Shine a light
Marco Bevolo
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report the grounded theory empirical validation on key categories
within a design-led methodology to envision urban futures. The paper focuses on the editorial products and
the design concepts that constitute the heart of the approach. An original elaboration of trend clusters is
presented as an exemplification of the outcome of this trend research approach. Although the approach was
not created from the viewpoint of tourism and leisure, bibliographic notes on place-making complement it for
this journal.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents empirical findings extracted by the means of the
grounded theory, with the purpose to empirically validate two key categories (product and process) of a
urban futures methodology. The methodology is an application of High Design, the process in use at Royal
Philips BV for two decades. This methodology is contextualized within the constructivist episteme, as
defined by the editors of this journal in a separate publication. Bibliographic references to place-making
complete the paper.
Findings – The following findings are provided: empirical validation of the city.people.light communication
platform (qualitative research); empirical validation of the city.people.light workshop practice (qualitative
research); and bibliographic descriptions of the design process governing city.people.light and
newly developed urban futures trend clusters, at European level, as an exemplification of the program/
approach outcome.
Research limitations/implications – The paper is structured according to a multi-layered editorial focus.
Empirical findings were generated at primary research level in a 2013-2015 grounded theory projected by the
author. Furthermore, the author directed the research processes and products that are the object of
empirical validation. Newly defined elaborations and a discussion thereof is offered, taking into account
contemporary place-making issues.
Practical implications – The original design-based methodology is a structured practice in urban futures
from applied sciences and corporate innovation viewpoint. In this paper, its key categories are empirically
validated through the grounded theory. Additionally, outcome from the original foresight programs is
presented and a bibliographic review is provided from the viewpoint of place-making.
Social implications – The co-creative methodology herein empirically validated is socio-cultural centered,
with a strong drive to coutnerbalance the positivist and engineering corporate mindset through a humanistic
concern for people. The framework in terms of place-making takes into account postmodern evolutions
of the field.
Originality/value – The paper benefits from a unique mix of: epistemic note on tourism, leisure, and the
future; original urban futures scenarios and design concepts from a world class corporate innovation
program; and the actual empirical core of the grounded theory validation as performed in a dedicated
research project. These three separate streams are mutually related.
Keywords Grounded theory, Design concepts, Lighting innovation, Multipurpose strategy,
Strategic design, Urban futures
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
This paper focuses on a socio-cultural, trend-research-based practice that exists since the
mid-1990s, within the portfolio of a lighting manufacturer: city.people.light by Philips Lighting,
the Netherlands embracing the socio-cultural complexity of the city as well as its experiential and
spatial density. One might essentially describe city.people.light as a multipurpose practice where
several activities, including qualitative research and participatory workshops, are complemented
by a conscious internal and external networking effort. In the last two decades, such practice has
DOI 10.1108/JTF-03-2017-0010
VOL. 3 NO. 2 2017, pp. 171-183, Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2055-5911
j
Marco Bevolo is a Lecturer
at NHTV University of
Applied Sciences, Breda,
The Netherlands and
Founder of Marco Bevolo
Consulting, Eindhoven,
The Netherlands.
Received 30 March 2017
Revised 27 June 2017
16 July 2017
23 July 2017
Accepted 24 July 2017
© Marco Bevolo. Published in the
Journal of Tourism Futures.
Published by Emerald Publishing
Limited. This article is published
under the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Anyone may reproduce, distribute,
translate and create derivative
works of this article (for both
commercial and non-commercial
purposes), subject to full
attribution to the original
publication and authors. The full
terms of this licence may be seen
at http://creativecommons.org/
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JOURNAL OF TOURISM FUTURES
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delivered tangible results at brand innovation and strategic marketing levels through its
participatory design principles targeting professionals.
The author aims at reporting on an empirical validation of key categories (editorial products as
output, workshops as generative process) within city.people.light by means of a dedicated
grounded theory project (Bevolo, 2016). In order to support such validation, city.people.light will
be introduced and contextualized as a specific urban futures approach, with an editorial product
in the form of a book as key communication output. The city.people.light programs, with their
methods, tools and intents, were generated in the context of High Design, the general design
management process in use at Philips in the period 1991-2011, and not originally applied to
leisure or tourism futures. Therefore, High Design will be introduced as well, as a contextual
element in the background of this paper.
In order to clarify the focus of this paper, a main research question was defined:
RQ1. How does a design-driven approach work for the purpose of co-creating and
communicating urban futures concepts?
In its full-blown scale city.people.light was first performed (1996-1997) by FutureConceptLab, Milan,
also identified as the Trends Lab, and Philips Design. Second time (2006-2007), with a ten year
hiatus, this program was globally performed with its natural scope of validity. Furthermore, a number
of spin-offs or adapted editions, e.g. by scaling down the format, have been designed and executed
through the decades. In total, there have been three editions of city.people.light that might be
considered representative of the approach: 1996 (global), 2006 (global), initiated by Philips Lighting
and executed by Philips Design, and 2011-2013 (European), initiated by Philips Lighting and
delivered without involving Philips Design.
