DDfV Delft Design for Values Institute serves as a portal and booster for design for values research, education, outreach and co-creation at Delft University of Technology. It aims at:

1. making visible and accessible what TU Delft has to offer,
2. promoting internal and external collaborations, and
3. advancing knowledge, methods & best practices

DDFV supports a project within the Spatial Justice cluster in Urbanism.

Project leaders:

Roberto Rocco, Assistant professor, Department of Urbanism, Bouwkunde, r.c.rocco@tudelft.nl

Marcin Dabrowski, Assistant professor, Department of Urbanism, Bouwkunde,M.M.Dabrowski@tudelft.nl

Haye Hazenberg, TBM, Department of Values, Technology and Innovation, Postdoctoral researcher, TBM, H.G.G.Hazenberg@tudelft.nl

The project

The Department of Urbanism, in partnership with the Department of Values, Technology and Innovation (TBM), promotes a methodology course with two main components: 1. Academic research skills; and 2. Values for the built environment.

Based on extensive teaching experience in this course, as well as in other courses at TU Delft and AMS (MADE programme), we are preparing a handbook titled “Spatial Justice for Urbanism”, both in print and open access online, in which we discuss how to teach and study values connected to the role of urban planners and designers in society: democracy, nature and role of the State, rule of law, democracy, participation, governance and ethical values of planning and design for people.

The handbook is part of our efforts to systematise education in these areas. It will entail the organisation of a symposium gathering DDFV members and others. Results of the symposium will feed the handbook. Both will be made available on a website. The handbook and website will provide resources and building blocks for development of a MOOC on this topic (not part of this proposal). DDFV members will contribute to all initiatives.

Timeline:

OCT-DEC 2018: Desk research/preparation

JAN-MAR 2019: organisation symposium,

MAY 2019: It could happen to you: Far Right Politics and the City,

JUN 2019: Compilation

JUN2019: Symposium Spatial Justice in Urbanism education

JUL-SEPT 2019: Edition and design preliminary report and book proposal.

This handbook discusses the role of urban and regional spatial planning and design (Urbanism) and the roles of planners and designers in relation to democracy, participation, the rule of law and other relevant issues connected under the umbrella of Spatial Justice explained in this website. This is inserted in a wider discussion on spatial planning and design as vehicles for democracy-building, and as pillars of social sustainability, in the belief that these domains can contribute to how citizens relate to their living environments (the ‘right to the city’), to each other in communities and to wider society. This proposal addresses responsibility and democracy as core values of spatial planning and design and relates to participatory design, social design and positive design as design approaches. 

There is a gap and an audience for the ideas proposed here. Although values are central to the activity of spatial planning and urban design, so far, the issues discussed have been treated as peripheral in education for Urbanism. However, in light of recent partnership between BK and UN-Habitat, the faculty has committed itself to giving more attention to the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) and the New Urban Agenda, where the Right to the City, Governance, Democracy Building, Participation have all centre stage.  

 We have an excellent track record on the topics discussed, with courses and action related to the discussion of values in spatial planning and design: https://methodologyforurbanism.wordpress.comand a summer school in which these ideas are intensely debated https://summerschooltudelft.org