a clear distinction between our perspective in-situ, our perspective ex-situ
and Vigor’s perspective as it gets visible in their interview statements, we narrate the design
process through different linguistic devices. Additionally the in-situ accounts have different
layouts. Clear distinctions in the writing are especially important, as we actively influence the
design process. The first and the last part of the description section is based on two
documents, which we present the most important parts of based on a close reading.
Additionally to the written representation of the design process, we created graphical
representations of the network, using Ucinet 6 ( Borgatti, Everett & Freeman, 2002). We used
the software to draw the emerging network based on our research, but did not use any of of
the Social Network Analysis functions provided by the programme. The arrangement of the
actors in the diagrammes are arbitrary. To increase the readability of the graphics, colors
have been manually added.
30. 28
5 DESCRIPTIONS - deploying the controversies
The problem setting process we are describing starts and ends with a document. We begin
our tracing with the project description that V!gør produced for Technolution - the company
in charge of the project management - and Københavns Kommune..
5.1 The Topic Plan - setting the scene
On February 25, 2016, four months after the initial version has been written, a final document
is drawn up by two main actants: V!gør and Technolution, in agreement with a third,
Copenhagen municipality (Københavns Kommune).
The document, part of an ambitious Intelligent Traffic Solutions (ITS) project that is being
investigated by the municipality, is the topic plan of a ‘Dynamic Urban Space’ project, and is
split into two “cases” - the parking and the street. Our research will follow the development
of the street case, as we are much more involved in its design process of the street case and
also it became clear to us that the design process was much further developed in the parking
case, due to V!gør’s previous experience with a similar project, which meant that a large
portion of the design process was no longer observable.. The street case on the other hand
was much less refined and therefore offered the opportunity to follow the process (nearly)
from the beginning. The Topic Plan is premised upon the supposed ability that technology
can “transform the stationary urban space into dynamic urban space” (Topic Plan, 2015: 3).
On the first pages, the problem area is introduced: every month 1000 people move to
Copenhagen, reducing the amount of space available for each citizen. On top of this, “city
traffic is so strictly planned that citizens, users and visitors especially during rush hour
sometimes have to break some traffic rules in order to create a better flow” (ibid.) The
framing of the problem - though it is admittedly broad - is thereby set, and done so in a way
that aligns the municipality as a network actant by correlating the project with the wider
development goals.
Goals.
The document proposes the necessity of the ITS projects by claiming that it is “essential” for
the municipality to work in collaboration with V!gør as “local expert knowledge” (ibid.) in the
development of dynamic urban space. On top of this, it outlines the possibility to create
31. 29
measurable insights and knowledge, which fit into the political objectives of Copenhagen: the
bold city, the livable city and the responsible city.
For the “living city (sic)” the project will respond to the apparent issues that face pedestrians
and cyclists getting around the city: “being able to share the streets in a good tone creates a
more vibrant and varied urban area” (Topic Plan, 2015: 5). In the case of the responsible city
goal, the project seems to be doing a similar thing, “making conditions better for cyclists and
pedestrian (sic)”. Again the issues that supposedly face these two groups is mentioned: “it
seeks to lower the levels of conflicts in the streets between bikes and pedestrians” but here
it gets a bit more specific as to what the solution could be: “give users more space when
needed” (ibid.). A direct reference to political vision of the responsible city - reducing CO2
emissions - is made as a clear goal of the project - “better conditions for cyclists and
pedestrian encourage Copenhageners to take their bike or walk instead of using the car (sic)”
(ibid.).
Approach.
The Topic Plan refers to some of the principles behind the project and reveals an idea of the
methodology that will be applied. It is stated that the project depends on collecting the user-
experiences of the citizens in order to formulate a design based on the “local expert
knowledge” that will fuel a “close collaboration with locals and stakeholders” and thereby
lead to the development of “measurable insights and best practice knowledge” (Topic Plan,
2015: 3). It states that the project will give Copenhageners “ownership of public space” by
“including them in the urban planning”, and it appears that this participation will be in the
form of public engagement with design prototypes - “testing the idea” (ibid: 5).