In terms of an editorial structure, the paper will unfold from the preliminary sketching of selected
references to place-making. This being the context where the approach is applied to the
presentation of the methodology itself, and of the grounded theory project designed to empirically
review its communication assets (books) and generative practices as structured process
(workshops). A summary of concepts from the 2014 Create the Livable City book will be
presented. Findings will then be cross-referenced with key issues of place-making, as identified in
the bibliographic review, in the “Findings and Conclusions” section.
2. Theoretical note: the notion of urban place
Appearing for the first time, an estimated 10,000 years ago, the city might be defined as: “[…] a
densely populated entity within a spatially delimited area […]” (Gottdiener and Hutchison, 2006,
p. 21). On this basis, it can be stated that the city is “a place” in terms of its historical, geographical
borders, and material perception, given the sociospatial density of urban nature. This is because
a city entails the combination of political power, economic functions, and overarching symbolic
meanings expressing the deep belief of inhabitants (Gottdiener and Hutchison, 2006, p. 21).
Furthermore, a city might just exist in people’s minds, in terms of vicarious experiences (e.g. its
image in movies, books, media and other communication channels, including face-to-face or
mouse-to-mouse exchange) (Govers and Go, 2009). Therefore, the city is actually more than a
“place,” since a city might be interpreted both as statically manifested at a given moment in time
and dynamically shaped over time, in people’s minds.
Quinlan, Cutler and Carmichael summarize the tourist experience from people’s perspective
(Morgan et al., 2010, p. 8), where only two constituencies pertain “places,” namely the “Physical
Aspects (Influential Realm)” and the “On-site Activities (Tourist Experience).” Based on the extensive
review of definitional sources on the topic, Quinlan, Cutler and Carmichael (Morgan et al., 2010, p. 5)
identify 13 categories, from “Phases of Experience” to “Overview of tourist experience research
areas,” with only one being focused on places, namely “Places and mobility.” Whilst not totally
neglected, spatial considerations might not appear as prominent in the field of tourism studies.
However, this is complemented by the rich texture of sources from other fields, e.g. leisure studies,
social sciences and of course the domains of place branding or urban design. Here, the “making
of places” beyond hardware might be seen as an emerging – or even a central – topic in terms
of both intellectual challenges and economic relevance. Exploring notions of “place-making,”
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Richards (2017) proposes a theoretical reflection that goes from the American urbanist movement,
where “places” were regarded primarily in spatial or architectural sense, to Levebre’s (1974)
Production of Space, where symbolic spaces and lived experiences do acquire an important role in
the making of places. As stated by Lefevbre (1974/1984): “To produce space: […] Consider the
case of a city – a space which is fashioned, shaped and invested by social activities during a finite
historical period. Is this city a work or a product?” (p. 73). A city is constantly in the process of
(self)-development in history and context, through both its design and its everyday practices. The
challenge is, therefore, to identify a conceptual representation of place-making processes that might
capture such complexity; however, with the necessary synthesis. Analyzing Lefevbre, Soja (1996)
proposes the “Trialectics of Being,” an ontological model encompassing historicality, spatiality and
sociality as the constituencies of “being” (Soja, 1996, p. 71). Furthermore, Soja notes the necessity
of: “[…] the reassertion of Spatiality […]” (Soja, 1996, p. 71). From this theoretical construct,
Soja consequently defines a “Trialectics of Spatiality,” comprising: “Firstspace epistemologies,”
referred to: “[…]objectivity and materiality, aiming towards a formal science of space” (Soja, 1996,
pp. 74-5); “Secondspace Epistemologies,” referred to: “[…] the interpretative locale of the creative
artist and artful architect, visually or literally re-presenting the world […] the utopian urbanist seeking
social and spatial justice […]” (Soja, 1996, pp. 74-79); and “Thirdspace Epistemologies,” referred to:
“[…] the sympathetic deconstruction and heuristic reconstitution of the Firstspace-Secondspace
duality[…] what Lefevbre once called the city, a “possibilities machine […]” (Soja, 1996, pp. 71-81).
Richards (2017) elaborates on Soja’s “Thirdspace” and what clearly emerges is the hypothesis that
place-making pertains both a spatial (or static) constituency and a socio-cultural (or dynamic
constituency). This is where the tourism and leisure perspectives on “place” might be positioned
in the future. This is also where the design-led approach as presented in this paper might be
discussed and positioned.
3. Epistemological note: futures research and design
Be it in the form of Delphi oracles or horoscopes “the future” has represented both a tension and
a question since the origins of culture. From an epistemological point of view, the future and the
past share the indeterminate nature of their being, in the present. Both are based on a
reconstruction of events that either did happen or might happen, under context and
circumstances that either do not exist any longer or do not exist yet and on the basis of
extrapolation from single documental evidences or from detected trends, whereas the study of
the past has been codified for centuries in the methodologies and philosophies of history
(Staley, 2007). Concurrently an equivalent codification of futures research has only existed since
the last century (Bevolo, 2016). Such institutionalization has resulted in a formal codification of the
fields of future studies and foresight and ultimately of what a “futurist” is.
