Failed Co-Creation: The Case of the BCNStreet-Lab Project
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19053/01211129.v31.n62.2022.15267Keywords:
Co-creation, Engineering, overtechnification, sociomaterial variability, fluid technologiesAbstract
We present the results of the BCNStreet-lab project, a co-creation process of a prototype that "died before it even existed" and that has led us to reflect on the creative power that participatory design can have among experts. Examining the high variability that the design acquired with the co-creation sessions, we realized how an open co-creation process can generate overflows in the design. It makes innovation possible but can also lead to failure, as is this case, because of how risky participatory design of “fluid technologies” and how ineffective reproducing the Quadruple helix innovation model in small projects can be. We tried to account for the fruitful relationship between co-creation and the design of electronic technologies, which happens in the “lobby” of the technical design of the prototype. It generates negotiations and interactions that lead to progress in the democratization of design practices in electronic engineering, computing, and telecommunications. At this point, co-creation is conceived as a space in which institutional practices, social needs, technological imaginaries, economic interests, techno-scientific interests, etc., are brought together, translated and inscribed into the design of technologies.
Downloads
References
A. Barry, “Technological Zones,” European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 239–253, 2006. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431006063343
M. Callon, “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay,” The Sociological Review, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 196–233, 1984. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00113.x
M. Callon, P. Lascoumes, Y. Barthe, Acting in An Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical Democracy (Inside Technology). Cambridge: MIT Press. Eds.2009
E. Carayannis, D. Campbell, "Triple Helix, Quadruple Helix and Quintuple Helix and How Do Knowledge, Innovation and the Environment Relate To Each Other?: A Proposed Framework for a Trans-disciplinary Analysis of Sustainable Development and Social Ecology," International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development, vol. 1, no. 1, e05, 2010. https://doi.org/10.4018/jsesd.2010010105
E. Carayannis, D. Campbell, “Mode 3'and'Quadruple Helix': toward a 21st century fractal innovation ecosystem,” International journal of technology management, vol. 46, no. 3-4, pp. 201-234, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJTM.2009.023374
I. Farías, “Devising hybrid forums: Technical democracy in a dangerous world,” City, vol. 20, no. 49, pp. 549-562, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2016.1193998
M. Haldrup, M. Hobye, N. Padfield, “The bizarre bazaar: FabLabs as hybrid hubs,” CoDesign, vol. 14 no. 4, pp. 329-344, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2017.1378684
K. Henderson, “Flexible Sketches and Inflexible Data Bases: Visual Communication, Conscription Devices, and Boundary Objects in Design Engineering,” Science, Technology, & Human Values, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 448–473, 1991. https://doi.org/10.1177/016224399101600402
T. Ingold, Bringing things back to life: Creative entanglements in a world of materials, Master Thesis, University of Manchester, 2010. http://eprints.ncrm.ac.uk/1306/
A. Jiménez, “The Right to Infrastructure: A Prototype for Open-Source Urbanism,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol. 32 no. 2, pp. 342–362, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1068/d13077p
H. Kärvi, A. Kähkönen, H. Torvinen, “When value co-creation fails: Reasons that lead to value co-destruction,” Scandinavian Journal of Management, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 63-77, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2018.01.002
M. Laet, M. Annemarie “The Zimbabwe Bush Pump: Mechanics of a Fluid Technology,” Social Studies of Science, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 225–263, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1177/030631200030002002
K. Laursen, A. Salter, “Searching high and low: what types of firms use universities as a source of innovation?," Research policy, vol. 33, no. 8, pp. 1201-1215, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2004.07.004
B. Latour, C. Porter, Aramis, or, The love of technology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1996.
B. Latour, Pandora's hope: essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999
J. Law, M. Mol. “An introduction,” in Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practice, Law and Mol.Durham: Duke University Press, 2002
T. Lodato, C. DiSalvo, “Institutional constraints: the forms and limits of participatory design in the public realm,” in Proceedings of the 15th Participatory Design Conference, 2018, pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3210586.3210595
E. Manzini, F. Rizo, “Small projects/large changes: Participatory design as an open participated process,” CoDesign, vol. 7, no. 3-4, pp. 199-215, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2011.630472
N. Marres, “Participation as if Things Mattered,” in Material participation: Technology, the environment and everyday publics. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015
K. Mitzner, Complete PCB design using OrCAD Capture and PCB. London: Newnes, 2009.
E. Ostrom, “Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action,” Natural Resources Journal, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 416-417, 1992.
A. Phillips, “List,” in Inventive Methods, London: Routledge, 2012.
S. Pfotenhauer, S. Jasanoff, “Panacea or diagnosis? Imaginaries of innovation and the ‘MIT model’in three political cultures,” Social Studies of Science, vol. 47, no. 6, pp. 783-810, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312717706110
S. Star, "Infrastructure and ethnographic practice: Working on the fringes," Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, vol. 14, no. 2, e06, 2002
J. Sydow, G. Müller-Seitz, “Open innovation at the interorganizational network level–Stretching practices to face technological discontinuities in the semiconductor industry,” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, vol. 155, e036, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.07.036
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Juan-Carlos Vidal-Rojas, Marcos Cereceda-Otárola, Konstantinos Kourkoutas, Jordi Roig-de-Zárate, Marc Vallrribera-Ros
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All articles included in the Revista Facultad de Ingeniería are published under the Creative Commons (BY) license.
Authors must complete, sign, and submit the Review and Publication Authorization Form of the manuscript provided by the Journal; this form should contain all the originality and copyright information of the manuscript.
The authors who publish in this Journal accept the following conditions:
a. The authors retain the copyright and transfer the right of the first publication to the journal, with the work registered under the Creative Commons attribution license, which allows third parties to use what is published as long as they mention the authorship of the work and the first publication in this Journal.
b. Authors can make other independent and additional contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the article published in this journal (eg, include it in an institutional repository or publish it in a book) provided they clearly indicate that the work It was first published in this Journal.
c. Authors are allowed and recommended to publish their work on the Internet (for example on institutional or personal pages) before and during the process.
review and publication, as it can lead to productive exchanges and a greater and faster dissemination of published work.
d. The Journal authorizes the total or partial reproduction of the content of the publication, as long as the source is cited, that is, the name of the Journal, name of the author (s), year, volume, publication number and pages of the article.
e. The ideas and statements issued by the authors are their responsibility and in no case bind the Journal.
