Semantic Analysis of Public Spaces in Brussels, London and Turin living labs: A Taxonomy of the Interventions

The aim of this paper is to conceptually transfer the knowledge about the domain of urban public spaces in three case-projects, into a hierarchical and interrelated semantic structure of micro-design interventions and their mutual relationships, providing definitions of the interventions themselves. Drawing on the Incubators of Public Spaces JPI Urban Europe research project, the paper sets the ground for a digital design tool, to support co-creative urban design processes. The conceptual and operational instrument adopted for this purpose is the ontology, a method of knowledge representation and management coming from Artificial Intelligence. Ontologies, as branch of AI, are helpful to set the domain for a clear, simple and user-friendly representation of concepts and their relationships. Incubators has developed the Taxonomy of Interventions based on the experience in three ‘living labs’ in Brussels, London and Turin. Each living lab had the opportunity to unfold its own particular and context-based configuration that can best support the local self-organisation of places.