In a section towards the end, Designing the Service, the importance of participation to the
project is emphasised: “by collaborating with citizens, by making partnerships and by
literally working with everyday cases and citizens’ initiatives” it will be possible to get
stakeholders engaged, which will in turn lead to more trust, understanding, and, eventually,
“a common understanding will arise leading to a better attitude” (ibid.: 11).
By doing this they further align the interests of the municipality with their problem settings
and mobilise themselves as spokespeople for the everyday person on the street, and vice
versa. In this way, they offer themselves as the spokespeople of the problems that are set,
translating for the other network actants of the street, the kommune and the everyday
pedestrian and cyclist.
32. 30
To employ a Callon-esque (1986) mode of analysis; the Topic Plan acts to mobilize the other
actants, the kommune, the street and the student researchers, that is, it aligns their interests
into a single course of action as presents themselves as the spokespeople for it. They set out
a plan starting with A) the problem and moving through the planned design aspects to reach
B) the design solution.
Specifics.
The Topic Plan gets more detailed about the specifics of the street case, offering examples of
the kinds of issues it is set up to tackle. It highlights streets “where the distribution of different
types of traffic changes over the day” which can create “bottlenecks and dangerous situations,
for instance for pedestrians who pull out onto the cycle path” (ibid.: 7). A potential solution
is offered for this scenario in which the function of the bike lane would change to pavement
at particular times during the day. This is offered as an example of a dynamic urban space.
The street case is also presented as a potential showcase for the other projects within the
overarching ITS project. So, for example, it is suggested that the eventual design could include
Virtual Message Systems (VMS) or City Traffic Management Systems (CTMS).
Here we can already see the Topic Plan jumping ahead through the process of problem setting
by assuming that the problem at hand is the changeability of traffic flows and thereby offering
a design solution, albeit as an exemplar of the kind of work that will be done. By opening up
the street case to the technology of the other projects, it also extends the network of the case,
drawing in the other actants that make of the wider ITS project.
A little further on, the main talking points from some early workshops involving some of the
actants - “the ITS team members” - are summarised and there are already decisive
developments (ibid.: 8). In a workshop on the 16th December 2015, it is specified that the
case must revolve around a technical solution; it cannot be analogue as with V!gør’s previous
project. We also witness a discussion made over the selection of sites for the case.
“Vendersgade was in the tender chosen as the case”, however it transpires that it is already
part of existing plans to modify streets (ibid.: 9). There is a reflection that it is difficult to find
locations in the city that are not implicated in future plans and so it is concluded that
Vendersgade will remain but some alternative sites will also be sought, “as a means of
investigating the problem of different sorts of traffic and how that same problem unfolds in
different streets in Copenhagen” (ibid.). The issue of Vendersgade’s potentially conflicting
plans is thereby turned into an opportunity for the case to be expanded, giving the eventual
solution more weight and allowing for a more open problem setting process.
33. 31
Summary.
We can therefore see how this initiating project document has set the scene for the enabling,
creation and dissemination of the problem for the unfolding design process which we will
trace. Contexts have been established, frameworks set, and aims stated. With these steps, the
emergence of a network has begun, with V!gør and it's other project partners - Technolution
and Copenhagen municipality - getting aligned in relation to each other, as well as other
groups mentioned, such as the Copenhagener and the city streets they walk and cycle on, and
the other ITS projects. We see how particular actants in this network are positioned as
leaders or spokespeople - in this case V!gør is the lead facilitator, working with their previous
knowledge of flexible city space as well as their position as local actants able to engage with
the local populace through processes of on-site testing.
We also see how our role as students both helping and researching V!gør brings us into the
network. We will see how the network changes as the problem setting develops and reflect
on the shifting nature of our position as researchers.
Fig 1. Stage one network visualisation (observation stage)
5.2 Observations - the enabling of the problem
I am trying to warm my fingers on coffee in a paper cup, but they are only slowly getting
warmer. At least I am out of the wind now, which makes the counting a lot more comfortable
and the gentle smell of freshly brewed coffee coming out of the bakery booth does not hurt
either. I rub my eyes and take another sip of coffee, as I start to feel sleepy while I am warming
up - I need to stay focused, in a few minutes I have to start my next round of counting.
