Urban Interventions and Participation Tools in Urban Design Processes: A Systematic Review and Thematic Analysis (1995 – 2021)

Abstract

All cities need to change and transform to become more livable. Urban interventions are effective for observing the changes and participation tools are in use for collecting data from urban contexts. Nevertheless, the two research fields remain thematically disintegrated within themselves and between each other in the literature that spread across disciplines. This article aims to contribute to and advance the academic conceptualization of urban interventions and participation tools within urban design processes. In order to establish a solid basis and provide conceptual clarity, the research domains of two study fields are explored from 1995 through 2021. We conducted a thematic analysis covering 176 peer-reviewed publications in English. The studies on urban interventions are synthesized and categorized into five main thematic areas: urbanism, community, sustainability, building types, and participation; while the studies on participation tools are investigated within four thematic areas: participation, digital tools, representations, and responsive cities. We conclude that the two research fields are highly interrelated and need to be studied together. This systematic review would trigger new perspectives and directions in the future, and provide a well-conceptualized base that combines urban interventions and digital participatory designs for both theory-based and practical studies.

Full text

Urban Interventions and Participation Tools in Urban Design Processes:
A Systematic Review and Thematic Analysis (1995 – 2021)
Cem Ataman
1
, PhD Student
Singapore University of Technology and Design
8 Somapah Rd, Singapore 487372
E-mail: cem_ataman@mymail.sutd.edu.sg
Dr. Bige Tuncer, Assoc. Prof.
Singapore University of Technology and Design
8 Somapah Rd, Singapore 487372
E-mail: bige_tuncer@sutd.edu.sg
Abstract: All cities need to change and transform to become more livable.
Urban interventions are effective for observing the changes and participation
tools are in use for collecting data from urban contexts. Nevertheless, the two
research fields remain thematically disintegrated within themselves and
between each other in the literature that spread across disciplines. This article
aims to contribute to and advance the academic conceptualization of urban
interventions and participation tools within urban design processes. In order
to establish a solid basis and provide conceptual clarity, the research domains
of two study fields are explored from 1995 through 2021. We conducted a
thematic analysis covering 176 peer-reviewed publications in English. The
studies on urban interventions are synthesized and categorized into five main
thematic areas: urbanism, community, sustainability, building types, and
participation; while the studies on participation tools are investigated within
four thematic areas: participation, digital tools, representations, and
responsive cities. We conclude that the two research fields are highly
interrelated and need to be studied together. This systematic review would
trigger new perspectives and directions in the future, and provide a well-
conceptualized base that combines urban interventions and digital
participatory designs for both theory-based and practical studies.
1
Corresponding author.

2
Keywords: Urban intervention; participation tool; urban design process;
participatory design; informed decision-making.
1 Introduction
All cities perpetually change and transform in order to offer a more livable public realm for
their inhabitants. Urban transformation processes involve several decisions incorporating
temporal and spatial actions in urban and architectural scales. Urban design practices, thus, are
built upon interdisciplinary literature, which spans from design-and-technology-related fields
to urban social science including geography, sociology, history, and political science. In the
production of urban space, theory and practice are embedded into the inseparably linked urban
reality and everyday life. Indeed, all activities are intertwined in complex urban and everyday
spaces, which reproduce the networks and social relations and realize the actual urban space,
its critique, and its knowledge (Lefebvre, 1991, 1996). Due to the increase in urbanization rates
and urban population, urban transformation processes have become more complex and
challenging in the last decades. Digitalization and new technologies, on the other hand, have
uncovered new ways to observe urban settings and provided more inclusive design processes
by reaching more citizens when compared to face-to-face interactions or focus group meetings
by offering online possibilities in urban transformation processes. Consequently, the
accustomed representations, such as masterplans or rendered visualizations, have become
insufficient to capture the daily life and human-centric design actions. Hence, designers and
researchers need to benefit from new opportunities in order to capture the emergence,
development, and continual transformation of cities, by collecting information and using it in
iterative urban design processes.
Urban design processes combine designing and forming physical and cultural features of cities,
towns, or villages according to the needs of their residents and visitors. They consist of iterative
design actions to fulfill the long-term expectations of both authorities and users and to achieve
the purposive production of urban meaning in certain urban forms (Gunder, 2011). In the new
digital age that enables informed urban designs, urban interventions provide new possibilities
and realities in order to collect evidence and develop effective strategies for urban
transformations. Urban interventionism combines activist designs, art practices, focused
works, political and economic strategies, and many other related topics that typically respond
to communities’ expectations and necessities in an urban context. The number of research
studies seeking more flexible and effective modes of urban intervention are in increase because

3
of the crisis in urban planning that we observe. The experience of cities is transformed by a
process of socio-spatial organization, which replaced top-down, centralized state planning
(Brenner et al., 2009). Complex urban and everyday spaces reproduce intertwined networks
and social relations, which aim to realize actual urban spaces, their critique, and their
knowledge (Lefebvre, 1991, 1996). As a part of the underlying norms of the society, urban
interventions indicate local contextual knowledge about urban settings (Ikeda, 2004).
Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the local character of these norms as urban interventions
emerge and are formed as the results of this local knowledge. Interventions are capable of
changing existing perspectives towards public spaces and formulating alternative uses by the
potentials of spatial politics and communicative social actions (Brejzek, 2010). The urban
theory literature already highlights the distinction between place-centered interventions that
target certain cities or parts of cities and people-centered interventions that focus on particular
socio-economic concerns regardless of location (Freedman, 2015; Glickman, 1981; Scott &
Storper, 2014). This indicates the fact that the creation of an urban environment through urban
interventions might result in temporary or permanent interventions, in both physical and social
environments, via architectural or urban designs, covering art, economy, policy, and
sustainability-related issues.
In order to understand the impacts of urban designs and evaluate their existence in urban
contexts, urban interventions have benefitted from involving design experiments that provide
information and knowledge to architects, urban designers, and policymakers to make informed
design decisions. Yet, this idea brings the question of how to collect data from urban
interventions, which directs us to re-examine participatory design processes. In the existing
literature, discussions on the concept of participation and its meaning still continue. Arnstein,
who coined the concept in the urban context, defines participation as ‘the redistribution of
power that enables the have-not citizens, presently excluded from the political and economic
processes, to be deliberately included in the future’ (1969, p. 216). Yet, participation must not
be limited to getting feedback on already made decisions. Instead, the involvement of the
community in policy-making and decision making needs to be ensured in participation (Keck,
2012). Active participation, therefore, directly affects decision-making as it is the process of
collectively making decisions which ‘affect one’s life and the life of the community in which
one lives’ (Hart, 1992, p. 5). Participation provides transparency and inclusive project
developments with a real commitment and involvement of all the stakeholders (Lostarnau et
al., 2011; Martin et al., 2019). Many collaborative and participatory design theories exist in

4
this idea (Forester, 1982; Healey, 1998; Innes & Booher, 2010), which guide the
implementation or selection of participatory tools that seek inclusivity and communication
effectiveness. Promises of digital participation tools and data collection are already underlined
in literature by several researchers with a focus on participation techniques (Falco & Kleinhans,
2018; Hasler et al., 2017; Tekler et al., 2020; Tomarchio et al., 2019) and their effects on cities
(Bouzguenda et al., 2019; Horgan & Dimitrijević, 2019; Kuang & Lin, 2021; Melica et al.,
2018). Yet, data collection from urban interventions and its effects on urban designs remain an
implicit topic. As urban interventions are implemented as unique and context-based actions in
changing urban environments (Jackson et al., 2019; Murrani, 2016), participation tools should
be studied in a well-structured way in order to combine all levels of participation, including
gathering information for producing collective knowledge and formulating that knowledge for
collective social learning.
The transformation of cities combines a series of interventions and iterative design actions. It
is necessary to retrieve information from existing urban interventions to provide collective
knowledge and implement that knowledge in other interventions to ensure effective urban
transformations. In other words, urban interventions formulate collective urban knowledge
while participation tools enable the collection of this knowledge for iterative use in urban
contexts. With this perspective, this paper is motivated by the increasing need to combine urban
design practices and data-driven design approaches with the support of digital tools and
computational methods. This paper aims to explore, understand, and conceptualize informed
urban design processes in different research domains including design-based, technology-
based, and social science studies (Figure 1). In this paper, we document a domain of urban
interventions and participation tools from relevant research through a literature review and
categorize these into major thematic areas and sub-themes. A discussion is carried out
according to the results of the categorization in order to demonstrate informed urban design
practices along with the potentials of digital participation tools throughout urban design
processes. At the end of this review, we hope to link two separate research fields, urban
interventionism and citizen participation, by addressing common directions in both theory and
practice.

