Participatory sensing within co-creation: improving the transformation of the urban environment. The Verona case inside the LOOPER project.

This paper illustrates methods, technologies and tools used and developed to support a co-creation method for the transformation of the urban environment, developed and tested in the framework of the Verona case from the LOOPER project. The LOOPER project (Learning Loops in the Public Realm), is an European Research Project co-funded under the JPI Urban Europe program. Other two cities are involved: Brussels, working on traffic related issues; Manchester, working on quality of spaces. Co-creation brings together participatory sensing, co-design and other activities to activate a participatory process. The LOOPER co-creation methodology, in the way it is applied at the Verona case study, is therefore based on working with the stakeholders since the first steps of the project, meaning that participatory sensing is grounded on the scoping and monitoring of urban issues done by citizens, enabling them to gain better result thanks to the knowledges obtained in the beginning. To support this process different technologies are used: passive sensors for NO2; noise boxes; PM2.5 portable sensors; user-friendly visualisation dashboard to collect and visualise data. These methods and technologies have been used to improve co-creation to ideate and design urban transformation facing some issues in the city of Verona Sud.