Assemblages for Urban Transformation

Abstract

Contemporary urban transformation is challenging current planning practice. In this article, we will address qualities and modes of how planning is able to shape instruments and processes dealing with the complex environments of contemporary urban transformation. We will do this through a retrospective analysis of a planning instrument designed to find new development paths – the instrument of test planning – and a prospective and theoretical mapping of modes of planning under conditions of urban transformation in general.In recent years the urge for novel approaches in planning has risen drastically – at least in Switzerland. Since World War II, urban development in Switzerland has evolved in three different phases: urban expansion on greenfields, the conversion of brownfields since the 1990s, and the transformation of the existing urban fabric, a period that has only just begun in recent years and is seen to be prevalent for urban development in the next decades. This new era of transformation calls for an adaptation of planning processes and planning modes because of a higher degree of complexity resulting from the number and diversity of actors and issues involved.As we will argue through empirical analysis and theoretical derivation, planning can only be successful in guiding urban transformation if it manages to occasionally operate in the mode of “problem-finding”. The mode of problem-finding is characterized by an exploration of possibilities and a rethinking of existing frameworks. In the end, however, new possibilities, ideas and frameworks have to be translated into the mode of problem-solving, that is, into the everyday routines of planning. Finally, a continuous process of de-framing and re-framing is seen as crucial for the role of planning in times of urban transformation. From our point of view such processes are not necessarily limited to exceptional planning instruments (like in test planning), rather the iteration of de-framing and re-framing is a requirement for planning in general in order to deal with higher degrees of complexity.

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