5
Figure 1. Research domains that combine urban interventions and participation tools
2 Methodology
The main purpose of this paper is to present the interdisciplinary and integrated state-of-the-
art of urban design practices by means of urban interventions and participation tools. In order
to conceptualize and provide a comprehensive understanding, a systematic literature review
was conducted since it is deemed as the most efficient and high-quality method for classifying
and assessing wide-ranging literature (Mulrow, 1994). The fundamental idea of this method is
to present the review process transparently and minimize bias by suggesting scientific,
replicable, and detailed literature searches of already-conducted studies (Cook et al., 1997;
Thorpe et al., 2005; Tranfield et al., 2003). Accordingly, the thematic and disciplinary diversity
of the research field was expressed through thematic analysis and ontological categorization of
papers into themes and sub-themes (Jones et al., 2011).
The literature review is focused on academic research in books, peer-reviewed journals, and
conferences as they assure a higher degree of reliable and corroborated knowledge. In order to
refine the unmanageable amounts of information, the inconsequential, unreliable, and
redundant studies were separated from the noticeable and critical ones existing in literature.
The process of selecting studies in this systematic literature review involved a number of steps.
Initially, all potentially relevant studies in the literature were identified with a preliminary
review. The relevant sources were collected for a more detailed assessment including the title,
the abstract, and the full text of the sources. Finally, some studies were excluded from the
systematic review according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table I).
Social
Science
Urban
Intervention
Informed Urban
Design Practices
Participation
Tools
Design
Studies
Technology &
Computation
Citizens Data
Collection Data
Analysis Informed
Urban Design
Architecture
Urban Design
Urban Planning
Sociology
Economics
Geography
History
Political Science
Digitalization
Data collection
Data Translation
Participation
social inclusion
participants
citizenship
art-based interventions
socio-spatial interventions
interactive & cultural interventions
building types
transportation
urban sustainability
performative buildings
gamification
remote participation
the use of tools
tool development
Participation Tool
Responsive Cities
PARTICIPATION
URBAN INTERVENTIONISM
Representation Decision Making
urban policies
governance
economy
urban heritage

6
The searches for the studies in literature were based on keywords through online literature
databases relevant for academic literature. The main databases selected are “Web of Science”
and “Scopus” since the interdisciplinary coverage of these databases embodies a significant
strength of various scientific fields in literature (Mongeon & Paul-Hus, 2016). A cross-check
process by using “Google Scholar” was pursued to ensure that all the relevant studies were
included. The search focuses on open-access sources in English covering publications from
1995 to 2021. Since this study includes two distinct yet interrelated terms to cope with, two
separate review processes were conducted but discussed together at the end.
At the end of each database search, further articles were obtained through the snowballing
search technique. The bibliographies of the articles chosen for the review process were scanned
through forward snowballing, which aims to find citations to papers from the references, and
the ones that matched the inclusion criteria were added to the review list. Many previously
obtained articles were retrieved in this phase and the number of reviewed articles did not
change significantly at the end. Appendix A presents the number of articles included in the
review from both the database search and the snowballing technique. Literature search ended
when it was not able to generate any additional articles and the terms did not return any new,
significant studies.
Table I. Criteria for inclusion and reasons for exclusion of papers during the systematic review.
Inclusion Criteria
Exclusion Reasons
Article Type
- Empirical
- Conceptual
- Literature review
- Paper accepted
- In print
- Online journal
- Conference papers
- Editorial texts which do not include
any conceptual discussion.
- Brief reports that do not present
academic information.
- Theses whose outputs do not include
any publications.
- Book review (actual books were
taken into account.)
Language
- Full text English articles.
- Abstract in English but full text in a
different language.
- Only the tittle in English but the rest
is in a different language.
Interdisciplinarity
- Articles from all disciplines
potentially relevant to the topic.
- Different meanings of certain search
terms in other disciplines (e.g.,
healthcare or political science).
Accessibility
- Articles and publications whose
abstracts and full texts accessible.
- Articles unavailable electronically or
by other means.

7
Coverage
- The interventions and participation
tools directly related to
architectural and urban designs and
scales.
- Design aspects clearly defined and
explained.
- Clear methodology and reference
list to validate the research.
- Vague topic coverage, terms used a
few times only in the abstract.
- Case study descriptions without any
contextual and conceptual
information.
- Technical developer reports which
do not include any design aspects.
Peer-review
- Articles and publications
underwent a peer-review process.
- No peer-review, no information on
publication criteria.
Publication Date
- All articles and publications in the
databases, from 1995 to 2021.
- Published online after review period
(May 2021 onwards)
The selection of papers in this review combines a number of steps. Firstly, we collected the
papers that are obtained from the initial searches in a folder and formulated a list of articles as
an Excel datasheet. This allowed us to systematically categorize the articles according to their
titles and abstracts. The first elimination was conducted in this step according to the criteria
presented in Table I. As the second step, we read and analyzed all the papers comprehensively
according to their context, problem statements, and discussions. This step also resulted in the
elimination of a small number of papers before the snowballing process. Lastly, we conducted
the snowballing technique to obtain more articles from the references of the selected papers.
This step did not require any elimination process as the authors already selected the articles
according to the purpose of this research to facilitate subsequent analysis and coding.
Accordingly, the first keyword for the review is “urban intervention”. A total number of 88
results have been found from this search, but only 76 of them are used in this review after the
selection process as presented in Table I. As “urban intervention” is directly related to “place-
making” by definition in literature, the second cycle of search is conducted to reach articles
about place-making. In order to determine the field and limit the results, the term “urban” is
used with “place-making” in this phase. A total number of 18 results are obtained, in which the
8 of them are already covered during the first phase. The third and last cycle is the snowballing
technique, which resulted in 13 new articles in addition to the previous steps. Overall, a final
database of 99 studies (5 conference papers, 87 journal articles, 6 book chapters, and 1 report),
published between 1995 and 2021, is obtained at the end of the search and screening process
for “urban intervention”. The results include articles from 7 disciplinary fields (Appendix C):
urban studies, regional & urban planning, environmental science, art, architecture, geography,
and civil engineering.

8
The second keyword is “participation tools”. 85 results were obtained from the first search
cycle. After the selection process according to the criteria presented in Table I, 62 of the results
are included in this review. The second cycle for this term is pursued through the snowball
technique, which provided 15 new additional articles. As the term is relatively new, specific,
and sufficiently comprehensive, it is decided that no additional term is required for this part of
the review. In total, a final database of 77 studies (15 conference papers, 57 journal articles,
and 5 book chapters), published between 1996 and 2020, are reviewed at the end of the search
and screening process for “participation tools”. A variety of disciplinary fields can be seen in
the results for this term as well (Appendix C), as the most determinant ones are computer
science, sociology, regional & urban planning, political science, environmental science, and
economics.
The complete list of articles examined, and the initial thematic areas were constituted according
to the preliminary reviews including title and abstract. The theme construction in this review
is based on the principles of the thematic analysis process in qualitative research (Braun &
Clarke, 2006). In this manner, themes stand for the fundamental and most comprehensive
concepts that indicate a holistic perspective of the selected articles (Braun & Clarke, 2006;
Jones et al., 2011). Furthermore, themes present contextual information about the searched
terms and provide suggestions for the sub-themes for the second phase of the analysis. The
identification of the sub-themes was drawn upon the significant and core sections of each
article, including aims, research questions, hypotheses, and methodology. After the first
assignment of the sub-themes and articles, the authors discussed the sub-themes, and refined
and checked for the consistency among them while placing them into the thematic areas.
Consequently, sub-themes were named according to the analyzed literature itself while the
thematic areas were labeled by the authors in a comprehensive manner. Finally, a total number
of 5 thematic areas and 17 sub-themes for “urban intervention”, and 4 thematic areas and 15
sub-themes for “participation tool” were derived from the reviewed papers.
3 Findings
The following sections are structured in two phases for “urban intervention” and “participation
tools” according to the thematic areas revealed from the literature analysis. The analysis of
“urban intervention” includes five areas, namely: urbanism, community, sustainability,
building types, and participation. The second analysis belongs to the “participation tools”,
divided into four thematic areas, which are: participation, digital tools, representations, and
responsive cities. The thematic areas are investigated according to a number of sub-themes for

