Spatial Design

Spatial design is an essential creative activity and framework for processes addressing wicked problems in spatial planning.^​1–4​ Its purpose is to create, visualise, and test possible solutions but also to generate knowledge about the problem itself.^​2,4​ This is necessary because of the first characteristic of wicked problems: understanding the problem is concomitant with resolving it.

Spatial design has its roots in Germanic, Dutch, and Belgian planning cultures. As a result, English literature on the subject is scarce. One of the first definitions and its role in spatial planning is given by Jef Van den Broeck^​4​:

Spatial design […] is a medium to integrate different fields of knowledge, visions, contexts and actors, and a coproductive way to define and share terms of spatial quality.

Jef Van den Broeck, 2010, page 87

He bases this definition on the concept of design in general:

Design is the capacity and the artistry to create, to generate, to conceive, to represent, to diagnose, to read and to question possible futures, strategies, actions and projects in a proactive and co-productive way in order to use them for framing, social judgement, negotiation and decision-making.

Jef Van den Broeck, 2010, page 87

In German literature, Nollert^​2​ introduces the term Raumplanerisches Entwerfen with similar meaning but deliberately more emphasis on the spontaneous and undirected aspect of creativity as ‘entwerfen’ can also mean ‘to draft’ or ‘to frame’.

Raumplanerische Entwerfen is an action-oriented process of searching and organising. At its core is the cycle of attempts at solutions, reflection, and examination as well as its possible rejection. Its aim is the generation of socially robust knowledge.

Nollert, 2013, page 224 (free translation)

Given these wordy definitions, spatial planners may understand or at least get an idea about what spatial design is. However, these definitions are too fuzzy and abstract for non-planners to understand what actually happens when planners ‘do spatial design’. Therefore, one of the first tasks of this doctoral project is to develop a more widely understandable definition of spatial design.