34. 32
It is in the early morning on Thursday the eleventh of march. Two of the four students are out
in the sunny but still cold Danish spring. They are on Vendersgade, a central street in the
Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen, counting pedestrians and cyclists. The counting of
passing pedestrians and cyclists is part of the data collection, which is a prerequisite for the
municipality, who need to be able to support (and defend) investments and interventions
with numbers. V!gør created counting sheets based on the Bylivsundersøgelse Manual for
Projektleder’, a guide for collecting data on ‘City Life’ developed by the municipality in
collaboration with Gehl Architects (2010).
This gathering together of research possibilities into a single document - framed by the Gehl
methodology and disseminated by the municipality - has the potential to black box (see
toolbox) the way in which urban research is conducted, creating standardised, ‘good’
practices that leave no room for negotiations, discussions or improvements (see Rydin,
2012).
While the approach the students are executing is broadly characteristic of the ‘Jan Gehl
approach’ of counting, observing, mapping, tracing etc (Gehl & Svarre, 2013: 24), the methods
used in this case were also something of a first for the collection of baseline data as V!gør had
tried to develop a new form of observational tool: conflict mapping. In this way, it is clear that
the influence of previous research methods that have been tested and stabilized forms a
defining actant on the design process of an urban research project such as this. But it also
reveals the potential for new documents and tools to emerge through processes of
experimentation and prototyping, which in turn can influence and define the network - and
eventually stabilize, if successful. V!gør are purposely testing the method, in the hope that
they can get the municipality to use it, as the consultants tell later on.
But let us get back to the students at Vendersgade. They have moved out of the cold and
headed into Torvehallerne - a fashionable ‘foodie’ market hall. The two students are sitting
on the south-west end of the halls, where a café and a bakery are selling hot drinks and
pastrys from their seats they can watch out of the window front onto Vendersgade where
their objects of investigation pass by.
A father and his two daughters walk past the window. I press on the screen of my smartphone
– one, two, three – and watch the counter go up – 51, 52, 53. Just one more minute and then I
am done with counting pedestrians. I stare on the number on my counting sheet – 18 – and
start calculating. 53 divided by 18, nearly three times as many pedestrians as an hour ago.
Two middle aged man, absorbed in a seemingly heated discussion, are passing by – one, two.
The clock on the smartphone is still on 8.12, but I can only be seconds before it moves to 8.13.
A runner, coming up from Norreport, is taking up the imaginary race with the number on my
smartphone. Is she going to make it? My look is going back and forth between screen and
runner. The runner is coming closer, just ten more meters. I am nervously tightening the grip
35. 33
around my pen. The runner passes by and I immediately check my smartphone – still 8.12. She
made it!
The students actual experience of the assignment, the ‘being there’ of observing, is dictated
by the positioning of the maps (where the fields of enquiry were marked) but also influenced
by the physical conditions and urban design of the streets. The students have to find a location
from where they can observe the whole target area, without being in the way of the users and
influencing the traffic flow that they try to map. At Vendersgade this is comparably easy, but
let’s move two days back in time, when two of the four students did observations at
Dybbølsbro.
My legs are getting tired. I have been standing at the same place for fifteen minutes now and
before I had been standing for twenty minutes on the other side of the bridge and before that
I had been standing for twenty minutes at the same place I am standing now and before [...].
We have been counting now for about three hours and we have one more hour to count. I
consider moving to the other side of the bike path, where there is a commemorative stone, I
could lean on. But from there it is even harder to overlook what is happening on the bridge.
Dybbølsbro is a car, bike and pedestrian bridge, spanning over rail tracks, connecting
Fisketorvet shopping center with the city and Dybbølsbro train station. The narrowness of
the bridge means that the students have a hard time finding a position which is out of the way
of pedestrians and cyclists. Standing at the bridge head was the only possible stake-out
positions, the students found, which does not completely alter the traffic flow. But the bridge
is over 200 meters long, so we can doubt that the students are able to observe the whole
bridge from this position.