9
each, which basically underlines the important aspects and predominant research fields of its
thematic areas in the field. Appendix B lists all the papers investigated under each thematic
area.
The thematic areas and sub-themes do not specify any disciplinary field and they do not have
any categorical relationship among each other. Yet, as this review shows, a more structured
analysis on the overall meaning and description of the searched terms can close up, converge,
or diverge the thematic categories within the similar research fields. Appendix C indicates the
current vague relationship between the themes and the disciplines according to the search
results.
3.1 Urban Intervention
3.1.1 Urbanism
This thematic area covers studies concerned with interventions on urban scales and identifies
the main topics and methodologies related to urban planning practices. This thematic area
emerged in 2001 and contains 45 studies, which are investigated according to the five sub-
themes (Table II), namely: urban policies, economy, smart cities, transportation, and urban
heritage.
Table II. Domain analysis for the thematic area Urbanism.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
URBANISM
Urban Policies
• Policy-making
• Social, economic, and political
aspects
• Localism
• Integrated urban interventions
• Bottom-up approaches
• Urban identity
• Urban gentrification
2001
19
Economy
• Place-based activism
• Touristification
• Economic strategies
2005
5
Smart Cities
• Technology-based and participatory
urban design practices
• The computational and digital tools
• The use of big data
• The criteria for smart interventions
2012
10
Transportation
• The quality of pedestrian paths
• Experience of daily life
• Mobile intervention spaces
2013
6

10
Urban Heritage
• Revitalization of social and physical
environment
• Strategic and critical buildings in
heritage context
2017
5
Research on urban intervention in regard to urbanism primarily focus on urban policies and
policy-making. The necessity for collective and collaborative actions that contrasts with single
disciplinary and isolated perspectives of actors may cause this emergence after the 2000s.
These studies investigating spatial policies based on planning theory constitute an important
part of this sub-theme (Koster, 2020; Murrani, 2016; Platt & Medway, 2020; Savini et al.,
2015; Wallin et al., 2018). In the context of the city, new social and power constraints are
revealed as products of unique and context-based interventions in changing urban environment
emerge (Jackson et al., 2019; Murrani, 2016). Reciprocatively, the space of the city has started
to change by these new social and power relations between various social groups, institutions,
and the state (Alexandri, 2018; Asprogerakas, 2020; Carpenter et al., 2020). These studies point
out the idea of localism as well by which citizens internalize the spaces of the city through
interventions on architectural scales, while indicating the importance of politics in policy-
making (Savini, 2016; Wallin et al., 2018).
As a continuation of these studies, a number of papers underline the effects of political
circumstances on urban areas and urban policies (Messinger, 2004; Murrani, 2016; Risør,
2016; Talen, 2015). Most of the intervention projects seem to be affected by local politics and
emerging social theories on spatial and territorial urban planning in terms of implementation
and financial funds (Messinger, 2004). The substantial power of financial support and
affordability is prioritized over the functional characteristics of the urban interventions for
intervention, planning, building features, and management strategies for urban redevelopment
(Rodríguez et al., 2001; Talen, 2015). Consequently, the design of urban interventions is not
limited just to the transformation of the physical space but also related to social, political, and
economic features of the urban policies (Ángeles Huete Garcia et al., 2016). Within this
direction, collaborative relationships must be established with local governments and policy-
makers, who regulate the financing and assessment of intervention projects (Ángeles Huete
Garcia et al., 2016). Furthermore, a comprehensive understanding of urban policies is presented
as a part of another way of designing, called integrated urban interventions (Alexandri, 2018;
Ángeles Huete Garcia et al., 2016). It is also highlighted that urban interventions are never

11
apolitical as their dynamic and creative aspects cause an interruption in the normal order of the
city (Saltzman, 2019).
Citizens’ perception is another emphasized aspect in urban policy studies. Urban identity is
affected by the changes that result in the design of interventions (Wallin et al., 2018). Urban
interventions and practices are able to provide an alternative way for developing the city itself,
co-produced by policy-makers and citizens together to define and stabilize social dynamics
(Chau, 2012; Risør, 2016; Savini, 2016). In these debates, urban interventions are considered
as citizen-driven processes and distinguished as opposed to top-down, capital intensive, and
authorized urban changes (Messinger, 2004; Talen, 2015). A few studies adopt a particular
attitude against large-scale interventions and propose a new way of self-managed urban fabric
generation through specific projects and urban interventions (Naghibi et al., 2020; Savini,
2016; Talen, 2015). Yet, it is also indicated that a small intervention might still be a product of
order and control while a larger one might be considered as spontaneous and more responsive
(Talen, 2015). In this sub-theme, some researchers explicitly focus on gentrification from the
point of urban planning (Alexandri, 2018; González Martínez, 2016). In these studies,
interventions that aim to transform and gentrify urban districts are presented as a legitimized
way of producing easily marketable general public spaces (González Martínez, 2016).
The relationship between urbanism and economy is another sub-theme investigated by some
researchers. Among them, some studies are related to touristification and the ways in which it
affects the city’s urban fabric and citizens’ daily life (Bruttomesso, 2018; Habibah et al., 2013;
Richards, 2017). The production of space and interventions are the results of economic
strategies and tactics according to these studies (Bruttomesso, 2018). The role of tourism is not
just to increase economic benefits, but also to organize social life and reclaim urban public
spaces. To this end, the understanding of place-making and place marketing is connected to
economic, cultural, and social exchange (Boudjabi et al., 2018; Richards, 2017). As a matter
of fact, the economic growth of cities has become an outcome of the quality of the urban
environment, in which urban interventions are considered as the primal strategy in globalizing
cities (Sklair, 2005).
Many researchers conduct studies on urban interventions in regard to smart city development.
The use of computational tools, various methods and databases, and the use of this information
for urban planning are the main topics covered in these studies (Gomes et al., 2012;
Panagiotopoulou et al., 2018; Salim, 2012). Urban interventions are considered as
customizable urban planning workflows, and therefore, identification of the required data

12
becomes important before planning, such as activities, functions, building types, site
development character, and ownership constraints. Accordingly, researchers focus on the use
of big data, data-driven computational processes, data quality, data visualization for urban
planning, and the advantages of data-driven approaches in the generation of the intervention
(Panagiotopoulou et al., 2018; Salim, 2012). This sub-theme shows that the use of mixed
methods, quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis, and the importance of big
data in informed decision making for urban interventions are needed for the planning of smarts
cities (Kestens et al., 2019; Salim, 2012; Shelton, 2017). Different tools and methods provide
a larger context to demonstrate and expand the content of the necessary interventions in order
to effectively transform the city in different scales (Silva et al., 2018). New digital abilities
provide complex representations of the city and allow people to evaluate and pursue better
decision-making processes (Sanchez-Sepulveda et al., 2019). Moreover, the studies indicate a
human-centric point of view, which highlights social and personal characteristics, i.e.,
occupation, gender, religion, race, ethnicity, culture, language, and education characteristics,
as well as environment, economy and governance, and energy efficiency (Aelenei et al., 2016;
Buttazzoni et al., 2020). Interdisciplinary approaches come forward once again in smart city
studies, which are the results of the new paradigm of smart planning. Some researchers also
discuss the necessity of conducting urban interventions in different scales and levels, such as
national, regional, provincial and municipal authorities, by architects and urban planners, firms
and initiatives, citizens and communities (Moraci et al., 2018).
There are a few studies focused on transportation systems as urban interventions. In these
studies, the aspects of urban, architectural, and economic planning are emphasized over
transportation projects (de Souza & Mulaski, 2018; Jirón et al., 2016). As transportation
systems are well-digested by cities in general, they provide a new understanding towards the
city and its transformation, environmental conditions, and well-being by investigating how
residents adapt, learn, and create new perspectives on daily-life (Braubach et al., 2015; Jirón
et al., 2016; Tierney, 2013). The pedestrianization processes and pedestrian movements also
draw attention to how the city has experienced changes in terms of the economic recovery, the
historical experience of the markets, security planning, the routine use of space, and people’s
behaviors (Campisi et al., 2018; Nikolopoulou et al., 2016). Urban interventions take an
important position with regard to providing widely accessible information for the citizens in
transportation projects.

