Blending Pop-Up Urbanism and Participatory Technologies: Challenges and Opportunities for Inclusive City Making

This article investigates the use of participatory technologies for augmenting urban governance by giving citizens and local communities a voice in the city making process. We present a series of situated and temporary pop-up interventions deployed in public spaces that demonstrate the use of participatory technologies for engaging citizens in localised conversations. Through two field studies of digitally augmented pop-up interventions we discuss the value of various digital and analogue engagement channels and their effectiveness for allowing people to submit their views on various city making initiatives. We outline our design process and discuss the impacts of using multiple engagement channels to engage with a broader cross-section of society in the city making process. The article concludes on challenges and opportunities for digital placemaking strategies, and how such strategies can contribute to wider smart city initiatives.