Within the context of global corporate enterprises, “foresight” has been adopted as a strategic
portfolio competence since the end of the Second World War. This has led to anticipate future
change and emerging lifestyles. Topical moments include the availability of alternative scenarios
unveiling “wild card” possible – however unlikely – events at Royal Shell. The oil company that
uniquely anticipated – before 1973 – the end of abundance in oil supply. Within this paper, a
constructivist definition was identified and is adopted from tourism futures literature: “Futurists
never present objectivity but a range of alternatives of subjectivity. The research they are involved
in presumes interpretation which Schwandt (1994) labels constructivist interpretation. This is an
ontology that is predominantly local and specific in which the creation of knowledge is grounded
in practice. This epistemology views knowledge in a subjective and transactional manner as
merely suggesting directions along which to look, rather than providing descriptions of what to
see […]” (Yeoman, Postma, Oskam, McMahon-Beattie, Findlay, in Postma et al., 2013, p. 60).
This definition of “futurist” was crafted by its authors in the context of a major study of European
tourism futures. It resonates with the notion of design in the context of history that Flusser
proposes, a notion where “[…] all forms are temporal” (Flusser, 1999/2009/2010, p. 61).
In Flusser’s work, the relationship between “design” and “future” is embodied in the archetype of
the architect/engineer. This is based on their ability to anticipate what the future will bring, to draft
solutions accordingly, to plan actions and make it happen, over time, starting from their insights
and ideas, captured in concepts and drafted in sketches.
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The paramount relevance of sketching within engineering, architectural, and design processes
might respond to a historical trait of the architectural profession, going back to its intellectual
inception in the 1500s: “The command of drawing – not building – unlocked the status of the
architect, establishing the principle that architecture results not from accumulated knowledge of a
team of anonymous craftsmen but the artistic creation of an individual […] Asserting their
intellectual status, architects made drawings with just a few delicate lines and imagined buildings
that were equally immaterial” (Hill, in Fraser, 2013, p. 15). Design sketches are visual
representations of concepts that capture experiences and objects yet to come, envisioning
possible futures, in the present. Concepts potentially trigger processes of meaning-making that
will impact the course of events. The generation of concepts might take place as the output of
individual creative processes, or by means of constructivist participation. As opposite to individual
“genius forecasting” and as an advanced form of dialogues by co-creation, the workshop format
has been historically identified as an eminently participatory methods of generating future visions
by means of facilitation (Jungk and Muellert, 1987). In the next paragraph, it will be articulated
how the urban futures methodology at the heart of this paper might meet a number of the above
generic principles, leveraging its visual output as the outcome of generative workshops.
4. Methodologies: design process and reflexive validation
In order to document outcome and operationalize validation of the above, this “Methodology”
section is articulated as a hybrid mix. It combines the design methodology “behind” city.people.
light, namely High Design, and the qualitative research methodology that enabled a grounded
theory validation “of” city.people.light, as its research object. These two distinctive topics will
entail descriptive sub-sections (Sections 4.1, 4.1.2 and 4.1.3), aimed at presenting the
background of city.people.light, while introducing two validation key categories. Concurrently, in
Section 4.1.1, operational information will be provided about the grounded theory empirical
process. To fulfill its hybrid nature, these methodological paragraphs will be editorially divided in
two modules, addressing:
4.1: a bibliographic investigation dissecting the overall High Design process that underpins the
approach at hand as a process framework and a discussion of how it was applied to urban
futures;
4.1.1: the grounded theory operational references for the empirical (reflexive) validation of city.
people.light (Bevolo, 2016), including specification of the key categories;
4.1.2: a bibliographic presentation of the Key Category 1: workshops; and
4.1.3: a bibliographic presentation of the Key Category 2: books.
Within this paragraph, city.people.light plays different functions: in 4.1 High Design clarifies the
governing process of city.people.light (therefore, a generic design process is presented, of which
city.people.light is one application), whereas in 4.2, grounded theory enables the study of city.
people.light as research object. The grounded theory being the key operational reference for this
paper in empirical terms.
4.1 Design process framework – High Design: a co-creative approach to envision urban
futures
“High Design” is the reference governing principle for city.people.light programs. High Design was
in use at Royal Philips NV in the two decades 1991-2011 as a future-oriented corporate design
process. It can be defined as follows: “High Design is a human-focused, research based, design
management process for repeatable business success. High Design integrates the input from
socio-cultural disciplines and people research, and then makes that information and insight the
starting point of every design project”. High Design principles were integrated in a universal design
process, in order to offer a flexible and scalable mix of creative and strategic competences
addressing the wide portfolio of Philips businesses (urban lighting, lighting, consumer electronics,
domestic appliances, medical systems, computing devices, semiconductors and components).