The weather also dictates how the students carry out their work. The cold Copenhagen Spring
makes the students seek as much sun as possible, while combining this with shelter from the
wind. Added to that, is the physical demands of the task and the tiredness of the students’
bodies. The ideal place to observe from is thus somewhere that offers the potential to lean
on, or in the case of Vendersgade, even sit.
At this point we have gotten a good understanding of how the environment affects the
students in their observation practice. We are missing, however, how it also affects the
pedestrians and cyclists, who the students are observing. It is no coincidence that the weather
is always sunny when the students are doing their observations, it is a clear instruction from
V!gør to only observe in good weather. The students do not resist, but the main reason is to
capture the moments when the number of pedestrians and cyclists - and likelihood also of
conflicts - is the highest.
36. 34
The other aspect, the physicality of the location, obviously has an even bigger effect on the
conflicts. It does not just affect the students in their search for a stake-out position, it also is
an important cause for conflicts to happen.
I check the clock on my smartphone – four more minutes of conflict mapping. Another bunch
of school children is approaching. They cross the road in order to go to their school, which lies
on the east side of Israels Plads. I count them – six – and draw the equal number of strokes
into the field labelled “pedestain (sic) crossing the road”. At the same time a mother with a
baby carriage is crossing Linnésgade to make her way up Vendersgade. Without hesitation she
pushes the baby carriage onto the cycle lane. I seems to me that she is trying to avoid the
cobblestones on the sidewalk and therefore pushes the carriage on the smooth pavement of
the cycle lane. The mother and the few cyclists, making their way from Nørreport towards the
lakes, seem not bothered by it. The cycle lane and the street are on the same level, so the
cyclists can easily move around. But they clearly break the rules and their behaviour is
potentially dangerous, so I have to categorize it as a conflict. The conflict list on the paper does
not help me much. The closest category seems to be “pedestain (sic) are forced to walk on
bikelane”. There are also free lines, where I could start a new category, but the phenomenon
seems too rare to afford a new category. I write baby carriage on bike lane into the field
“pedestrian are forced to walk on bike lane” and draw a stroke.
The student assumes that the women pushing the baby carriage on the bike lane is doing so
because the pavement is cobblestoned. So, to stick with the example, in order for the situation
to happen, the weather needs to be in a way that the women decides to walk with the baby
carriage through Vendersgade (i.e. not torrential rain) and the surface of the pavement needs
to be baby carriage unfriendly, so that the women decides to walk on the bike path instead.
At least three actants need to build a network for the situation to happen. Of course this is a
highly simplified model of a complex situation, which includes many more actants, though it
shows how the situation can be framed in a network understanding. The question we have
not addressed so far is how the situation turns into a conflict.
To do the conflict mapping, the students identify conflicts between pedestrians and cyclists
according to a number of categories that V!gør had noted as being the expected regular
occurrences (see data sheet below). The students count these issues for ten minutes each
hour and mark them on a pre-made map in an effort to plot conflict-prone spots. To transform
the situation above into a conflict, the students need to join the above introduced network as
an additional actant. The student judges what is an incidence of conflict and whether to note
instances of potential conflict.
So, working with the example highlighted above, is the women pushing the baby carriage on
the bike lane already a conflict in itself? Or is it necessary that a cyclist is overtaking her, to
qualify it as a conflict. Or is it only a conflict, if the overtaking cyclist endangers herself, by
37. 35
riding in front of oncoming traffic? Independent of the student's choice, it is clear that the
student is (co-)creating the conflict based on her/his own feelings.
Even though the conflict mapping sheets have additional space for not listed conflicts, the
gazes of the students in this process are clearly guided by the preprinted categories. The
person illegally crossing the road gets immediately inscribed into the maps, while the cyclist
using her phone to write a text message gets away without notice. The amount of individual
tolerance is mirrored in the varying levels of detail in the data collection and becomes visible
if we compare the conflict maps of three of the four students. Some of the students give more
details than asked for while others stick to the given script.
Knowledge is added in the forms of additional categories that are created by the student
researchers, such as that of the users of baby carriages.
Fig 2 Crossing patterns from observation sheets.
