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The Transformative Capacity of Regional Design

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Shaping Regional Futures

Abstract

This chapter discusses how regional design introduces a transformative perspective on spatial development. It argues that regional design complements statutory regional planning within the setting of governance processes and that it represents a new methodology emerging as a reaction to the current political inability to re-scale unfit governance structures, with the objective of more effectively steering the development of metropolises. The proposition of a design exercise at regional scale shifts the discourse from issues of formal governmental reorganisation towards methodologies for imagining alternative spatial futures. It does so by proposing a complementary method for formulating regional plans that is interdisciplinary and design-based, similar to urban design but on a wider spatial scale. Design as a process of synthesising can identify and visualise future regional development challenges and convey the need for spatial interventions. The chapter argues that regional design is, therefore, a problem-solving as well as a problem-finding methodology, which should be impact-oriented and strategic. It should operationalise the inter-scalar, relational notion of space. The product of the regional design exercise should encourage debate rather than present an end solution or a master plan. It is, however, complicated by the multiple knowledge domains involved in this process, as well as by extensive, multi-scalar actor networks, fuzzy responsibilities and complex interrelations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture, Chair of Urban Development, Technical University of Munich, Arcisstrasse 21, 80333, Munich, Germany

    Lukas Gilliard, Fabian Wenner, Alain Thierstein & Nadia Alaily-Mattar

Authors
  1. Lukas Gilliard
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  2. Fabian Wenner
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  3. Alain Thierstein
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  4. Nadia Alaily-Mattar
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Correspondence to Lukas Gilliard .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Architecture (DIDA), Regional Design Lab, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

    Valeria Lingua

  2. Department of Urbanism, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Verena Balz

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Gilliard, L., Wenner, F., Thierstein, A., Alaily-Mattar, N. (2020). The Transformative Capacity of Regional Design. In: Lingua, V., Balz, V. (eds) Shaping Regional Futures. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23573-4_4

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