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The last sub-theme within this thematic area is investigated through studies related to heritage
areas and urban interventions. These studies mostly present outcomes of field studies
concerning the importance of heritage areas in their urban contexts. Territorial and heritage
management, the system of public spaces, the economic system of districts, the system of
strategic and critical buildings, the system of accessibility, and place and memory are
considered and urban interventions are perceived as important elements in the urban fabric in
the heritage context (Agryzkov et al., 2017; D’Amico & Currà, 2018; De Leão Dornelles et al.,
2020; Kermani, 2020; Padilla, 2017).
3.1.2 Community
As presented in Table III, the literature on urban interventions in relation to the communities
can be distinguished in 3 sub-themes as interactive and cultural interventions, art-based
interventions, and socio-spatial interventions. This thematic area emerged in 1995 and contains
25 studies, which primarily investigate the social backgrounds of interventions in their cultural
and social context.
Table III. Domain analysis for the thematic area Community.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
COMMUNITY
Interactive &
Cultural int.
• Culture-related initiatives as tools
of urban revitalization
• People-place interaction
1995
5
Art-based int.
• Art and aesthetic-related
interventions
• Social networks & activism
• Urban memory
• Place-making mechanisms
2010
13
Socio-spatial
int.
• Public spaces facilitating
transformation
• Social risk management
• Social inclusion/exclusion
2014
7
The oldest study in this literature review is a cultural intervention study. The study perceives
urban interventions as cultural strategies and considers them as equally important as urban
polies for the determination of the potential growth and attractions of cities (Griffiths, 1995).
Accordingly, society and space are in a constant relationship and individuals influence the
society and engage in place-making for the society (Kim & Shin, 2018) This idea refers to the
interaction among people and the quality of life through urban interventions as they affect the

14
culture of the city (Benachio et al., 2018). Livability and the use of public space are
exchangeable and embedded into temporality of urban interventions in daily life by means of
activity patterns and the relationships between global and local integration of activities (Khalid
et al., 2019). Culture and interaction are presented as a significant component of city life and
an indicator of the quality of it, which create a local knowledge and define urban dynamics
involving norms, trust, and physical structures in regard to market mechanisms and culture
(Ikeda, 2004).
The second and most determinant sub-theme reveals itself as art-based interventions. Urban
interventions contribute to the city as artistic, cultural, and political practices (Xiao & Lu,
2021). Art-based interventions correspond to all the installations, graffiti writing and street art,
street performance and flash mobbing, skateboarding, yarn bombing, guerrilla gardening, and
many other activities conducted by urban activist and artistic groups (Brejzek, 2010; Klanten
& Huebner, 2010; Millie, 2017, 2019). In this manner, art-based interventions reveal the
routine of everyday urban existence and challenge, demonstrate temporary, adaptable, and
spontaneous urban use, and regulate the aesthetic order of the city (Millie, 2017, 2019).
Another important aspect of art-based interventions is their place-making power. Art-based
interventions primarily aim at activating and expanding urban spaces through art and cultural
activities and trigger social interaction, community features, and cultural changes (Wang, 2018;
Whybrow, 2011). These interventions usually change public space by introducing new public
and private spaces and taking them to the public domain, which essentially contribute to urban
revitalization and socio-cultural transformation by stressing spatial politics and communicative
social characteristics (Brejzek, 2010; Costa & Lopes, 2016; Xavier et al., 2019). Accordingly,
art-based interventions are perceived as a response to political circumstances and its effects on
urban memory by elaborating new social settings and scenes (Aldana, 2013; Liinamaa, 2016).
These interventions mediate between different modes of involvement and exchange within a
socio-cultural urban context.
As art itself is a way of place-making in an urban context, some studies investigate place and
place-making concepts that are embedded into art, such as photo-essays or literature with the
complex characteristics of production, accumulation, and representation of place that allows
people to understand the surrounding context (Coles, 2014; Potter & Seale, 2019). Yet, these
studies discuss art-based interventions from a more conceptualized perspective compared to
the rest of the researchers within this sub-theme.

15
A determinant sub-theme within this thematic area is socio-spatial interventions that present
the complex relationship between social context and place-making. The occupation of public
space by citizens and their perspectives (Kwok, 2019; Rossini, 2019), their communicative
concerns (Maciel, 2020), and integrated urban approaches (Ruiz-Varona & León-Casero,
2017) are some significant aspects of these studies. The emphasized aspect of socio-spatial
interventions is how citizens are able to transform public spaces as much as the designs of
interventions change the cities. Socio-spatial interventions lead to a kind of solidarity
depending on ideas and responsive actions based on social, geographic, aesthetic, stylistic, or
communicative concerns (Eckenwiler, 2018; Gharib & Salama, 2014; Maciel, 2020), as well
as education, economic development, social inclusion, and environmental protection (Ruiz-
Varona & León-Casero, 2017). Accordingly, social fabric of the urban context is a part of
socio-spatial interventions in terms of the integration of multiple place-makings. Therefore, it
becomes necessary to evaluate social benefits in urban context for temporary, adaptable, and
spontaneous urban use and form (Abd El Gawad et al., 2019). In urban transformation projects,
definitions and measurement criteria come into prominence in order to evaluate the
effectiveness of interventions, their consistency, and applicability.
3.1.3 Sustainability
This thematic area explores sustainability in different scales and how urban interventions are
used for sustainability-related concerns in urban design practices. Although it has a very long-
established research ground, sustainability thematic area in urban intervention research
emerged in 2005, which could be the result of a changing understanding of design disciplines
and the merging of different scales in urban design practices. Within this thematic area, 15
studies are explored according to 2 sub-themes, namely urban sustainability and performative
buildings (Table IV).
Table IV. Domain analysis for the thematic area Sustainability.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
SUSTAINABILITY
Urban
Sustainability
• Heat island effect and urban
overheating resulted from
urbanization
• The level of air pollution
• Building construction materials
• Air quality in urban districts
2005
13

16
Performative
Buildings
• Performance assessment and
performative design strategies in
architectural scales
2016
2
Interventions conducted in architecture scales to obtain performative buildings are studied by
some researchers. These studies cover the topic in different terms such as sustainable buildings,
green architecture, and performance-based and performative buildings. The implementation of
these interventions aims to obtain self-sufficient and self-supply buildings within changing
climate conditions (Markus & Savini, 2016; Nadal et al., 2019). The necessity of conducting
multi-disciplinary research is one of the key issues suggested by the related studies.
Urban sustainability is a commonly addressed topic in the selected studies. Scientific and
sustainable approaches are needed in urban interventions, and therefore, most studies have a
positivist approach that uses quantitative and experimental data as methodology. In urban
scales, the heat island effect is investigated to find possible ways for considerable overheating
reduction by urban interventions (Abaas, 2020; Kaloustian et al., 2018; Kotharkar et al., 2019;
Macintyre & Heaviside, 2019). Climate change and high rates of urbanization seem to increase
the quantity of these studies that aim to produce information about architecture and urban scale
interventions to reduce risks.
In this thematic area, urban sustainability through interventions highlighted urban morphology,
sustainable urban facades, climate adaptation, and human comfort (Curreli et al., 2016; De La
Colina, 2016; Di Giulio et al., 2018; Limona et al., 2019). These studies aim at creating systems
of protected green areas and open spaces as a part of the city's green procurement policies. The
implementation and improvement of green plans for protection, conservation, and restoration
of environmental services, green urban spaces, green infrastructures (e.g. urban parks), and
other types of interventions are also considered to provide some form of adaptation to climate
risks (Di Giulio et al., 2018).
In order to deal with sustainability issues in a more structured manner, some researchers aim
to form an index of sustainability of urban interventions in order to pursue comparative
analyses of sustainability performance (Maltese et al., 2016). Current urban development and
transformation processes are also framed to assess sustainability and resilience benefits as
important factors in decision-making (Amado, 2005; Grafakos et al., 2016).
Some studies also emphasize other aspects of sustainable designs such as identification of
daylight levels for urban interventions (Al-Maiyah & Elkadi, 2007) or the air quality of cities

17
and the ways of improving it through urban interventions (Vidal et al., 2019). possible future
directions are suggested regarding the role of urban interventions in urban sustainability.
3.1.4 Building Types
Studies within this thematic area related to specific building types and the ways in which they
are perceived as urban interventions. These studies have started to emerge in 1999 and cover 7
building types (sub-themes in this thematic area). There are 10 studies in total. The building
types investigated in these studies are museums, housing, religious places, theatres, food
markets, playgrounds, and schools, as presented in Table V.
Table V. Domain analysis for the thematic area Building Types.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
BUILDING
TYPES
Museums
• Museums as social spaces in cities
• Increased social interaction
1999
1
Housing
• Housing strategies
• Concerns in housing typology and
social housing
2007
3
Religious Places
• Religion as a mechanism of
exclusion and a means of place
making
2014
2
Theaters
• Theatre as new urban gathering
spaces
2015
1
Food Markets
• The ways in which place-making
projects impact on food markets
2017
1
Playgrounds
• Playgrounds as meeting points
• Youngsters as active partners in
transformation of public space
2018
1
Schools
• Teaching and social activities in
urban environment
2020
1
The first study in this thematic area explores urban interventions over museums and considers
them as public and social spaces, which are the social counterparts of architecture (Bradburne,
1999). Another public space intervention is presented as theater projects that search different
social meanings of architecture over a proposed urban intervention model (Hermansen Cordua
& Sandness, 2015). In this thematic area, religion serves as a means of place-making as well,
which covers policies and intervention strategies as an inclusion/exclusion mechanism (Bielo,
2019; Landau, 2014). Food market projects are also investigated as public space interventions

