Build your knowledge & skills on the Living Lab approach during the online AMS Summer School 2021.
The challenges facing cities around the globe are complex and multidisciplinary by nature. Attempting to solve them in conventional linear ways is insufficient for addressing these manifold human-environment relationships that are at the heart of these challenges. Alternative approaches are necessary; ones that acknowledge the need for distributed problem-solving capacity and infrastructures for multi-stakeholder collaboration that incorporate local knowledge and practices.
AMS Institute is leading the way to develop, test, use, and train on Living Lab approaches. One of the forms in which we transfer our knowledge and experience is in our ULL Summer School.
At the moment we are looking for a new date for the AMS Summer School. New dates will be announced before the end of August. In the meantime, you can still apply or send an email to Dylan Groenendijk to be kept up to date.
“I enjoyed learning about the complexities of the different stages of the roadmap and how to eventually coalesce different ideas into a clear understanding. I really enjoyed working with my team mates, they were all fantastic!”
Senior researcher TU-Delft, participant, Winterschool ’21
What are Urban Living Labs
Urban Living Labs are real-life environments in which different stakeholders together explore and experiment with solutions for complex urban challenges. The goal within Living Labs is to make impact by developing new products on a small scale – be it an object, a service, a technology, an application, or a system – and to find solutions that can be implemented on a larger scale. This is done in a real-life and co-creating setting in which different stakeholders give shape to the innovation process. The actors are users, private and public actors, as well as knowledge institutes. In essence, it is a learning by doing methodology to help the collaboration and the structuring the content of an explorative process.
What you will get
You will learn to understand what a Living Lab is and when it can be of value to start one. You’ll also gain hand-on knowledge on what is needed to have a successful start, and how to deal with issues such as stakeholder involvement and citizen empowerment.
The summer school will challenge you to work with a new mindset, build a new network of professionals and academia. It gives you the opportunity to be a part of the next steps towards the future of one of Amsterdam’s key projects.
During the summer school, we will help you solve the real-world challenge you bring with your team.
What we will do
During the week you will work in a team of 5 participants on a pre-defined real-life case. The Urban Living Lab Summer School consists of lectures, online co-working sessions, trainings, and real-world interventions. It will tap into theoretical frameworks of Living Lab methodology, process tools to help deliver a plan of approach and deploy teamwork on a real-life case. It will focus on your own learning goals for reinventing cities of tomorrow. The mix of participants - academic researchers, public professionals, and company innovation managers, with at least 5 years of experience - generates new insights and perspectives on the challenges by co-creating solutions together,
Preparation
Before the week starts you will receive some preparatory work. This includes reading literature, watching knowledge clips and preparing some assignments. In total this will add up to approximately one day of work. For this Winter School no additional prior knowledge is required apart from affinity with contemporary urban challenges and solutions.
During the week
You can expect a full-time online program running from Monday to Friday from 9:00-17:00. We expect you to be present to get the most out of it, also be there for your team. Every day you will attend inspirational lectures, participate in workshops, get personal coaching and work with your group on your case. All classes, materials and discussions will be in English.
Summer School Cases
Case 1 – Circularity at IJburg 2
The City of Amsterdam is creating new residential islands at the IJburg-area. Creating new land takes place in a number of phases and time periods. Only in the last phase the area will be build and the final layout of parks, roads and public space will take shape. In the preceding periods temporary roads and functionalities are build - for example construction roads and functionalities for residents and builders.
The question the City wants to answer in this case is: how can we organize these temporary construction phases as valuable and sustainable as possible? The City of Amsterdam is looking for an innovative system in which this can be determined - how and for what purpose can the City use, circulate and reuse temporary structures and materials.
The temporary nature of the preparation for construction is a great opportunity to use IJburg 2 as an Urban Living Lab and to test new innovations.
Case 2a – Mobility hubs: area-oriented approach ‘Jordaan’ & ‘Westelijke Grachtengordel’ Amsterdam
With a growing population and employment in the City of Amsterdam and the metropolitan region, various measures are needed to keep the city and region live able and accessible. The municipality of Amsterdam therefore set a few goals: less private car ownership and fewer cars on the street, more shared mobility, and lighter more innovative and emission-free transport. An important element to steer this mobility transition in the desired direction, is the creation of ‘hubs’. A hub is a node in a multimodal mobility network, where different modes of transport and their infrastructure come together.
Within the municipality of Amsterdam, work is being done on the development of hubs in various areas. However, the belief is that the use of hubs will be even more effective if it is part of an area-oriented approach, in which integral attention is drawn to options for making a neighborhood (more) car-free.
Hubs are one of the means that can be used in a transition to a car-free neighborhood. Therefore, the question the city has, is to design an Urban Living Lab that helps to answer the following research question: “What are the ingredients for an (integrated and innovative) area-oriented approach that will ensure that 50% fewer parking spaces are needed within the Western Grachtengordel by 2030?”
Case 2b - Exploration of mobility hub development at ‘Appeltjesmarkt/Europarking’ location, Amsterdam
With a growing population and employment in the City of Amsterdam and the metropolitan region, various measures are needed to keep the city and region live able and accessible. The municipality of Amsterdam therefore set a few goals: less private car ownership and fewer cars on the street, more shared mobility, and lighter more innovative and emission-free transport. An important element to steer this mobility transition in the desired direction, is the creation of ‘hubs’. A hub is a node in a multimodal mobility network, where different modes of transport and their infrastructure come together.
The ‘Appeltjesmarkt/Europarking’ area seems promising for the development of a mobility-hub. By supplementing the current Appeltjesmarkt / Europarking location with diverse range facilities – for example (shared) mobility facilities and other facilities that contribute to a pleasant, socially safe and attractive environment - the development of a mobility hub at this location can contribute to the desired mobility transition and become a high-quality, attractive and more pleasant place for the neighborhood and its visitors.
The municipality of Amsterdam asks to come up with a living lab design, which can be used to work towards an innovative spatial plan for the location with recommendations for:
- the target group and the contribution to the city;
- the basic functions that must be present for the development of a hub (adaptive with a growth model);
- additional functions that contribute to the development of a lively, socially safe, high-quality and attractive place to travel, stay and meet at this location;
Requirements for participation
As a participant,
- you are a professional with minimal five years of experience in the field of urban challenges;
- or you are involved as a PhD or Postdoc in urban challenged research projects
- you identify with themes like urban circularity, mobility, energy, food systems, climate resilience and digitization;
- you strive for sustainable, innovative and just solutions;
- you are looking for different ways to tackle urban challenges;
- you are inclined to learn, collaborate and co-create from different perspectives.
Challenges: During the week you will be working on a real-life case together with your multidisciplinary team. There will be a maximum of three to four teams, each team will work on their own real-world case. Your team will have the opportunity to meet and interview stakeholders and finally present your final Living Lab design to your case-owner. See the case descriptions above.
Target Group: Academic Researchers, Public Professionals, and Company Innovation Managers
Form: lectures, interactive online sessions with personal learning goals and team challenges.
Language: English
PhD student: € 500
Senior researcher € 900
Professional € 2000
AMS Partners or teams over 5 persons please contact Dylhan Groenendijk for a special offer.
Application is still open
Apply here for the Urban Living Lab Summer School 2021