UD Co-Spaces

UD Co-Spaces (Urban Design Collaborative Spaces) is an integrated, tabletop-centered multi-display environment for engaging the public in the complex process of collaborative urban design. We describe the iterative user-centered process that we followed over six years through a close interdisciplinary collaboration involving experts in urban design and neighbourhood planning. Versions of UD Co-Spaces were deployed in five real-world charrettes (planning workshops) with 83 participants, a heuristic evaluation with three domain experts, and a qualitative laboratory study with 37 participants. We reflect on our design decisions and how multi-display environments can engage a broad range of stakeholders in decision making and foster collaboration and co-creation within urban design. We examine the parallel use of different displays, each with tailored interactive visualizations, and whether this affects what people can learn about the consequences of their choices for sustainable neighborhoods. We assess UD Co-Spaces using seven principles for collaborative urban design tools that we identified based on literature in urban design, CSCW, and public engagement.