Final Master Project - City Visions

In my Final Master Project, I worked for RISE on reinterpreting the Social Progress Index (SPI) in a way that engages citizens and policymakers and sparks excitement about the prospects of the future. Through a highly iterative process, I developed a participation platform that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help citizens write speculative fiction about their city, and facilitate a critical discussion on the role of AI in thinking about the future.

In this project, I focused on the design process, such as structuring and documenting my design process and using the process to inform my design decisions. Furthermore, I got a much better understanding of generative AI, the domain of design and governance, and complex and open-ended participation practices.

I see particular value in the way the prototype could bridge several processes within the City of Umeå administration. An often discussed problem within the context of the SPIS project was the link between citizen dialogue processes, with abstracted questionnaires and bi-yearly processes and the continues development of the urban planning strategy. The concept developed and prototyped by Jorrit shows a potential way forward to align both processes as continuous, free and adaptive.

— Jeroen Peeters (RISE)