We can see from the image above the way that additional data was added in by the students.
Grouping patterns were created in able to physically get all of the ‘x’s that represented
pedestrians crossing the street onto the diagram. Additional information such as ‘Wheelchair
Crossing’ and ‘Pedestrian with baby carriage’ highlights the humanocentric insights provided
by the student researchers that could not be facilitated by the set categories on a paper.
It also shows the wider conceptions the researchers hold as to what kinds of conflict or
potential conflict is more important - a person crossing the street is categorised as an ‘x’ but
when they have a baby with them or have impaired mobility they are slightly more and
deserve an annotation to display this. These narratives inserted by the qualitatively minded
38. 36
students break with the rigorous and restricted nature of the ascribed categorisations. The
human story weaved into observations of the street cannot be repressed.
Fig 3 Additional categorisations made by researchers.
These narrative details also show the way in which materiality comes into play in the
annotation and collection of data. The physicality of cobbled streets in contact and conflict
with plastic wheels of a mobility device negates the mobility device’s design to make walking
a more smooth experience. Due to this, the user is forced to abandon the cobbled street in
favour of the smooth tarmac of the bicycle lane which allows his device to function as
intended and so to aid and not hinder his progress. Equally, material factors such as the rain
or snow may affect the ground underfoot and so necessitate the reevaluation of the ideal
walking surfaces by the pedestrians of the area.
In their additions to the documents, the students are allowed to account for these material
shifts, however one can ask how the results might have looked if not completed by a group of
researchers well-versed in material focus in ANT. Equally, if the students had not had
adequate writing surfaces to annotate these observations in-situ, then the image of the street
would be further from reality.
This was also the case in the practice of mapping the conflicts. The scope of the counting
pedestrians and cyclists was fixed to a single imaginary line drawn across the road but this
was rather limited for the observation of conflicts. Rather, the researchers took to looking
more openly at the space and noting issues that were happening further along the roads or
cycle lanes. These conflicts often took place beyond the purview of the maps that were given
out so it became difficult to then document these fully.
40. 38
With these kind of decisions to make, the students’ practice of simply counting became one
of carrying out acts of transformation. The students reassemble a network (see graphic
below) comprising of the weather, the materiality, the pedestrians, the cyclists and the car
drivers. The situation - the network - is then transformed into conflicts by the students and
finally, as the last transformation, inscribed into the conflict map. This makes the conflicts,
and the network behind it, transportable and links the situation, in the form of a conflicts, to
V!gør. It is an act of displacement, through which an action involving multiple actants gets
represented by a number, thereby establishing equivalences that can be utilised by
spokesmen - in this case V!gør, to represent a whole network of actants in the smart city
project (Callon, 1986: 14).
The creation of the conflicts is a linking of the situation (red) to the smart city project (blue)
through the students’ conflict mapping (green). As we can see, the red and the blue parts are
not only linked through the green part, but also have direct connections. Københavns
Kommune is an actant in building the city and therefore co-determines the materiality of the
location. V!gør on the other hand,together with the municipality, has chosen the location
based on its material qualities. These direct links can be conceptualised as a prerequisite -
the reasons for the actants interest - for the conflict mapping to take place and therefore for
Fig 5 Stage two network visualisation (conflict observations)
41. 39
the conflict to happen. Still, in the graphic of the network the assembling function of the
conflicts, and the students as the conflicts’ creators, is visible. Cutting out these two actants
would disassemble the network.
The creation of the conflicts, the assembling of the network, is not the creation of the problem
yet, but the step which enables the creation of the problem as a next step, as we will see in the
next part. In order to create the problem, the smart city project needs to have the conflicts at
hand.
5.3 Debriefing - the creation of the problem
On the Friday the same week, three of the four students meet again with the two consultants.
A few days prior to the meeting Lise – one of the two consultants – had been sitting at her
computer in an open space office adjunct to the meeting room, in which the three students
and two consultants now are, typing in “workshop” into a google calendar sheet. The term
“workshop” together with the allocated time and length then travelled through a series of
servers, before being retrieved by the student’s four computers. The fact that three students
and two consultants are now in the same room at the same time suggests that the necessary
transformations to make this meeting happen were successful.
