OpenStad
Updating local democracy in Amsterdam
As an in-house designer at the borough of Amsterdam West, I started a lab for experimenting with collaborative decision making and ownership, aiming to make local democracy more direct, interactive and dynamic. Rather than calling in people for passive, time-consuming consultation sessions, we aim to adapt the city’s decision processes to the rhythm and energy of the neighbourhood. We made these processes tangible, while exploring the potential of digital technologies and platforms.
“On election day,
every vote is counted.
On all other days in between,
we make sure every voice is heard.“
— OpenStad Team
Design research
During an intensive design research period, the team mapped out all commonly used roads for interaction between public servants and locals in one specific neighbourhood. In a second map, we showed - ala Kevin Lynch - all potential road blocks, points of confusion and dead ends. The maps lead to the decision to not built anything on top of the existing processes, but to improve through an iterative process.
Iterative process
OpenStad (OpenCity) experimented with new functionalities and simple prototypes, replacing or complementing parts of the existing interactions. Every time with a slightly different ambition: How does our information reach a diverse group of inhabitants? How do we make sure people will reach out to us when we could help? How do we, as an organisation, involve people from the very beginning of a project? As we expanded our toolbox, we built tools to collaborate, rather than to plainly ask for input from inhabitants.
Scaling up
In 2015, our first digital participation tool - a digital coloring template for the new design of a tunnel - attracted 12.000 unique visitors of all ages and backgrounds. By popular demand, we started shared our tools within other boroughs, while also facilitating knowledge exchange within the organisation. Our most succesful tools are currently in use in all seven boroughs. The code is made open-source, and the different functionalities are made into modular elements - to be reused and combined in new platforms.
Where, when Amsterdam, 2015 - 2018
While working for Gemeente Amsterdam, CTO Innovation Team & SD West
Team May-Britt Jansen, Tessa Steenkamp, Jeroen Houben, Fleur Derks
Collaborators Afdeling Buitengewone Zaken
Links
https://amsterdam.github.io/projects/
https://stemvanwest.amsterdam.nl/
https://www.parool.nl/nieuws/nieuw-platform-in-west-geeft-bewoners-meer-invloed-in-bestuur~bfc61b10/