18
to reveal how urban policies affect food access in relation to place-making (Blake, 2017).
Buildings designed for the need of teaching are also considered as urban interventions to
provide available spaces for teaching and social activities (Guarini et al., 2020). The last study
regarding public place interventions is about playgrounds as an alternative counterpart of urban
design that promote place-making in urban practices (Bugarıc, 2018). In these public and social
space interventions, open spaces are designed with the support of vegetation and water
elements, which determine the orientation of buildings, the width of streets, materials, and the
distance between buildings (Limona et al., 2019). These elements created buffer zones from
traffic and circulation routes while providing public and private gardens that establish a direct
relationship with surrounding buildings, especially in cases where public spaces are located
around housing units (Larrodé et al., 2019).
A few studies, on the other hand, do not only cover the public areas but also focus on housing
projects and emphasize the opportunities they provide to urban design practices while
considering them as continuing urban reintegration processes (Larrodé et al., 2019; Melgaard
et al., 2007; Meth et al., 2019). A variety of theories are explored in these studies that approach
the city with its morphology, housing typology, density, gender issues, and attention given to
open space. Nevertheless, it is possible to note that it is sometimes not clear to distinguish the
effects of these specific interventions in urban level as they are mostly case studies in
architectural scales.
3.1.5 Participation
The last thematic area in urban intervention literature is participation, which also constitutes
the second part of this literature analysis. It basically concerns the use of participation for urban
interventions and also considers participation as a way of human intervention in urban context.
It firstly emerged in 2010 and it is examined through one sub-theme as participation (Table VI)
since it will be investigated deeply in the upcoming sections.
Table VI. Domain analysis for the thematic area Participation.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
PARTICIPATION
Participatory
Urban Practices
• The use of participation and
participation tools
2010
4
The relationship between participation and urban policies is the main focus of some studies.
These studies show that participation enables larger-scale interventions as it attracts

19
stakeholders and increases the number of citizens involved directly in the process supported by
and incorporated with the public perspectives (Cilliers & Timmermans, 2014; Lara, 2010).
Some studies, on the other hand, discuss urban interventions from an event-based approach
and consider participation in events (Citroni, 2019). Social media platforms and online survey
tools are also discussed in urban interventions literature as collaborative design and
participation tools, which are useful in knowledge generation and its analysis in different
mediums (Aldama & Cabitza, 2015). Yet, this sub-theme shows that there are limited number
of studies investigating the relationship between urban interventions and participation
processes, and they are not holistically explored in the literature so far.
3.2 Participation Tools
3.2.1 Participation
This thematic area emerged in 1996 and includes studies that explore participation tools and
participation processes, their effects, and their outcomes. In this thematic area, 19 studies are
investigated according to 3 sub-themes, which are participants, social inclusion, and
gamification as presented in Table VII.
Table VII. Domain analysis for the thematic area Participation.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
PARTICIPATION
Participants
• Different participatory groups:
children, caregivers, patients,
seniors, managers, tourists,
students, …
1996
9
Social Inclusion
• Social learning
• Communal knowledge
• Public participatory place-making
• Diversity in stakeholders
• Social communication
2006
5
Gamification
• Gamified participation systems
• User groups and capabilities
2015
5
Most studies in literature involve identifying the types of participants and understanding their
motivation for using participation tools. A variety of participants are investigated by
researchers in this sub-theme, who are children (Field et al., 2016; van Bijleveld et al., 2020),
caregivers responsible for children’s mental health care (Haine-Schlagel et al., 2017), patients
in health-related contexts (Vahdat et al., 2014; Van Der Vaart et al., 2010; Young & Klingle,
1996), senior citizens and their participation in daily practices via digital tools (Grigoryeva et

20
al., 2016), marketing managers and management organizations working in tourism fields
(Lalicic & Dickinger, 2019), and participants in higher education systems (Mobini & Hansson,
2014). The common focus is usually on the participants while investigating how participation
tools engage communication between decision-makers and stakeholders in a socio-cultural
context.
The topic of social inclusion and social participation constitutes another sub-theme, in which
social learning and spatial knowledge issues are investigated. Multi-layer determinants in
decision-making and urban planning processes are underlined in addition to the on-going
learning systems for a comprehensive and adaptive management framework in all design stages
(de Carvalho & Giatti, 2018; Smithf & Lazarowj, 2006). The use of a mix of tools,
comprehensive understanding of the issues and objectives, strong relationships between
stakeholders, and even the use of geographic information provide the necessary adaptability
within decision support systems (Smithf & Lazarowj, 2006). These systems indicate a process
of social learning for communities, researchers, decision-makers, and institutions while
combining spatial, technical, and social information with sustainability concerns (Krommyda
et al., 2019). In this context, digital participation tools promote social learning for better
collective decisions and provide trust among the stakeholders aiming at communal knowledge
by means of participatory practices (de Carvalho & Giatti, 2018). The participation of local
communities and individuals with expertise is underlined with the idea of intra-generational
equity in decision making (Hołuj, 2016). Consequently, understanding the social dynamics of
place-making becomes important in order to comprehend all the values, needs, and future
visions of the community (Cilliers & Timmermans, 2014).
The last sub-theme in this thematic area covers the studies concerned with gamification in the
participation process as a part of digital tools. The use of game elements in digital participation
platforms improves the skills of citizens to act collectively on spatial aspects of the urban
environment (Devisch et al., 2016). This claim introduces new criteria and concerns to the
design of gamified participation systems, such as generational differences that may affect the
success of participation (Thiel et al., 2016), the diversity of the user groups, and altered
motivation factors in different domains (Thiel, 2016; Thiel & Fröhlich, 2017; Thiel & Lehner,
2015). In any case, it is commonly accepted that gamification in participation tools provides a
great deal of potential for social groups and their capabilities in the urban context.

21
3.2.2 Digital Tools
As presented in Table VIII, the literature on digital tools includes a wide range of topics as it
is one of the most emphasized and studied thematic area. It has emerged in 2003 and contains
33 studies, which focus on information and communication technologies, participation tool
models, and different ways of participating in urban context. 3 sub-themes are identified in this
thematic area, namely tools for remote participation, the use of the tools, and the development
of the tools.
Table VIII. Domain analysis for the thematic area Digital Tools.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
DIGITAL
TOOLS
Tools for Remote
Participation
• Remote participation tools
• Remote communication
• Data sharing & analysis
• Documenting
2003
6
The Use of the
Tools
• E-participation & citizen
participation
• Local engagement
• Information & communication
technologies (ICT)
• The use and comparison of
participation tools
• Cyber participation
• Digital tool selection
2004
17
The Development
of the Tools
• Effective tool development
• Software and technical aspects
• The use of machine learning
• GIS-based tools.
2011
10
The first sub-theme in this thematic area includes studies concerned with remote participation
tools and ways in which they can be improved and encouraged (Balme et al., 2005; Castejón
et al., 2003; Emoto et al., 2010). The focus is typically on communication and data sharing
remotely while trying to increase productivity during the participation process (J. H. Santos et
al., 2008). It is essential in remote participation to consider the remote analysis of data,
documenting, and communicating through remote participation tools while assuring openness,
security, and independence of the process (Krämer-Flecken et al., 2010; Vega et al., 2006).
The second sub-theme has a wide range of studies that are related to the use of the participation
tools in different mediums. Most researchers use “e-participation” or “citizen participation”
terms and underline the use of technology in political participation in order to bridge the gap

22
between the government and citizens in urban planning and policy-making processes (Conroy
& Evans-Cowley, 2005, 2006; Islam, 2008; Macintosh, 2004; Nilsson & Barbutiu, 2019). The
interactivity in participation tools, social learning through local engagement, and the
enhancement of public participation are investigated as well in this sub-theme (Gordon &
Baldwin-Philippi, 2014). More specific contexts are investigated to understand the use of e-
participation in education planning (Mandarano & Meenar, 2015) or participatory adaptive
management processes (Kelly et al., 2012) in different mediums (e.g. Internet-based public
participation or web-based participation).
Some studies in this sub-theme explore the use of participation tools in terms of their flexibility,
simplicity, practicality, and transferability (Alter et al., 2019). The necessary access to the
required database and information management in an integrated manner between other
applications and services are very crucial. The literature indicates that the information flow in
some of the participation tools (mostly internet-based ones) is only in one-way, which
necessitates the support of other interaction methods to encourage two-way information
exchange (Conroy & Gordon, 2004; Kelly et al., 2012; Thiel et al., 2015). New terms are
promoted for differentiating traditional participation tools from the new ones, i.e., cyber
participation, which basically signifies social media as a part of the participation tools for
discussing ideas, politics, and socio-economic issues by creating fluid and dynamic
communities (Evans-Cowley & Hollander, 2010; Steinberg, 2015). The participation process
has changed due to new participation tools and new decision factors are added in both quantity
and variety such as community capacity, planning problems, goals of the participation,
regulations, or tool capacity, which make it essential to properly choose the tool according to
its benefits and challenges, its requirements, and its effects on and difficulties for individuals
in the community (Afzalan et al., 2017; Bherer & Breux, 2012; Falco & Kleinhans, 2018;
Somarakis & Stratigea, 2019).
The last sub-theme that emerged in this thematic area is the development of the tools. The
determination of social factors in tool development is the primary focus in socio-political
contexts (Klamert & Münster, 2017; Resca, 2011; Vidiasova et al., 2016). These studies
contain optimized administrative and regulative aspects, the use of IT in organizations,
citizens’ trust, demands, and psychology, the tools’ credibility, transparency, social needs,
users’ habits and attentions, and the level of motivation to provide a well-developed
participation tool (Lee et al., 2017; Mueller et al., 2020; Vidiasova et al., 2017; Vidiasova &

