Places For continuous learning on spatial planning issues – reflections on an experiment

Ever since the eighties, spatial planners have been approaching planning processes as learning processes. In this article we argue that such learning processes not only require a trajectory that helps groups to reflect in and on their actions, but also a trajectory that helps these groups to learn how to participate in such reflections. We refer to such a trajectory as a Place for Continuous Learning. The aim of the article is to explore how to develop such places. Over a period of 18 months, we conducted our own learning experiment and facilitated, on the one hand, three participatory processes in three European countries that each address the societal issue of retrofitting suburbia, and, on the other hand, organized a series of three Collective Learning Workshops in which we invited the main facilitators of these participatory processes to exchange experiences. Together these participatory processes and workshops made up our Place for Continuous Learning. The article first discusses the design of the experiment. It then summarizes the actual workshops and ends with formulating a number of principles on how to develop Places for Continuous Learning.