🥂 On April 1st, we officially launched our online platform. Know more about the beautiful event here, or go straight to the TU Delft Citizen Voice website.
Citizen Voice is a bottom-up initiative at TU Delft that aims to empower communities for inclusive and meaningful participation in urban planning and design. Advocating for situated engagement approaches over one-size-fits-all solutions, Citizen Voice develops creative transdisciplinary methods and tools to capture perspectives often overlooked in traditional urban data.
Using creative research methods embedded in transdisciplinary approaches, we provide insights into how citizens and communities perceive their environment. These insights are not captured by traditional urban data, which are either standardised, leaving no room for subjectivity, or collected through urban activity (such as apps and chip cards), which usually misrepresent the experience of various groups and communities. By contextualising accessibility and technology, Citizen Voice seeks to democratise urban decision-making, ensuring that the voices of all citizens are heard and valued in creating sustainable urban spaces.
We engage critically with the implications of the digital transition in the built environment to understand how technology shapes space and social relations in cities. Although opportunities brought about by digitalisation are promising, various challenges need to be addressed to ensure the inclusive and sustainable adoption of digital tools in urban decision-making. Citizen Voice stands by the imperative that technology development needs to move away from the idea of one-size-fits-all towards a situated approach that considers the socio-spatial context in which technology is embedded.
Our deep commitment to open science practices and open-source technologies counterweights the increasing commodification of urban data and knowledge. All tools and knowledge developed within the Citizen Voice initiative are and will remain open source. These resources can support a range of local urban actors and citizens towards more democratic, inclusive, and just cities. Check out our Zenodo community page and our GitHub repository.
Team
Current and previous members of the TU Citizen Voice Initiative are: Juliana Gonçalves, Carissa Champlin, Claudiu Forgaci, Daniella de Rijke Rodríguez, Drew Harris, Geertje Slingerland, Gerdus van der Laarse, Inger van Dok, Ioannis Ioannou, Isabella Jaramillo Diaz, Jing Spaaij, Johannes IJpma, Johanna Zehntner, Marc Haan, Manuel Garcia Alvares, Maria Gil Falcon, Milou Mulder, Selin Kubilay, Sombutta Sinha, Trivik Verma, Virginia Facciotto, and Yaren Aslan.
Funding & Support
2022: SPRING pilot grant | Convergence Alliance
2022: Grant for DCC support | Digital Competence Centre (DCC) at TU Delft
2023: Climate Action Research and Education Seed Call | TU Delft Climate Action Program
2023-2025: UP2030 Project | Horizon Europe
2023-2024: Resilient Delta Kick-starter Grant | Resilident Delta Initiative
2024-2025: CIVILIAN project | NWO Open Science Fund 2023
2024-2025: Grant for DCC support | Digital Competence Centre (DCC) at TU Delft
Juliana Gonçalves 