**6. Case study 2: urban placemaking through user input**

#### **6.1 Introduction**

Moving away from the expert urbanist model, which determines the form and functionality of the built environment based on central rules, we argue that engagement with democratic participation can lead to more sustainable and resilient built environments. "Openreblock" platform is an open-ended approach to social justice that offers users active participation and opportunities to reform their immediate environment (**Figure 16**). By encouraging participatory planning via community mapping by its own citizens, it contributes in improving slum communities and their integration in the broader urban fabric. Some of the immediate benefits are land regularization and security of land ownership, allowance for public services, and connectivity.

As urban planning should be understood as a communicative, pragmatic, social practice, this tool facilitates intercultural dialog and implementation. "Openreblock" enables users to reorganize slum communities that lack significant public infrastructure, such as access to a public street. The idea of the tool is that citizens have the right to affect the design of their local neighborhood and have access to an open-source methodology for doing so. It is a web-based service for an open-source platform that proposes the least disruptive reformation of the existing street network

**Figure 16.**

*"Openreblock": website main page, interface, graphics (graphic design by Stamen design).*

in order to interconnect slum building blocks that lack access to a public street. This sets the basis for land formalization and property stability, so that *urban slum communities become more resilient to future exploitation and natural disasters.*

Funded through OpenIDEO, it is the product of major research collaboration by the Santa Fe Institute, Sam Houston State University, UC Berkeley, and Shack/ Slum Dwellers International, a global network of community-based organizations representing the urban poor. Shack/Slum Dwellers International is a network of community-based groups from 33 countries representing and communicating the needs of the urban poor, engaging international agencies, and operating on the global stage in order to support and advance local struggles for the last 20 years.

"Openreblock" combines the knowledge of slum communities' inhabitants with data analytics worldwide to enable each citizen to become an agent of information with the objective to enrich local knowledge and empower their community to pursue faster and more sustainable development outcomes from the local governments.

### **6.2 Topology of street network**

In order to be able to formalize a strategy on how to evaluate and classify urban fabric typologies, we need to identify some key characteristics that define the character of the urban space. These characteristics should correspond to physical characteristics and relationships between the elements of space, in order to become a quantifiable set of parameters. In our case, the morphology of space that we need to analyze is that of a slum urban block. Although slum communities are diverse in physical appearance, context parcel population, and opportunities, they share common characteristics of organic typology and aggregation of parcels that are a result of unplanned, spontaneous expansion. In most cases, this type of urban development across time results in isolated parcels that do not have access to the street network at all and therefore to any services.

**169**

**Figure 17.**

*(figure was created by the author).*

*Human-Centered Approaches in Urban Analytics and Placemaking*

The lack of infrastructure appears to be common to most poor or informal neighborhoods, and some of the challenges that these communities are facing derive partially form this fact. Streets are not only used for transportation, they carry all the necessary infrastructures such as drainage, electrical and communica-

*Topology of a building block-morphing process between three building blocks that share the same topology* 

Based on the above, the key quantifiable set of parameters is the topology of the parcels, which reveals parcels with "blind" sides to a public street. In comparison with normal city block that is accessible from all sides, an isolated block would share a common side with one or more of its neighboring blocks. Thus, we can classify the urban fabric quality of any community block from maps that include spatial parcels and access networks in a way that can be automated. We demonstrate an example below of a morphing procedure between three different typologies of urban blocks that have the same topology (same number of parcels and no isolated parcels, common number of nodes), where we can mathematically transform the parcels from one block typology to the other. The third block typology is the output of the "reblocking" procedure of a slum block in Epworth, Zimbabwe, while the other two are from New York and Cape Town. This small example reflects the concept of urban topology evaluation, as the morphing process would have failed if

Thus, by evaluating the topology of the street network, we can assess more effectively the quality of the neighborhood in terms of public services, connectivity,

"Openreblock" visualizes access to essential services like water, energy, and sanitation at a neighborhood parcel level. This web-based platform requires user input, in order to operate and uses an algorithm to evaluate the topology of the blocks and the continuity of the street network, identify the parcels that do not have access to a public street, and then propose the least disruptive reorganization of a cluster of slum blocks, so that each parcel gets access to a street. It provides the missing connectivity that reduces travel distances and essentially transforms the parcels configuration to commonly known patterns of city building blocks that have access to streets on all sides. The resulting map reflects the changes in the physical

tion services that interconnect the neighborhoods.

the Epworth block had isolated parcels (**Figure 17**).

and social and economic justice in general.

**6.3 "Openreblock" platform**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89675*

*Sustainability in Urban Planning and Design*

in order to interconnect slum building blocks that lack access to a public street. This sets the basis for land formalization and property stability, so that *urban slum com-*

Funded through OpenIDEO, it is the product of major research collaboration by the Santa Fe Institute, Sam Houston State University, UC Berkeley, and Shack/ Slum Dwellers International, a global network of community-based organizations representing the urban poor. Shack/Slum Dwellers International is a network of community-based groups from 33 countries representing and communicating the needs of the urban poor, engaging international agencies, and operating on the global stage in order to support and advance local struggles for the last 20 years.

"Openreblock" combines the knowledge of slum communities' inhabitants with

In order to be able to formalize a strategy on how to evaluate and classify urban

fabric typologies, we need to identify some key characteristics that define the character of the urban space. These characteristics should correspond to physical characteristics and relationships between the elements of space, in order to become a quantifiable set of parameters. In our case, the morphology of space that we need to analyze is that of a slum urban block. Although slum communities are diverse in physical appearance, context parcel population, and opportunities, they share common characteristics of organic typology and aggregation of parcels that are a result of unplanned, spontaneous expansion. In most cases, this type of urban development across time results in isolated parcels that do not have access to the

data analytics worldwide to enable each citizen to become an agent of information with the objective to enrich local knowledge and empower their community to pursue faster and more sustainable development outcomes from the local

*munities become more resilient to future exploitation and natural disasters.*

*"Openreblock": website main page, interface, graphics (graphic design by Stamen design).*

**168**

governments.

**Figure 16.**

**6.2 Topology of street network**

street network at all and therefore to any services.

**Figure 17.** *Topology of a building block-morphing process between three building blocks that share the same topology (figure was created by the author).*

The lack of infrastructure appears to be common to most poor or informal neighborhoods, and some of the challenges that these communities are facing derive partially form this fact. Streets are not only used for transportation, they carry all the necessary infrastructures such as drainage, electrical and communication services that interconnect the neighborhoods.

Based on the above, the key quantifiable set of parameters is the topology of the parcels, which reveals parcels with "blind" sides to a public street. In comparison with normal city block that is accessible from all sides, an isolated block would share a common side with one or more of its neighboring blocks. Thus, we can classify the urban fabric quality of any community block from maps that include spatial parcels and access networks in a way that can be automated. We demonstrate an example below of a morphing procedure between three different typologies of urban blocks that have the same topology (same number of parcels and no isolated parcels, common number of nodes), where we can mathematically transform the parcels from one block typology to the other. The third block typology is the output of the "reblocking" procedure of a slum block in Epworth, Zimbabwe, while the other two are from New York and Cape Town. This small example reflects the concept of urban topology evaluation, as the morphing process would have failed if the Epworth block had isolated parcels (**Figure 17**).

Thus, by evaluating the topology of the street network, we can assess more effectively the quality of the neighborhood in terms of public services, connectivity, and social and economic justice in general.
