This project brings together STPLN and Ankara Aks to advance participatory placemaking and democratic urban development through digital innovation and international cooperation. Building on the momentum of our previous SI Seed Project, we are developing an interactive digital platform and resource hub designed to empower citizens, cultural practitioners, and municipal stakeholders to co-create more inclusive, vibrant public spaces.
Through a mix of cross-border exchanges, interactive User Labs, community surveys, media production, and a forthcoming Participatory Urban Design Trends Report, the project tests and refines scalable methodologies for civic participation. The resulting open-access digital platform hosts real-world case studies, practical tools, and community-driven content—fostering long-term knowledge exchange, capacity building, and cross-sector collaboration between local communities and urban decision-makers.
This project is funded by the Swedish Institute.
Participatory Urban Design Toolkit for Inclusive and Democratic City-Making
Addressing the tooling gap
Rooted in insights from our pilot, this project tackles two critical barriers in urban development:
1. A tooling gap: the lack of well-designed accessible digital tools for citizens to meaningfully shape their local environments.
2. A stakeholder divide that separates city officials, creative professionals, and local communities.
While designers and facilitators excel at bridging grassroots ideas and formal institutions, there is a lack of shared infrastructure to scale their impact. Public spaces consequently risk failing the people who use them, while cultural practitioners remain sidelined from formal urban planning and policy.
Our goal is to end up with a digital product that directly bridges this divide by "productizing" proven participatory methodologies into an open-access platform. Featuring an interactive placemaking tool, a practical resource repository, and multimedia guides, the platform equips cultural actors to serve as effective, scalable intermediaries between communities and decision-makers.
Built and refined through cross-border User Labs in Malmö and Ankara, this digital ecosystem translates experimental, grass-root concepts into structured, replicable instruments. Through this, democratizing access to urban design tools and ensuring community-led insights directly inform resilient, inclusive policy.
Get in touch!
For any questions, ideas or potential collaborations related to this project, please reach out to Joshua Ng at joshua@plcr.org
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