In the meantime, the students and consultants have started to talk. The students explain their
difficulties in carrying out the transformations of the street conflicts into paper conflicts. The
consultants meet the difficulties with understanding and link them to the untested nature of
the method - the method has not been perfected yet. But this is not the end of the method, on
the contrary, the consultants use the method to tie the students further to the project, by
signalling openness towards suggestions for improvements.
Consultant: I don't know if any of you is interested in feeding back something about, please do
so. And if you want to sit and develop something about it, we would like to discuss it.
Through this, the consultants change the problem from one revolving around conflicts into
one revolving around methods. And with the same move also propose another position for
the students.
Before the students were locked in the position of data gatherers, trying to answer the
question: “Which conflicts are happening? “Now they get proposed the position of advisers,
trying to answer the question. “How can we detect conflicts?”. And the students rapidly accept
this role – at least temporarily – and start to brainstorm ideas for possible improvements.
42. 40
Consultant: So may, you should be able to count it and also categorize it, then you could maybe
have like the first more, what is it called, the first category is just very big and then you can
place it afterwards. So, I remember that was that one kind of conflict, in this category and then
you can maybe point the very specific category afterwards, because if you see a lot of [noisy]
you have a long list to find out what kind of category it was, but then you can just place it in a
bigger category first and then, and then...
[...]
Student: I think the other way, would be to make it more qualitative and then go and interview
or speak to, maybe describe, instead of counting, kind of we describe the situation that we saw
and then to take it further, you could go to the people and ask people like how did that make
you fit, you know. This situation happened, can you describe what happened? They might be,
that was nothing, I was just crossing the road, but that might be another way of approaching
it and instead of just getting numbers on it. Because it is like, because the categories you put
out, there were so many things that didn't fit in these categories.
Into the heat of brainstorming the missing student appears. The interruption is used to
regather and to start a new attempt at discussing the observed problems - the change of role
is reversed again. But the focus does not last long and a new theme gets introduced into the
discussion: awareness.
Consultant: [W]e should probably also mention, that we have been talking a lot about this,
when we talking about all the IT solutions in the city, people probably will get less aware of
situations, just be automised (sic).
The consultants bring in a possible solution, which could decrease the chance of conflict. And
they support their claim for the importance of awareness in conflict reduction by using
statistics - most accidents in Copenhagen are caused by cyclists - and by introducing a new
problem: the danger of automatisation caused through the introduction of ICT solutions.
The ‘theme’ of awareness is brought in alongside three other themes the consultants have
developed: crossing movements, physical limitations and no hierarchy. The consultants
invite the students to fill in the observed conflicts into the now four categories. .
Consultant: [I]f we sort of have these themes, like crossing movements on Vendersgade, and
the physical limitations on Dybbolsbro and then no hierarchy on the Fisketorvet, at the bridge
side. And some of the observations you did you have like maybe 1, 2 or 3 of them and maybe
an extra thing we haven't really talked about?
While this act is a small one for the students, it is a crucial one in the process of producing an
immutable mobile (see toolbox) - a network element that through translations, is converted
into textual, cartographic or visual representations that remain stable through time and
space. (Crawford: 2). Because the act of categorizing does not just stabilize the conflicts, by
fitting them into an existing framework, but also suggests how to react to the observed
situation. Putting an observed conflict into the ‘no hierarchy’ category suggests that the
43. 41
conflict can be met by introducing a hierarchy. ‘Physical limitations’ need to be overcome and
‘crossing movements’ to be overcome, stopped or guided.
And even more importantly, by putting the conflicts into categories, the consultants and
students black-box the transformations necessary to further categorise the conflicts – the
Fig 6 ‘skitsering af problematikker’ (problem visualisations from V!gør)
44. 42
inscription of the observed conflicts into maps and tables, the discussion about the judging,
the circumstances of the observations.
But let us get back to the situation where the students and consultants are still in
conversation. The consultants have just told the students that they will be focussing on the
situation at Vendersgade.
