THE OPPORTUNITIES OF A LIVING LAB IN NORDHAVNEN
‘ Why would using Nordhavn as a living laboratory have such a strong effect?’, you might ask.
A good question! Theoretical conceptualisations of the way technological and societal change takes place have stressed the notion of path-dependency: once a certain path of handling things is taken repeatedly, it becomes more and more difficult to deviate from this path, and very tough for new, alternative ways to emerge and break through. Once we have a certain conception about how mobility works, it is hard to think and get out of this box. Once we have computer models, which include many variables but ignore others( such as behavioural change, car sharing, walking trips, etc.), we get blind for the ones left out. Once we have agreed on certain regulations, they become arduous to alter.
Others have made it to create those inspiring quarters. Let’ s just take the example of Vauban in Freiburg: getting awarded to be an UN Habitat‘ best practice’-example right away, it received huge attention far beyond the urban planning community. But this big and successful‘ experiment’ forgot, as many others, the central point: to learn, setup a strategy how to follow-up and diffuse the learnings in the rest of the cityscape. When implementing this perspective from the start, Nordhavnen offers the opportunity to handle the follow-up in an institutionalized way and shake free of the limiting factors raised