Abstract
The Brazilian Geodesign platform was proposed based on extensive experience in Geodesign workshops, aiming to adapt the method to the country’s cultural specificities, with a commitment to support the construction of opinions in planning, in the process of transformative-learning planning. To test the scalability of the method, a study was developed in 13 metropolitan regions of the country, with the involvement of universities, distributed from north to south, in different biomes and urbanization conditions. The same method was proposed for everyone, starting from the same collection of 40 thematic maps to support discussions about alternative futures in land use. Participants used the GISColab platform and went through the same stages of analysis, proposition, and negotiation of ideas. As a result, there was an improvement in the projects developed between the first and the last day of work, with the expansion of compliance with the goals of sustainable development (SDG) and areas for carbon credit. It was possible to observe that, although they used the same framework proposed, each group adapted the method to their local reality, proving the scalability of the process and the necessary flexibility for employment in different realities, ensuring a defensible and reproducible criterion. As recommendations, it would be interesting to apply the same study of multiple simultaneous cases in another country, to analyze the scalability and flexibility to local changes, as it happened in the experiment. This would be entirely possible, as the platform is based on worldwide OGC standards (Open Geospatial Consortium) and would have full interoperability in use.
Highlights
Co-Creation Planning in BrazilSpatial planning is still a major challenge in Brazil, as well as to the rest of the world
Brazil owes a significant growth in its thought processes regarding space to the period in which modernist thinking was prevalent, where space was understood as a blank canvas for architects to draw and, thanks to the creative genius of urban design, be able to solve complex social, environmental, and economic issues
Time has shown that cities that were delimitated and planned as complete cosmoses required less than 50 years to be transformed into complex and dynamic areas (Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Palmas, and others)
Summary
Spatial planning is still a major challenge in Brazil, as well as to the rest of the world. When analyzing Geodesign and the framework proposed by Steinitz [5], it is possible to observe the central role a mediator can have, as they will be the ones who define: which themes will be discussed (conceived as systems); the spatial analysis models that will be offered to participants as the basis for further work (Evaluation Models); the areas allowed to receive proposals; the calculation involving the impact of the decisions taken by participants (and classified as positive or negative according to the organizing group, based on a matrix that checks whether the ideas were placed on the locations that are appropriate to receive them). In which citizens need to learn to act, there is no room for conducting participants through models that already tell them where to do what and, working as a means toward a model of decision-making In this current stage of planning, the goal must be to transform citizens who will effectively have their opinions registered and choose, on their own, which variables will define how they choose the “right” area. Comparing realities is hardly possible and often results in no learning experience, but comparing how processes are appropriated is interesting and may lead to a transformative learning experience
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