Consultant: What we should probably mention is that from last time we saw each other, we
decided with Joss from KK [Københavns Kommune] then when we're doing this proposal it’s
all about Vendersgade as the proposal mentioned. So definitely have Vendersgade in your
mind when you're talking about all three themes but what we decided at V!gør is that we will
make some options and tell that this is also happening here in the city, here in the city just to
make sure that it’s heavy enough…
In order to get the support of Københavns Kommune, the smart city project needs to fit into
the municipality’s development plans and it needs to be expandable – the solution needs to
be adaptable to other locations. In the example of Vendersgade this opportunity exists.
Consultant: Thing is because it's a little bit funny, because they already developed an analogue
[concept], they will extend the pedestrian side on the Torvehallerne side, on the sunny side,
and that can maybe take a lot of this people walking on the biking lane but it will not take the
conflict with people sort of crossing over and this thing when you have two like, erm,
attractions, like markets, you have two spaces really close to each other, and of course, it can
be supermarkets or Magasin, or whatever, big things that people automatically...
The mentioning of the municipality’s project triggers a question in one of the students: why
is it necessary that cars are driving on Vendersgade at all?
Student: But what is the function of this road, I mean why, looking there it seems to be 'why
isn't it closed for the cars at least?' I mean, I don't know, is there no alternatives, because
there's not many cars but there are still cars..
[…]
Consultant: Yeah, because the problem is, we got a big explanation of it because they need to
lead the traffic a very long way around because they have closed another bike or traffic lane
nearby so there are lot of one direction roads in the inner city. Yeah, it is a problem, it could
be much better for the place, for the Israels Plads to not having cars.
This brings up the point that the problem setting process is taking place in a network of
actants, which constitute the city. An intervention in one place is always also affecting other
places. Making one street car free means to increase traffic in another street. But the student
keeps digging deeper and challenges the idea of efficiency, which seems to him so
paradigmatic for our way of planning cities.
45. 43
Consultant 1: And that's a very interesting discussion that we also mentioned to Technolution
and KK yesterday because they have this goal that people should be running the city as fast as
possible, that should be the intention of making people biking instead of taking the car, so
there is a conflict between that and that you have to be aware of pedestrians and, yeah.
Consultant 2: Also be just be a part of urban life. That's the level that we work and we want
people to explore that when they bike through a nice area, it's nice to speak out a little bit,
reflect a little bit!
The two standpoints get explicit at this point. On the one hand, we have the comparably big
company Technolution, which represents the efficiency driven development of smart city
projects.n the other hand we have V!gør, which has an open ear for the argument that
increasing efficiency does not necessarily has a positive effect on life quality. But as we will
see later on, the project is already too deeply involved with the spokespeople of the efficiency
paradigm. The consultants and students get a little side-tracked from the actual conflict
mapping, but by doing so they uncover many of the links the problem setting is connected to.
In the meantime, the group has found the focus again and starts one more time to discuss the
observed conflicts.
Student 1: I think one of the things that I noticed which I thought kind of really contributed to
the movement flow was, people with buggies. Prams. Babies. You got it a lot at Vendersgade
and you also got it a lot at Fisketorvet, probably at Dybbolsbro too, by the Cykelslangen, and
it's you get, and you normally get couples, so two women both with their buggies taking up a
lot of space.
The baby carriage, which accompanied us through the observation part, is mentioned again,
but the main focus lays on other conflicts.
Student 2: If we work with the categories that you gave us, and I think it's a really nice
guideline, then we clearly see that the biggest problem is pedestrians crossing the roads
because that's the most registered.
The categories are taking full effect here. The students agree on one category as being the
most important and therefore settling on a problem. The decisive factor in this
transformation are the quantitative data collected by the students.
Consultant: So you have like crossing movements, one hour, 30 people every 10 seconds. 10
minutes, [writing down].
[...]
Student 1: 180.
Student 2: Big number.
Consultant: Woah. Per hour, yes. Crazy shit!
46. 44
The consultants and students start to focus on the aspect of crossing Vendersgade now and
bring up additional aspects of the street crossing conflict - the delivery trucks, which block
the view of the pedestrians; the children, who are crossing the street in order to go to school;
the missing zebra crossing, the rhythm of the traffic flow. All these aspects are taken into
account when thinking about possible solutions for the problem.