23
Mikhaylova, 2016). Yet, fostering citizen participation is a major challenge in urban planning
processes, which constitutes another research field that needs to be questioned.
as well as (Balena et al., 2017; Shoyama & Yamagata, 2016).
Some researchers examine the technical aspects of the development process such as the use of
machine learning, quantitative data studies, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
models. Several challenges in development processes are presented, such as non-structured
information obtained from big databases, data classification in a real-time context, and machine
learning systems for comparing and evaluating models (Balena et al., 2017). The difficulties in
the transformation of qualitative data into quantitative values in practice are also underlined
(Shoyama & Yamagata, 2016) with technical abilities and capacities of people in their own
contexts (Steiniger et al., 2016). Consequently, this sub-theme underlines the technical aspects
of participation tools, spatial data quality, and the effectiveness of decision making in the
participation tool development process.
3.2.3 Representation
Studies in this thematic area focus on the representations of the information collected via
participation tools, and how representations encourage participation and interaction.
Representation theme emerged in 1999 and includes 4 studies contained by 2 sub-themes,
namely visualization and interaction as presented in Table IX.
Table IX. Domain analysis for the thematic area Representation.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
REPRESENTATION
Visualization
• Data visualization for
heterogenous information
1999
2
Interaction
• Social media & mobile
technologies
• Web-based platforms
2015
2
The first sub-theme contains the studies investigating data and information in participation
tools. In urban design processes, participation tools and related platforms provide a wide range
of simultaneous and heterogeneous information (Herranz et al., 2014). Well-visualized and
displayed data represented by digital tools provide an opportunity to cope with the difficulties
in interpreting and analyzing data and encourage maximum public input and participation (Al-
Kodmany, 1999; Herranz et al., 2014). However, the studies in this study area are not sufficient

24
in number because of the difficulties in analyzing and visualizing a large amount of information
collected via participation tools.
Another sub-theme in this thematic area is the importance of interaction for and within the
participation tools. The potential use of social media and mobile technologies are under the
scope of these studies. Social media and social networking tools have (measurable) effects on
citizens’ engagement as they provide a huge potential for multi-scale and multi-level
communication within larger social and political developments (Kleinhans et al., 2015;
Kudeshia & Mittal, 2015). Yet, it is observed that the lack of ability to use social media for
interaction by governments is a topic to investigate as a missing point in literature.
3.2.4 Responsive Cities
The last thematic area in participation tools is responsive cities, which forms the most
predominant area in literature related to participation tools. The studies cover a wide range of
topics focusing on sustainable and participatory design aspects in the urban context. The area
firstly emerged in 2010 and covers 21 studies that are examined within 4 sub-themes, which
are transportation, sustainability, urban policies and governance, and citizenship (Table X).
Table X. Domain analysis for the thematic area Responsive Cities.
THEMATIC
AREA
SUB-THEME
CONTENT
EMERGED
NUMBER
OF PAPERS
RESPONSIVE
CITIES
Transportation
• Transportation policies
• Sustainability & transportation
systems
2010
1
Sustainability
• Participation tools & climate
change
• Sustainable city management
• Social learning in sustainable
planning
2010
9
Urban Policies &
Governance
• e-government development
• Decision making through
participation tools on urban
design practices
• Information availability
2013
6
Citizenship
• Citizenry needs as the main
objective of responsive city
movement
• Participation as a
governmental tool used in
policy-making in both
collective and individual levels
2014
5

25
The first sub-theme studied within this thematic area is the use of participation tools in the field
of transportation. This topic is directly related to the effects of transportation systems on
sustainability issues including low emission vehicles, alternative fuels, public transport,
walking and cycling interventions, strategic urban planning, and the role of information and
communication technologies (ICT) in these policy mechanisms (Hickman et al., 2010). The
cruciality of participation tools is underlined to provide informed decision-making processes
and communication between stakeholders.
One of the most stressed topics in this thematic area is sustainability, including sustainable
planning, governance strategies, participatory budgets (Drobiazgiewicz, 2019; Lostarnau et al.,
2011) and consumption and climate change issues (Nkoana, 2020; Pundt et al., 2017;
Uittenbroek et al., 2019). According to reviewed studies, sustainable spatial planning involves
firstly the data collection and representation by including all stakeholders, and secondly the
development of strategies to improve the quality of the local environment in an integrated way
(Olazabal et al., 2010). Participation tools, in this respect, provide transparent information that
is useful in responsive urban projects. The level of consumption and climate change issues are
as important as responsive urban planning and governance in this sub-theme. Participation
tools and their scopes are studied in terms of climate change, its tendencies, its impacts, and
the local capacities and vulnerabilities (Nkoana et al., 2017), as well as alternative modes of
sustainable consumption (Crivits et al., 2010). The combination of this kind of participation
tools creates a sort of environmental education platform and promotes social learning as well.
The potential use of participation tools to find responsive solutions at the end of the social
learning process is also investigated (Bizerril et al., 2011).
The outcomes of participation processes, technological developments, and the use of
participation for new ways of governance and policy-making is investigated in this thematic
area as well. Urban information access by citizens is stressed by many researchers within the
topic of e-governance (Máchová & Lněnička, 2015; B. Santos, 2017), which includes the use
of GIS, cloud computing, big data, different types of tools, and social media for useful and
effective policy-making and governance (Lalor & Hickey, 2013; Máchová & Lněnička, 2015;
B. Santos, 2017). In this regard, the need for collaboration between institutions and local
governments is emphasized for effective urban strategies by means of information tools,
participation tools, or public opinion monitoring tools (Dai, 2019). This multi-level
understanding of governance and policy-making introduces the concept of “linked
democracy”, which is based on distributed, technology-supported collective decision-making

26
processes (Poblet et al., 2017a). Consequently, linked data and linked platforms promoting
connectivity between all stakeholders are fundamental in order to engage information
circulation and collective decisions (Poblet et al., 2017b).
The last sub-theme highlights the involvement of citizens and citizenship in responsive cities.
The underlying feature of responsive cities is the involvement of multiple stakeholders and
their awareness toward the management of the city. Hence, responsive city infrastructure is
also related to the training of staff, education, social well-being, and environmental interests
(Bolívar, 2018). Enlarging political participation, increasing information exchange, and
allowing communication and interaction between citizens and their representatives area in
planning and policy-making processes are widely emphasized (Ali & Ali, 2015; Kudinov et
al., 2019). Participation tools can be seen as technologies of citizenship in both collective and
individual levels, which direct them to be politically active, self-governing citizens and smart
communities (Banjac, 2017; Granier & Kudo, 2016). In responsive cities, policy processes are
supported by citizen participation to create collaboration and consensus between the
stakeholders aiming at social and political changes.
4 Discussion
The conceptualization of urban interventions and participation tools in urban design processes
is mostly neglected as an interdisciplinary research domain although these two research
domains work complementarily. Participation tools and urban interventions define the scope
of each other in urban design practices. Participation tools provide mediums to collect data
from urban interventions to create collective knowledge. Concurrently, urban interventions
offer situated and context-based information to be collected by participation tools. Together,
they enable the implementation of collective knowledge in other interventions to ensure
effective urban transformations.
The thematic areas and sub-themes in this review revealed the well-studied domains along with
the neglected ones as presented in Figure 2. Both urban interventions and participation tools
contain direct relations with design-related fields, including architecture, urban design, and
urban planning. In urban intervention studies, social sciences investigate cities and
interventions through the lens of sociology in specific contexts and explore the history,
economy, and politics of the cities. Participation tools, on the other hand, utilize new
technologies and computer science to provide digital mediums for systematic data collection
and evaluation. However, this thematic analysis revealed that these domains are interconnected

