Transition requires collaborative work. Discovering and defining actions that support supermixed cities.

Abstract

This article starts from the hypothesis that design can contribute to a transition towards a more sustainable future for our cities if it supports work and living environments to 'collaborate' in making this future. The literature section discusses how work environments are increasingly disconnected from their surrounding living environments and the importance of bringing these worlds together again in a collaborative city-making process that takes form through – what we call - “supermix coaching”. In order to understand the existing relations between living and working, we explored how 9 Belgian companies developed over time and how important turning points changed their relations with their surrounding living environments. We discuss how companies, policy and people living and working in the city can make use of the insight in these turning points to give form to a supermix coaching process. This involves a more conscious collaborative design of actions on a microscale (architectural space, technology and human actors in the company and its immediate environment); that are then further developed on the mesoscale (the region and the city) and the macroscale (global context).