Consultant: (writing/drawing) Flows. Ok, so if in some kind of way you can make people when
they're crossing that they, even though they don't have a system, they can be like a sound
saying 'ding', now you know 'ok, hey, now it's ok to cross because I know the bikers and the
cars have a flow stop further on so...'
But let us move out from the heat of the discussion and look back for a moment what the
consultants and students have done in this debriefing session so far. The debriefing session
started with the students bringing their observations - and the network behind it - back to
V!gør. The first part of the debriefing session revolves around the conflict mapping method.
While the discussion around the methodology does not lead to a settling of the method, where
the students approve the method, the data the students collected following the method are
still accepted as sufficient to base the further discussion upon them.
The discussion around the observed conflicts are crucially shaped by the conflict categories
and the determination of a location. These fixed factors tie the conflicts further to the smart
city project and to the municipality’s urban planning goals. The act of gathering the conflicts
into categories - which themselves are linked to locations - turns the conflicts into problems
with city-wide relevance. This means it is a double transformation done in one step, which
increases the leverage enormously and turns the conflicts into manageable problems.
Interestingly the expansion of the possibilities of the project via the connecting of the three
observed locations to seemingly similar locations (eight each), took part before the
observations were carried out and at the same it is true for the setting of the problem
categories, as can be seen in the document above. In this sense, the observations are not
explorative in their function, but deductive. They should validate a theory that there are three
relevant types of conflicts happening and not work inductively, where the observations
would be the basis for generalisations.
This is important, because it facilitates the creation of the problem - the two steps necessary
to form relevant problems out of the conflicts. First the conflicts are put into problem
categories. The women pushing their baby carriages on the bike lane, are put into the
“physical limitations” category. With this a causal relation is suggested. The women is
pushing on the bike lane, because the physical limitations make her do so. Once the causal
47. 45
relation is established, the problem becomes solvable. The physical limitations need to be
overcome - the pavement widened and the surface adapted to the wheels of the baby carriage.
Secondly, the problem needs to be made relevant for the smart city project and the
municipality, by showing that many people are affected by it.
This happens through gathering conflicts into categories. Not just people pushing baby
carriages would benefit from removal of physical limitations, so would people in wheelchairs,
people with walking disabilities and everyone in moments of high traffic volume. Besides
adding affected user groups, the number of the affected can also be increased by adding
problem locations. This suggests that the same problem, the same conflicts, occurs in several
other locations of the city. Once a viable solution is found it can simply, and cost effectively,
be transferred to other locations.
To use Yaneva’s concept of scaling to our advantage here, we can see that the method of data
collection, the documents used and the focus groups and debriefing sessions organised, all
served to create and distill the knowledge of the problem. Once established in the Topic Plan,
the observation sheets served to categorise the collection of data, the knowledge was then
observed in-situ on the streets, and translated via pencil and pen marks onto sheets of paper.
After the ink on the observation sheets had dried, the data was reinterpreted by V!gør as the
observation sheets are collected, looked over and transformed again from the collected data
to formal documentation. In the case of the street-case observations, during the debriefing,
the data-as-knowledge was again lifted off of the paper and was discussed and built upon
through dialogue between the student researchers and V!gør. It was then re-transformed into
drawings and maps by V!gør in front of the students, making its way back onto paper in the
form of drawings that were organised and codifyed.
The use of post-it notes meant that knowledge was for a time flexible and mobile. The data
on these little squares of yellow paper could be picked up, read, put into one category on
another piece of paper, discussed, picked up again and moved into another. They facilitated
both a transformation of knowledge from voiced to written, as well as a creation of knowledge
through discussion and negotiation of the post-it notes and their movements across the
pieces of paper.
Following this fluidity, whereby drawings could be altered and post-it notes could be moved
across the page, the knowledge was then locked into place and transformed once again into
set formal documents on the V!gør computer system, that represented the accumulation of
the knowledge gained throughout the observations, focus groups, debriefing and subsequent