Such principles are applicable both to innovation processes and challenges (Kusume and
Gridley, 2013) as well as brand marketing (Bevolo and Brand, 2003). Hence, offering an optimal
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degree of flexibility and versatility across future-oriented challenges. Its application was then
expanded to design-led partnerships with lifestyle brands such as Levi’s and Nike (wearable
technologies), and other non-Philips non-competitive customers. For example, the Municipality of
Eindhoven with their Strijp-S lighting experience strategy, directed by Lorna Goulden, published in
an award winning book (2008) modeled on the city.people.light format. One peculiar feature of
High Design is its ambition to generate “Co-creation Communities” (Kusume and Gridley, 2013,
pp. 55-6). This lies in the inclusive recognition of each stakeholder as an acceptable/accepted
contributor. Therefore, High Design programs might aspire to create “an open community,”
focusing on informal dynamics and knowledge in the “fuzzy front” of innovation (Rameckers and
Un, 2005, pp. 11-4).
Shifting from the generic corporate design/foresight description of High Design as a governing
principle to the specific city context, its derivative application for urban outdoors is identified as
city.people.light. Namely, a future research approach should be with the following qualities:
design-led, participatory, visual and socio-cultural-focused. Its purpose is to enable and underpin
participatory lighting innovation processes over time. From a formal point of view, one should
stress the fact that the nominal validity for city.people.light outcome is conventionally perceived at
half a decade to a decade ahead in the future, with industrial innovation processes aligned to this
time frame. A typical city.people.light cycle historically may have lasted for five years.
This comprises a qualitative research project or a series thereof, based on interviews with thought
leaders and decision makers in city management and urban architecture; a number of
workshops, involving lighting design professionals at regional level; the processing, editing and
publication of outcome in the form of highly visual books and their valorization in conferences and
lectures; the analysis, clustering, and activation of specific concepts in the corporate strategic
marketing and innovation funnels; the academic valorization and networking exploitation of
outcomes, with commercial focus of relationships. Qualitative research is leveraged as a source
for the writing of scenarios. Such scenarios are based on prefigured coded insights. The coding is
performed by first elaborating insights from qualitative interviews and then filtering them through a
dedicated Urban Futures Matrix. Such tool connects socio-cultural drivers, therefore
representative of longer term futures, with city strategies and therefore modalities of organizing
urban realities. The resulting scenarios are at the same time the formal end deliverable of
qualitative research and an ancillary asset to support the abductive processes of future visioning
by architects, designers, and other workshop contributors, who lead in this process. Scenarios
are fixed as a given narrative asset in the process. They inspire workshop participants
to co-create “Design Concepts” by means of facilitated dialog and discussion. Design Concepts
are therefore at the heart of the output of participatory practices. An overview of 2014 Design
Concepts will be presented in Section 4, summarized in clusters. It must be specified that
scenarios do not represent the main focus of this paper. Therefore, a historical or critical
discussion thereof will not be presented.
4.1.1 Reflexive validation: grounded theory methodology operationalization. A dedicated
grounded theory project (Bevolo, 2016) was designed in 2013 and executed through 2015, with
the purpose to validate this urban futures approach. For this purpose, city.people.light
communication outcome, in the form of books, and city.people.light generative practices, in the
form of workshops (with Design Concepts as output), were identified, described and analyzed as
key categories of investigation. First, such workshops were investigated as grounded theory
research objects (Bevolo, 2016):
■
Creation process of (urban futures) scenarios and concepts, with a key category focusing on the
“workshop” as process designed to enable professional stakeholders and members of relevant
communities of practice to generate city.people.light findings (grounded theory validation – Key
Category 1).
■
By “workshop” it is herein specifically identified the stakeholder-focused, co-design aimed,
facilitated event ( format and execution) as performed in the city.people.light programs performed
in 2006 (globally) and 2011-2013 (Europe), based on the overall managerial decision-making.
■
Second, the central role in terms of outcome is played by editorial products that regularly
report and diffuse research program findings, concepts and all necessary information,
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e.g. bibliographies and references. The books were therefore strategically positioned as
structural moments in the process. In this respect, their function as communication products
were clarified and formulated as a precise grounded theory research object (Bevolo, 2016).
■
Communication of (urban futures) scenarios and concepts, with a key category focusing on
the “book” as a product designed as a structural moment to channel and communicate city.
people.light findings (grounded theory validation – Key Category 2).
Based on the above starting points, the grounded theory analysis (Bevolo, 2016) relied on the
following assets:
■
13 interviews with qualified respondents performed in November/December 2013
(not included here: details of qualitative research participants);
■
extant documents, as reference examples of concrete managerial practices determining the
workshop design and execution;
■
photographic records of six published workshops (2014);
■
video recordings of city.people.light class events held in 2011-2013 (Bratislava, Turnhout,
Dubrovnik, Copenhagen, Glasgow);
■
professional memo’s supporting the contribution by the researcher to 2011-2013 workshops,
in his capacity of consulting research principal commissioned by Philips Lighting BV;
■
personal memories (memoire) and anecdotal evidence from city.people.light 2006 and
2011-2013 workshops, including e-mail transmissions and other company confidential
documentation;
■
presentations, trade articles and other collateral assets describing the process and its
structural or practice-focused constituencies for promotional or other official purposes;
■
book as published in 2007 with design sketches and analysis;
■
book as published in 2014 with design sketches, photographic materials and analysis,
including philology of concepts related to 2007;
■
transcripts of 13 thought leader qualitative interviews 2006;
■
transcripts of eight thought leader qualitative interviews 2011-2014; and
■
presentations, trade articles and other collateral assets, generated between 2006 and 2015.
