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How do you collaboratively and creatively work towards systems change? And how can you share, deepen and scale the knowledge that emerges from this? In this publication, designers and creative agencies from our network share their knowledge products: card sets, games and prototypes that emerged from design practice in transition
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On 9 May, the Wijkbot was once again at Maker Faire Delft, this time as a guest at Stadslab Rotterdam. In addition to a WijkbotKit, the platform was used for a first demo version of a Lab Cart — a way to bring makerspaces into the neighbourhood. A new Maker Faire
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Next to our newsletter, organizing knowledge sharing, and commissioning of research projects, we have developed over the last years two specific activities to help understand, and formulate insights and opinions on our future co-living with agentic physical AI in our neighborhoods and cities. Futuring and Civic Prototyping Two types of
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Let me share some updates from the last quarter at Cities of Things. Newsletters We started a fresh format for the Monthly newsletter, applying speculative design techniques to build a story on the near future living with agentic things in the city. The recipe is: * The weekly reflections of my
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The Wijkbot has been included in the Publiekwijs Handbook. The book is the result of experimental innovative research within the Incubator programme of the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Journalistiek (Dutch Journalism Fund). For Dutch media newsrooms — and local private media in particular — reconnecting with the lived experience of their audience is
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As part of the UX Studio programme at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, a mixed team of students worked on an app to support the brainstorming phase of Wijkbot workshops. Starting a new neighborhood robot from a blank canvas is not easy for everyone. To provide a first step,
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In this first post of 2025, I want to set out a theme for the year; "Cities of Things, Cities of Agents; living with agentic things as fellow citizens." This theme is a natural evolution from our focus on Things as Citizens, and it intertwines deeply with our
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Wrapped-up lists populate the email inbox and apps; this is not such a list, but let's have a look at the 2024 activities of Cities of Things. In the next post we will look forward to 2025 and the theme for the new year. We worked on the
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As part of the special edition of TH/NGS 2024 - Generative Things, an exhibition and design contest was commissioned to invite the design of "provotypes" of future generative things. The exhibition kicked off at the conference in Volkshotel Amsterdam on 13 December, and has an online version
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On 14 November, the Afrikaanderwijk Cooperative organised a programme in the neighbourhood for Woonstad employees. The day ended actively with a Wijkbot workshop. The workshop introduced employees to city robots, but was primarily an activity to connect staff with each other and close the day on an energetic note. In
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The Wijkbot was back at Dutch Design Week — this time as part of the Network of Applied Design Research gathering at Natlab on Tuesday morning, and throughout the rest of the week as part of the Stadslab Eindhoven exhibition. The NADR gathering focused on the ESCall project of the Expertise
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The learnings of developing and applying the WijkbotKit in the last years is captured in a chapter in the book of the Network of Applied Design Research that was published at Dutch Design Week 2024: Applied Design Research in Living Labs and Other Experimental Learning and Innovation Environments. The article