27
to each other as they adopt different techniques and methods from both computer science as
well as social science bidirectionally. The literature acknowledged that participation-related
studies must combine social dynamics of place to support place-making (Cilliers &
Timmermans, 2014). Similarly, urban interventions must be supported by participation tools
to explore their capability of making the city human-centric with bottom-up approaches
(Citroni, 2019). As urban interventions and participation tools support and benefit from each
other, it is essential to investigate them systematically and merge these domains to achieve
informed urban design processes.
Figure 2. The relationship between research domains and thematic areas.
4.1 Urban Interventionism
For the studies related to urban intervention, the link between the focused aspects is vague as
each study field has its own definition. Urbanism is the most determinant thematic area in this
field, yet the vagueness in definitions makes it challenging to combine and synthesize different
aspects and focuses. For instance, urban-theory-and-policy-related studies consider urban
interventions in an urban system with different features such as economy, sustainability, and
community whereas some studies focus on architectural aspects in small scales and their effects
on cities.
As studies show, culture and interactivity are very important for increasing the quality of city
life. The cultural characteristics embedded into local collective knowledge and the effects of
urban design actions and norms in urban practices must be emphasized as much as the physical
settings with the empirical studies. More human-centered approaches are necessary to adopt
informed design decision making processes. In urban scales, art-based interventions are
determinant in the visual and aesthetic experience of cities as artistic, cultural, and political

28
practices. The temporality or permanency of urban interventions is a worth-emphasizing topic
as some interventions are spontaneous, temporal, and alterable to challenge the permutability
of public space. In the implementation of all interventions, urban policies and governance
systems should provide the necessary and vital economic support.
The implementation scale in urban interventionism is an important topic to discuss due to the
difficulty in connecting small scale interventions to the large-scale ones in urban design
practices. The power and authority, the spontaneity and responsivity, and the link between
architectural and urban scales need to be considered as they are later related to urban
morphology, density, open spaces, and socio-spatial interventions. As urban interventions
provide information and formulate collective knowledge, participation is a part of this research
domain as well. Nevertheless, this thematic area is not fully discovered yet regarding the
relationship between urban interventions and participation processes. In the overall frame of
urban interventionism domain, urbanism becomes the major theme, which leads to three topics,
i.e., sustainability, architectural scale interventions (buildings), and community-based
interventions, while participation informs these three topics bidirectionally (Figure 3). This last
part is covered in the review of participation tools studies as the continuation of participation
in urban interventionism.
Figure 3. The interrelation between thematic areas in the research domain of Participation Tools.

29
4.2 Participatory Urban Design Practices
The literature on “participation tools” shows the interdisciplinarity of this research domain and
presents relatively more structured and interrelated contents and methodologies for
participatory urban design practices. Most studies are obtained from the field of computer
science, yet the general focus is mostly on urban aspects and citizen involvement. The majority
of these studies are published after the 2000s, which can be associated with the emergence of
the computational design paradigm leading to the increase in use of computers and
computational tools. Digitalization, the use of big data, mobile technologies, and many other
technology-and-computer-related topics are at the center of this research domain. As the scope
and content are well-defined in this domain, the conceptualization of the research domain is
pursued more precisely in this review.
The participant-centric point of view is essential in the use and development of participation
tools to increase seamless involvement of stakeholders, i.e., citizens, policy-makers, or urban
designers. Digital tools and mobile technologies are highly determinant in the overall
participation process as they directly affect the inclusion, representativeness, data types, the
amount of data, and decision-making processes eventually. Unfortunately, this review reveals
that representation of data, obtained from participation tools and from interactions between
stakeholders, is a missing point in the literature at the moment, and more studies are necessary
to comprehend different representation techniques in urban transformation projects.
As presented in this review, participation processes include a number of phases, i.e., selection
of the participants and participation tool, participation techniques, data collection, and data
visualization, and the use of data by the stakeholders. The last portion of participation tools
research reveals the correlation between participation processes and urban design processes
with the focus on decision-and-policy-making processes in responsive cities. The interrelation
and the flow of participation according to the reviewed studies are presented in Figure 4.

30
Figure 4. The interrelation between thematic areas in the research domain of Participation Tools.
4.3 Common Themes for Collective Learning
In this review, several sub-themes and thematic areas that exist in both urban interventionism
and participation tools are identified. Human-centric approaches are promoted in both domains
with a focus on interaction, participation, and involvement of different stakeholders.
Responsive cities, urban policies and governance, and sustainability are very determinant in
both research domains. The responsive city concept is greatly stressed, which connects all
stakeholders, enables information flows and decision-making process, and increases the use of
urban (big) data, information and knowledge with citizens’ responses and interactivity.
Collective learning and informed decision making are the results of well-structured urban
policies and participation processes, which lead to interactive, cultural, and socio-spatial
interventions. Education, training of citizens, and sustainability awareness in terms of
environmental, economic, and social concerns are embedded into responsive cities. To this end,
urban interventions and participation tools work complementarily in urban design processes.
The entire informed urban design process is divided into four stages, namely citizens, data
collections, data analysis, and actual urban designs (Figure 5). Participation tools principally
work between citizens and data collection processes and primarily aim to increase the
efficiency and effectiveness of participation processes. Urban interventions, on the other hand,
use the collected data in deliberative decision-making processes and provide urban information
for the future interventions. When the overall process is completed, informed urban designs
serve the demands and the needs of citizens as in responsive cities.

31
Figure 5. Informed Urban Design Processes: Participation and Urban Interventionism
As this review reveals, we would like to enlarge the context of participation tools and merge it
into urban interventionism. Data collection and data analysis are already important for urban
designs. Yet, only the seamless integration of two separate processes, participation and urban
design, can assure informed urban designs in responsive cities. A number of results and
suggestions are presented below to lead new studies in the future to conduct well-informed
urban design practices.
- Participation tools mostly focus on data collection, yet, it is not clear how the collected
data is used by stakeholders. New multi-layered and multi-directional representation
techniques should be embedded into digital tools.
- The involvement and diversity of stakeholders are important to increase the
incorporation and transparency in urban (intervention) practices.
- The stakeholders, including the citizens, should be able to work/participate in the same
medium to ensure trust among the stakeholders via the use of digital participation tools.
- Decision-making processes should be studied with a focus on the relationship between
policy-making, data translation, and design management as well as social learning and
communal knowledge.
- It should be noted that urban design process is not a one-way flow. Urban interventions
are the representations of collective data if/when they result from data-informed design
decisions. To this end, they can formulate the initial parts of participation processes.
Consequently, participation tools aim at collecting data and using it for social learning.
Participation processes can get benefit from previous interventions as design experiments and
inform the new ones accordingly. Together, they create collective learning environments to
solidify and inform urban design actions. This new iterative urban design flow will ideally
Social
Science
Urban
Intervention
Informed Urban
Design Practices
Participation
Tools
Design
Studies
Technology &
Computation
Citizens Data
Collection Data
Analysis Informed
Urban Design
Architecture
Urban Design
Urban Planning
Sociology
Economics
Geography
History
Political Science
Digitalization
Data collection
Data Translation
Participation
social inclusion
participants
citizenship
art-based interventions
socio-spatial interventions
interactive & cultural interventions
building types
transportation
urban sustainability
performative buildings
gamification
remote participation
the use of tools
tool development
Participation Tool
Responsive Cities
PARTICIPATION
URBAN INTERVENTIONISM
Representation Decision Making
urban policies
governance
economy
urban heritage

32
accelerate urban transformation processes and the segregation between participation tools and
urban interventions will not be visible anymore.
5 Conclusion
Our review presents a systematic approach to study literature and conceptualizes two research
domains. New perspectives and study themes are revealed in both urban interventions and
participation tools. The studies conducted and analyzed in different research fields are
combined, compared, and synthesized together to frame the domains together in a more
structured way. To this end, this review contributes to the research fields related to both urban
design and computer science. Moreover, it provides a comprehensive repository of the existing
researches on urban interventions and participation tools, which will be useful for scholars to
further develop and improve models and theory-based studies.
This review also presents that both research domains are related to urban policies, and all
thematic areas and sub-themes are polyphonic and relational. Consequently, they should be
examined and interpreted as context-based processes in future studies. The accessibility and
inclusivity of the research design are important for both domains, and therefore, the studies,
methods, and tools should be designed complementarily and competitively by considering
representativeness to engage the informed decision-making process. The classification of the
context, identification of the affecting factors, and availability of different solutions for
different contexts are important and we hope that this study will be useful for those purposes.
According to the findings of this review, we recommend more interdisciplinary and context-
based studies in future research. The domains of urban interventions and participation tools can
benefit from studies comparing geographic differences, e.g., cities in different countries, by
investigating the governance systems, populations, or economic and political circumstances of
the cities. Although some studies exist in literature, more context-based analyses are required
to address new perspectives and approaches in urban interventions and participation tools while
investigating the missing parts of these domains, such as the data types, data and information
translation, data representation, tool development and design, stakeholder involvement, the
combination of urban and architectural scales, and any other topic to move this review forward.
In this sense, it would be decidedly interesting to understand further models and ideas in order
to combine/reshape two research fields into one in the future.
It is important to state that this review is only one possible set of analyses of the literature.
Additional thematic areas and sub-themes are encouraged to map different perspectives,