The 13 interviewees were selected according to the principles of “purposive sampling”
in a homogeneous professional culture (Guest et al., 2006, p. 61). Therefore, as verified by
accomplishment of saturation, this selection met the validity requirements for satisfactory
performance of qualitative research. The interview transcripts were edited by each participant in
terms of their review and approval and then framed through a number of analytical steps at
various levels of coding aggregation. Key findings (as defined at the stage of Open Coding within
the grounded theory project) for this “reflexive” component of this paper will be presented and
commented on in the “Findings and Conclusions” section.
4.1.2 Grounded theory validation – Key Category 1: a review of workshops as the heart of the
approach. Within High Design, workshop design and management are specific techniques aimed
at facilitating teamwork in dedicated sessions, with the objective to generate a shared space of
safe dialog and productive exchange for the co-creation of ideas, concepts and solutions through
a process of communal understanding and mutual acknowledgment across different and diverse
stakeholders. Facilitation entails the creation of optimal enabling conditions for participants to
perform. From white sheet to the final concept, they re-connected their work to urban futures
hypotheses presented as qualitative research findings. By setting up a non-competitive,
non-commercially purposed, communal “space of communication and collaboration,” city.
people.light organizers and facilitators historically managed to gather competing architects,
competing designers and administrative officers from sometimes competing cities, and enable
them all to systematically reflect and co-create as members of temporary teams. A typical city.
people.light workshop entails one to two days of communal working sessions, starting from the
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presentation of qualitative research findings. Stakeholders are invited to assume a participatory,
proactive role, in order to envision and deliver their ideas of future urban lighting in the form of
design sketches with the availability of professional illustrators to immediately fix ideas on paper.
Ideas and sketches are articulated into concepts with a critically discussed link to scenarios.
Scenarios are systematically presented as qualitative research findings. Concepts are then
optimized in a narrative form, completed by a specific title.
A crucial probing point for city.people.light concerns the inclusion of ordinary citizens in
workshops or other forms of participation. The answer to such point is negative because city.
people.light is a Business-to-Business program within a corporate context. Critical elaboration on
this point might indicate a fit with what Verganti and Pisano describe as the “Elite Club” modality
of co-creation for corporate enterprises (Pisano and Verganti, 2008, pp. 78-86). This is an
“open innovation” approach that only entails the involvement of restricted circles of selected
professional contributors only. This consideration clarifies the relatively limited scope and
non-existing direct impact of the program design from an Action Research viewpoint, especially
from the viewpoint of political implications. Simply put, city.people.light programs have not been
conceived or designed as “social innovation” opportunities for urban communities. At the same
time, however restricted to a specific professional community, one cannot deny the co-creative
nature of this approach, its process design and its immediate output.
4.1.3 Grounded theory validation – Key Category 2: a review of the book as communication
asset. The process as described above repeatedly led to a selection of “urban futures ideas”
visualized in appealing sketches or photographic reproductions, to be collected, edited and
presented to the wider public in a book format (Bevolo et al., p. 2007). At the end of every cycle,
the outcome of a number of coherent and comparable workshops is analyzed, processed and
edited into an appealing publication. In such communication format, the design and editorial lines
of city.people.light books privileged sketches and visual assets as a vehicle of representation of
future concepts. This conscious editorial choice, and the very selection of the “book” as privileged
communication tool, might find their ultimate roots in those cultural discourses rationalizing how
architecture historically emerged from craftsmanship as a higher cultural enterprise.
In this paper, references are dual, to both the 2007 and the 2014 books. The editorial architecture
of the two products is similar with an opening part related to urban futures: Urban Trends
(pp. 8-21, in 2007) and Urban Futures (pp. 11-35, in 2014). The 2007 architectural thought
leaders, e.g. ranging from Richard Rogers to Odile Decq, from Hans Hollein to Robert Venturi and
Denise Scott Brown were presented in more prominent fashion than the 2014 European experts.
The 2014 European experts covered architectural firms (Piber, Bantal), city management
department (Urbanowicz, Johnston), academia (Mommaas) and the field of urban leisure
(Mommaas, Verri, Korkman). It might also be relevant to mention that the 2007 book was
referenced at the introduction of every 2014 concept. The editorial and research goals were to
ground 2014 manifestations in historically antecedent “weak signals,” hence creating a visible
degree of continuity and coherence across two different editions of the program, managed by
means of equivalent process and formats.
