URBN Eden
URBN Eden is a toolkit that engages different members of the community to create new public parks. It connects city residents with urban planners, architects, councils and community groups to create better public spaces. The toolkit includes a site analysis tool, deck of cards, alongside workshop templates and a digital hub.
This project was designed for a university project for an 'Urban Futures' module at LIS. It involved considering how different disciplinary perspectives help to improve collaboration between stakeholders in the urban environment.
The Problem
The URBN Eden Toolkit was developed in response to the pressing challenges cities face today, including climate change, poor public health, and a lack of accessible community spaces. These issues are exacerbated by urbanization, which intensifies problems like the urban heat island effect, increasing the need for green interventions.
Parks and other urban greenspaces can play a crucial role in mitigating these impacts by offering spaces for social interaction, exercise, and relaxation, while also addressing environmental concerns by absorbing carbon dioxide and reducing heat.
The Process
The URBN Eden Toolkit follows a 10-stage process that guides users from site discovery to space review and refinement, ensuring that each green intervention is tailored to its context and community. The process begins with site analysis, using tools to assess infrastructural, environmental, and social features. It then moves through stages of needs assessment, concept design, and community-driven feedback, ensuring that the design reflects the priorities of local stakeholders.
Principles
The foundational principles of the toolkit are designed to foster collaboration, transparency, and resourcefulness in urban green interventions. These principles emphasize continuous community engagement, encourage interdisciplinary teamwork, and promote the effective use of existing resources. By focusing on co-creation, honesty, and adaptability, they ensure that each project is inclusive and responsive to the specific needs of the community, making these values central to the toolkit’s approach to sustainable urban planning
Site Analysis Tool
The Site Analysis Tool is a key resource that helps urban practitioners, local councils, and community groups assess potential spaces for green interventions. It provides a comprehensive checklist for collecting data on various site features, including infrastructural, environmental, social, safety, cultural, and historical aspects. The tool is flexible, allowing users to adapt the criteria to their specific needs, and incorporates AI algorithms to analyze historical and cultural data. This in-depth analysis ensures that interventions are informed by a thorough understanding of the site’s unique context, helping to create more sustainable and effective green spaces.
Flexideck Card Deck
The Flexideck card deck is a versatile tool designed to support the planning and implementation of urban green interventions. Inspired by IDEO’s Nature cards, the deck is divided into categories that correspond to different stages of the process: Discover (for needs analysis), Create (for concept design), Refine (for feedback), and Play (for maintenance and design stages).
Each card provides guidance on audience, objectives, disciplinary perspectives, and mediums to help spark creativity and foster collaboration. The cards also feature QR codes linking to the toolkit’s digital hub for additional resources and examples. By offering a range of ideas and insights, the deck serves as a brainstorming tool, helping practitioners think creatively and facilitating interdisciplinary discussions during workshops
The Hub
The HUB is the digital platform central to the URBN Eden Toolkit, designed to bring together all the tools and resources needed for planning and implementing urban green interventions. It houses key components such as the Site Analysis Tool, the Flexideck card deck, and workshop training materials. The HUB also includes an impact measurement tool that tracks the progress of projects in real-time, evaluating metrics like environmental, societal, and infrastructural improvements.
Workshops
The workshops in the URBN Eden Toolkit are designed to facilitate participatory engagement and collaboration between stakeholders, ensuring that urban green interventions reflect the needs and priorities of the community. These workshops are flexible and can be adapted to different contexts and project scales. Two key workshops are integrated into the process: "Discover & Create", which focuses on identifying community needs and brainstorming design ideas, and "Refine & Play", where initial designs are refined based on feedback.
Measuring Impact
The impact measurement tool allows users to assess the success of urban green interventions by tracking key metrics such as environmental, societal, infrastructural, and cultural improvements, generating a score for each metric. This tool is integrated into the HUB, enabling real-time data collection and analysis throughout the project lifecycle. It captures insights from workshops, site analyses, and community feedback to provide a comprehensive understanding of each project’s outcomes.
Conclusion
This project, completed as part of the Urban Futures module, allowed me to develop key skills in UX/UI design, graphic design, and interdisciplinary urban planning.
Through the creation of the URBN Eden Toolkit, I gained insights into how different disciplines—such as environmental science, architecture, and public health—can collaborate to address urban challenges like climate change and community wellbeing.
The process of developing tools such as the Flexideck card deck, impact measurement system, and digital HUB not only improved my technical design skills but also deepened my understanding of user-centered design and participatory approaches.