Conference Agenda

Urban curators, citizen-professionals with creative backgrounds, who mobilise their skills to orchestrate positive local change, require tools that help building community, engaging institutions and establishing legitimacy within complex transition dynamics. This paper examines Huis van de Toekomst (HvdT), a community space in a Rotterdam district undergoing a shift from natural gas to district heating, where using a participatory design approach, we co-developed a digital community visualization prototype. Using dramaturgical analysis, the study shows how the setting and composition of participatory events, and how different actors are addressed, influence how community and institutional dynamics unfold. The prototype functioned as a boundary object that enabled HvdT to reflect on its organizational model and legitimacy and exposed tensions between community-driven and institutional approaches. The paper argues that using a dramaturgical approach in design practice to create open-ended, iterative processes can foster institutional learning and adaptation, strengthen collective agency, and provide credibility.