Focusing on the visual sections of the books, where co-created Design Concepts are presented,
the 2006 sketches from global workshops (Lyon, Philadelphia, Shanghai, Hamburg) were
introduced as “Inspirational.” The editorial section consisted of double-spread pages reconnecting
the different regions to the original expert interviews, with unattributed quotes (pp. 28-9, 66-7,
90-1, 122-3, 2007), complete with the lists of workshop participants. The 2011-2013 sketches and
their related mock up photographs were introduced with an overview of the six cities involved
(Bratislava, Copenhagen, Turnhout, Dubrovnik, Wroclaw, Glasgow) (pp. 38-9, 2014) and by
an organic overview of design and organizational issues related to the workshops themselves
(pp. 40-1, 2014). At the end of the book, the 2007 conclusions were limited to one page (p. 150,
2007), under the programmatic title: “Open conclusions for a program that will never end”.
Thus, deliberately stating the intent not to supply any conclusive remark as a way to interpret its
nature of “open platform.” The 2014 conclusions provided, instead, four directions, articulated in
16 questions corresponding to the 16 cells (or scenarios) in the referenced Urban Futures Matrix,
adopted throughout the process. Therefore, “wrapping up” the entire book from the perspective of
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this specific research and workshop governing tool (pp. 153-5, 2014). These formats adopted to
deliver conclusions might be perhaps described as key points of divergence of this approach from
the positivist posture, demanding specific findings to answer a specific research question. Whereas
the positivist reader might find this indeterminacy unpalatable, the postmodern design research will
appreciate it as inspirational.
5. Design concepts as output: a summary by clustering
It was anticipated both in the Notes and in the Methodology above, how Design Concepts are the
results of co-creative workshops. Design Concepts could therefore be considered a key product
within city.people.light as a High Design application. A presentation of Design Concepts will be
herein provided with the goal to illustrate them, namely with the purpose to present the output of
workshops as well as get a visual insight into the content of books. Design Concepts are
of course not the result of grounded theory validation as conducted by means of qualitative
research on the two Key Categories above, workshops and books. The latter will be presented in
the final section, “Findings and Conclusions.”
As so far introduced concepts are the outcome of co-creative workshops, where scenarios
are presented and shared, to be activated within dialogs as part of a facilitated process where
the primary focus is on idea generation by workshop participants. Additionally, it must be
specified that concepts were generated by multidisciplinary, multicultural teams with regional
focus, as generic and universally applicable. Design Concepts and sketches were therefore
only spatially related to any specific location, as they had the main ambition to generate
visions of urban futures at the general level. Because of their specific category focus
on the night-time and on lighting, city.people.light concepts did extend to mobility, lifestyle,
leisure or other domains, both in their actual topics and themes, as well as in their application
and valorization.
A key source for this summary is one book, Create the Livable City, published by EMAP/AJ
Books in 2014. The book was co-authored by Tapio Rosenius, MSc, and the author of this
paper, as valorization of the European program for strategic marketing and innovation
commissioned by Philips Lighting EMEA in the triennium 2011-2014. Featured assets include the
visual and textual report of six co-creative workshops with professionals. Each concept was
visually presented in the context of its specific city event. Every concept was then edited with
“Lighting design notes” at the technical level and visualized by means of both sketches and
photographs, representing mock up installations co-created during the workshop, each with a
specific title. For presentation and synthesis purposes within this paper, concepts were
summarized in trend clusters, offering new original aggregations and themes. Each trend cluster
will be introduced by means of a reflection on spatial traits shared by individual concepts.
5.1 Trend cluster: natural artificial
Across workshop locations a new sensibility emerged based on reconnecting to nature by means
of signs and symbols generated by digital or architectural solutions. From a spatial point of view,
the integration of lighting technology and infrastructure enables the creation of visual effects to
represent the memory of nature “as it was” before urbanization (e.g. the original grass under the
pavements or the water of the sea on the floor of a courtyard divided from the Mediterranean by
an ancient wall). One concept proposes the transformation of the green decorative frame around
a martial square into the focus of the square itself, whereas the monumental pedestal at its center
shifts from a displaying a military statue to focalizing two beams of light in the sky, as a symbolic
way to reconnect it to the trees and flowers. Here, a modest urban garden becomes a visual
poetic symphony, magnifying the role of nature to requalify this underprivileged square. Just one
step further and leisure objects and buildings are giving night-time “pulse” and vibe to the city.
For example, discotheques or clubs are repurposed to represent environmental themes
through ambient experiences. This might be a major step in terms of integrating the symbolic
representation of nature into contemporary lifestyles. According to these references future
developments in the city might culturally encompass a deeper drive to reconnect to nature, even
in its most primordial form.