33
processes, theories, and practices. Last but not least, examining these fields through both
quantitative and qualitative methods would present the potentials of their innovative aspects
and contribute to bringing different aspects onto one research ground to achieve better research
structures and organizations in relation to the rapidly changing world and its needs.
6 Acknowledgement
This research was supported by the Singapore International Graduate Award (SINGA) given
by the Singapore University of Technology and Design.
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8 Appendices
8.1 Appendix A - Overview of the Search Results from Databases.
Table 8-A. Research results obtained from the databases.
Query String
(in chronological order of searching)
Found 2
Used
(including double-checking
and snowballing results)
“urban intervention”
111
89
“place-making” AND “urban”
18
10
“participation tools”
100
77
2
Results were retrieved in March 2021.

55
8.2 Appendix B - List of Authors by Thematic Areas and Sub-Themes
Table 8-B. List of Authors by Thematic Areas and Sub-Themes in the Search of Urban Intervention.
Thematic
Area
Sub-Theme
Authors (listed alphabetically by year)
Urbanism
Urban Policies
(Alexandri, 2018; Ángeles Huete Garcia et al., 2016;
Asprogerakas, 2020; Carpenter et al., 2020; Chau, 2012;
González Martínez, 2016; Jackson et al., 2019; Koster, 2020;
Messinger, 2004; Murrani, 2016; Naghibi et al., 2020; Platt &
Medway, 2020; Risør, 2016; Rodríguez et al., 2001; Saltzman,
2019; Savini, 2016; Savini et al., 2015; Talen, 2015; Wallin et al.,
2018)
Economy
(Boudjabi et al., 2018; Bruttomesso, 2018; Habibah et al., 2013;
Richards, 2017; Sklair, 2005)
Smart Cities
(Aelenei et al., 2016; Buttazzoni et al., 2020; Gomes et al., 2012;
Kestens et al., 2019; Moraci et al., 2018; Panagiotopoulou et
al., 2018; Salim, 2012; Sanchez-Sepulveda et al., 2019; Shelton,
2017; Silva et al., 2018)
Transportation
(Braubach et al., 2015; Campisi et al., 2018; de Souza & Mulaski,
2018; Jirón et al., 2016; Nikolopoulou et al., 2016; Tierney,
2013)
Urban Heritage
(Agryzkov et al., 2017; D’Amico & Currà, 2018; De Leão
Dornelles et al., 2020; Kermani, 2020; Padilla, 2017)
Community
Interactive & Cultural int.
(Benachio et al., 2018; Griffiths, 1995; Ikeda, 2004; Khalid et al.,
2019; Kim & Shin, 2018)
Art-based int.
(Aldana, 2013; Brejzek, 2010; Coles, 2014; Costa & Lopes, 2016;
Klanten & Huebner, 2010; Liinamaa, 2016; Millie, 2017, 2019;
Potter & Seale, 2019; Wang, 2018; Whybrow, 2011; Xavier et
al., 2019; Xiao & Lu, 2021)
Socio-spatial int.
(Abd El Gawad et al., 2019; Eckenwiler, 2018; Gharib & Salama,
2014; Kwok, 2019; Maciel, 2020; Rossini, 2019; Ruiz-Varona &
León-Casero, 2017)
Sustainability
Performative Buildings
(Markus & Savini, 2016; Nadal et al., 2019)
Urban Sustainability
(Abaas, 2020; Al-Maiyah & Elkadi, 2007; Amado, 2005; Curreli
et al., 2016; De La Colina, 2016; Di Giulio et al., 2018; Grafakos
et al., 2016; Kaloustian et al., 2018; Kotharkar et al., 2019;
Limona et al., 2019; Macintyre & Heaviside, 2019; Maltese et
al., 2016; Vidal et al., 2019)
Building Types
Museums
(Bradburne, 1999)
Housing
(Larrodé et al., 2019; Melgaard et al., 2007; Meth et al., 2019)
Religious Places
(Bielo, 2019; Landau, 2014)
Theaters
(Hermansen Cordua & Sandness, 2015)
Food Markets
(Blake, 2017)

56
Playgrounds
(Bugarıc, 2018)
Schools
(Guarini et al., 2020)
Participation
Participatory Urban
Practices
(Aldama & Cabitza, 2015; Cilliers & Timmermans, 2014; Citroni,
2019; Lara, 2010)
Table 8-C.List of Authors by Thematic Areas and Sub-Themes in the Search of Participation Tools.
Thematic
Area
Sub-Theme
Authors (listed alphabetically by year)
Participation
Participants
(Field et al., 2016; Grigoryeva et al., 2016; Haine-Schlagel et al., 2017;
Lalicic & Dickinger, 2019; Mobini & Hansson, 2014; Vahdat et al., 2014;
van Bijleveld et al., 2020; Van Der Vaart et al., 2010; Young & Klingle,
1996)
Social Inclusion
(Cilliers & Timmermans, 2014; de Carvalho & Giatti, 2018; Hołuj, 2016;
Krommyda et al., 2019; Smithf & Lazarowj, 2006)
Gamification
(Devisch et al., 2016; Thiel, 2016; Thiel et al., 2016; Thiel & Fröhlich,
2017; Thiel & Lehner, 2015)
Digital Tools
Tools for Remote
Participation
(Balme et al., 2005; Castejón et al., 2003; Emoto et al., 2010; Krämer-
Flecken et al., 2010; J. H. Santos et al., 2008; Vega et al., 2006)
The Use of the
Tools
(Afzalan et al., 2017; Alter et al., 2019; Bherer & Breux, 2012; Conroy &
Evans-Cowley, 2005, 2006; Conroy & Gordon, 2004; Evans-Cowley &
Hollander, 2010; Falco & Kleinhans, 2018; Gordon & Baldwin-Philippi,
2014; Islam, 2008; Kelly et al., 2012; Macintosh, 2004; Mandarano &
Meenar, 2015; Nilsson & Barbutiu, 2019; Somarakis & Stratigea, 2019;
Steinberg, 2015; Thiel et al., 2015)
The Development
of the Tools
(Balena et al., 2017; Klamert & Münster, 2017; Lee et al., 2017; Mueller
et al., 2020; Resca, 2011; Shoyama & Yamagata, 2016; Steiniger et al.,
2016; Vidiasova et al., 2016, 2017; Vidiasova & Mikhaylova, 2016)
Representation
Visualization
(Al-Kodmany, 1999; Herranz et al., 2014)
Interaction
(Kleinhans et al., 2015; Kudeshia & Mittal, 2015)
Responsive
Cities
Transportation
(Hickman et al., 2010)
Sustainability
(Bizerril et al., 2011; Crivits et al., 2010; Drobiazgiewicz, 2019;
Lostarnau et al., 2011; Nkoana, 2020; Nkoana et al., 2017; Olazabal et
al., 2010; Pundt et al., 2017; Uittenbroek et al., 2019)
Urban Policies &
Governance
(Dai, 2019; Lalor & Hickey, 2013; Máchová & Lněnička, 2015; Poblet et
al., 2017a, 2017b; B. Santos, 2017)
Citizenship
(Ali & Ali, 2015; Banjac, 2017; Bolívar, 2018; Granier & Kudo, 2016;
Kudinov et al., 2019)

57
8.3 Appendix C – Papers by Subject Areas in Databases.
3
Table 8-D. Subject Areas and the Number of Papers in the Search of Urban Intervention.
Field
(Listed Alphabetically)
Number of
Papers
Architecture
11
Art
13
Civil Engineering
2
Environmental Science
14
Geography
3
Regional & Urban Planning
21
Urban Studies
35
Table 8-E.Subject Areas and the Number of Papers in the Search of Participation Tools.
Field
(Listed Alphabetically)
Number of
Papers
Computer Science
26
Economics
1
Environmental Science
8
Political Science
11
Regional & Urban Planning
14
Sociology
17
3
The fields are formed according to the categories and fields in the Scopus and Web of Science search engines.
Yet, similar study fields are combined, and studies are included in them accordingly.