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5.2 Trend cluster: abstract narratives
From a spatial perspective, within this second aggregation of co-created trend manifestations
infrastructural and architectural hardware is elevated to the role of narrative trigger. This is
first articulated at the level of minimal/minimalistic esthetic intervention on bridges or mixed
programs. Thus, storytelling is enabled as a loose and indefinite intellectual parcour
across abstract points, embedded in lighting solutions that enliven what used to be dark
infrastructure. Similarly, abstract storytelling is also the creative approach chosen for the
concept based on projections on the internal façade of the Rector’s Palace in Dubrovnik,
where the story of the city is translated, by music and light, into an abstract sequence of effects
and experiences. Concurrently, such narrative approach co-exists with the iconic approach
adopted for historical elements such as the stone stairs in the same courtyard of the Rector’s
Palace. The workshop participants treated this object in context as a semiotic device enabling
access to multipurpose leisure programs to be located on the first floor, from fine arts to a
casino. Lastly, wrapping up esthetic themes of the whole trend cluster, an otherwise loose
sequence of architectural design elements, becomes the texture of a narrative analogy to
Dante’s Divine Comedy, in an elegant Glasgow concept. Completely void of any connection to
social or personal sustainability concerns, this trend cluster appears less compact and more
nuanced than “Natural Artificial.” Concepts spread across leisure programs and tourism
activities with priorities spanning from city beautification to cultural tourism and decorative
storytelling to the management of space and place.
5.3 Trend cluster: spatial socialization
This trend cluster entails diverse spatial nuances and executions, with multiple faceted directions in
both esthetic terms and design opportunities. First, fine arts are present in terms of objects or
lighting solutions. Here triggers stimulate individuals to gather, share and communicate. This is the
case of the virtual “orange bonfire” that became the signature visual of the book cover. Next to this
artistic direction, advanced technologies play a role in terms of transforming analogue surfaces like
windows into contextual social media at local level or in enabling an evolution of the speaker’s corner
into new digital opportunities, once again for aggregation and gathering. On a more functional level,
in a Silesian vernacular manifestation of both esthetics and urban design, the dynamic lighting
treatment applied to a pedestrian underpass transforms a dark tunnel, where citizens do not dare to
walk at night, into an informal playground for kids. Here, the social representation of re-appropriation
of an otherwise blocked urban corridor is represented by the spontaneous socialization of children in
joyful play. Lastly, with a more conventional leisure and tourism approach, the repurposing of
industrial stock into communal facilities for migrants or for plain relaxation purposes is also featured,
with a particular prominence of communication and exchange as programmatic societal purposes.
As a synthesis, in this trend cluster 1 might say that both new and long-term citizens are enabled to
exercise the right to self-expression. Publicly, gathering as individuals to learn, exchange or transact,
in the context of new forms of leisure experiences.
5.4 Trend cluster: functional planning
This final “minority cluster” groups two concepts that are loosely connected by the functionality focus
of their scenarios. One might highlight the eclecticism of postmodern planning, where contemporary
forms and materials join ancient esthetics without rejecting them. Lighting plays a more ancillary role,
enabling the design or the fruition of urban places for specific purposes and with ease of use.
Simplicity of interaction is key, with spatial focus on architectural styles or functional performance.
From an experiential point of view, solutions based on this minor socio-cultural cluster might support
the design planning of an intuitive city, that will be open and appealing for visitors by design.
6. Findings and conclusions
6.1 Grounded theory validation: preliminary empirical findings
Within the grounded theory empirical validation of city.people.light (Bevolo, 2016), the
“workshop” process as practice-based moment of co-creation was empirically described by a
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number of items and qualities, including the following preliminary overview capturing interview
recurrent topics and themes by means of Open Coding:
1. thought leadership-focused events with multipurpose nature (relationships, innovation);
2. events where insights are generated in order to populate product roadmaps;
3. events conceived and governed by means of a “Design Thinking” mindset;
4. lighting design focused session;
5. events inspired and managed by means of the urban futures matrix;
6. events integrated in an implicit city.people.light brand theme;
7. educational value events, perhaps beyond the internal perception at Philips;
8. sketches maintain a central role in the conversion from theory to concepts;
9. offering the opportunity to perform wild cards and blue-sky concepting; and
10. not based on technology, however depending on the existing technology for mock ups.
The key performance indicators, or equivalent, connected to the workshop format as adopted in
this process were identified as follows:
1. measurement of performance mainly assessed by Net Promoter Score (a CRM tool, since 2011)
(Reichheld, 2006);
2. conversion of workshop outcome into solution roadmaps (two to three product ranges over
five years);
3. generically expected 1-5 percent conversion rate from sketches to product ranges;
4. indirect CRM conversion expected in terms of future commercial opportunities; and
5. financial and commercial value questioned and challenged by internal stakeholders.
The core of the program output and its main communication platform lie in editorial products,
visually reporting Design Concepts as related to qualitative research findings and other
knowledge assets. Concepts are presented as outcome of workshops within a socio-cultural
analysis framework, with bibliographic references and with sketches and photographic
depictions of possible urban futures with universal validity, hence non-specific to the city where
they were generated. At the level of grounded theory empirical validation, the book as a research
object was described in accordance to a number of points extracted by semantically analyzing
transcripts and conducting Open Coding; including the following early findings:
1. thought leadership content, focused on future solutions;
2. visualizations based on insights;
3. visualizations aimed at playing an inspirational function;
4. visualizations expressed by means of sketches;
5. content based on critical mass of workshop output;
6. source of functional knowledge and somewhat monitoring;
7. based on structured analytical semi-academic knowledge;
8. technical knowledge;
9. based on research; and
10. falsifiable, as based on the urban futures matrix.
The key performance indicators that implicitly determine the perceived quality of the book as
output format of this approach were identified as follows:
1. publication of architect’s interviews;
2. interaction with the target audience;
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3. conversion of selected content into solutions roadmaps;
4. PR visibility on a specific brand theme; and
5. leadership in the market.
The general storyline is one of education and inspiration for relevant target audiences, based on
critical urban challenges. Visualizations preponderantly lead in the editorial and communication
strategies, being perceived as the most relevant feature of the books. The esthetic and sensorial
core visual manifestation of both 2007 and 2014 books is based on co-created concepts
(sketches and photography) (the latter in 2014 only) and in workshop sessions.
6.2 Conclusions on the program as high design application
The city.people.light approach described in this paper is intrinsically multipurpose. It was born
in the industrial context to support corporate processes of design, innovation and strategic
marketing, High Design offers the opportunity to deliver multiple assets to product innovation
processes, thought leadership profiling and a number of strategic positioning platforms in the
company, and beyond. Strategies are implicit statements about preferred futures, whereas
future research embodies a range of possibilities yet to come. Furthermore, the future might be
influenced by actions taken in the present, including participatory dialogs and communication
of potential developments, e.g. in the form of “posits” (or concepts) that “stand for” what might
come. In particular, one might speak of this approach as a constructivist approach for an
“Elite Club” of selected professionals, who partake in an open innovation process. Here, they
are invited to co-create hypotheses deemed to envision the future of a particular field, the city,
from a socio-cultural viewpoint, at night and with focus on outdoors environments. Citizens are
not directly involved, by managerial choice. The process is based on design research
principles, with qualitative research at its basis and workshops as generative moments
of practice. The program is executed by means of regional events, in selected cities, with
participants from the architectural, city management and lighting design sectors. Given the
specific constructivist, co-creative and design-led nature of the approach researched in this
paper, it might be important to avoid any misunderstanding possibly generated by any (rigid)
interpretations of its content from a positivistic perspective. While the design methodology at
hand might be described as business oriented and utilitarian, it was born in the early 1990s as
a way to create a formalized substantial juxtaposition to positivist notions of “science,” and
their technocratic translations of assets into technological roadmaps for top down deployment
into markets. One might say, that the very nature of city.people.light is complementary,
if not antagonistic, with respect to positivistic notions of linear forecast and technological
road mapping.
In conclusion, without aiming at a validated and calibrated assessment from theoretical or
epistemological viewpoints that would exceed the purpose of this paper, a working hypothesis
for potential next steps in the analysis of this approach is that city.people.light narratively presents
the city (of the future) as a “possibilities-machine” (Soja, 1996, p. 81). As a conclusive framing,
according to the categories proposed by Soja in his “Thirdspace” (1996), this approach might be
described as a creative reaction again “Firstspace epistemologies.” It was developed and
delivered with the ambition to counterbalance scientific positivism and engineering roadmaps as
leading business drivers within Philips Lighting. Therefore, it might be tentatively proposed that
this approach resonates with “Secondspace epistemologies,” as it delivers visualizations
developed through interpretations and insights of architects, designers and other professionals,
who re-present possible worlds, in terms of night-time urban futures. Hence, this might comprise
of both static and dynamic dimensions of place-making as described by Richards (2017).
The future orientation and socio-cultural focus of city.people.light might extend its reach as
it addresses spatial challenges from people’s perspective, although through the professional
eyes of architects, designers and other selected participants. At least from its specific angle of
innovation design, it might find a potential affinity with the tourism studies “experience area” of
“Places and mobility,” as previously identified. Furthermore, the socio-cultural angle implicitly
acknowledges the relevance of social activities as a shaping force of the city, possibly in line
with Lefevbre’s (1974/1984) considerations on the complexity of the production of space.
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It might, therefore, be proposed as a final reflection that city.people.light has traits and
characteristics responding to and fulfilling (at least to an extent) what postmodernist
place-making theory asserts. Hence, possibly playing a role in addressing research challenges
from postmodern viewpoints of tourism, leisure and urban design.
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Further reading
Anholt, S. (2007), Competitive Identity, Palgrave, London.
Bevolo, M. and Rosenius, T. (2014), Create the Livable City, AJ Books/EMAP, London.
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Richards, G. and Smith, M. (Eds) (2013), Routledge Handbook of Cultural Tourism, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon.
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Slaughter, R. (1995), The Foresight Principle, Adamantine Press, London.
VV. AA (1997), city.people.light, Philips Lighting BV, Eindhoven, ISBN 90-801262-2-5.
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Eindhoven.
VV. AA., Olcanto, R. and Van der Linden, J. (2013), “Learning from glas vegas. An aj design charrete philips
lighting livable city workshop, Glasgow 2013”, The Architectural Journal, pp. 31-65.
Corresponding author
Marco Bevolo can be contacted at: marco.bevolo@gmail.com
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