Storytelling Workshop at TU Delft's Summer School Planning and Design for the Just City
In early July 2025, we had the great opportunity to take part in the 11th edition of the TU Delft Summer School Planning and Design for the Just City, where we workshopped our methodology Storytelling for Participatory Exchange with 92 participants from 36 different countries.
Organized by the Centre for the Just City in collaboration with different partners, this year’s summer school in Delft focused on spatial justice and participatory governance. It was a great space to share and test our storytelling methodology with the participants, and to reflect together on its benefits and limitations. Over the course of the session, we engaged in insightful discussions about the power of collective imagination and collaborative planning and design for a more just city.
The session began with a brief overview about the work of the Institute, followed by an introduction to our storytelling methodology, where we highlighted the power of storytelling and how we use it as a tool for citizen participation. The methodology invites people to share their perspectives on their urban environment and imagine future possibilities, by building imaginary stories that are rooted in real-life experiences and challenges.
We then held an interactive group activity, where participants worked through our storytelling methodology within the context of a fictional scenario. Working in groups, participants created short stories from the perspective of fictional characters facing real urban challenges in the scenario. They built imaginaries to reflect their interpretations of how the characters may think and feel about the scenario. This was followed by a group analysis phase, where participants reflected on the sentiments, features, metaphors, and designed futures within the short stories. They considered what these aspects suggested about the characters’ perspectives on the scenario and generated consensus-oriented recommendations for the intervention. Finally, the session concluded with a reflection and discussion, where participants shared insights about the exercise and engaged in a broader exchange around the methodology.
Looking back at the activity sheets, it was great to see how well the participants understood and engaged with the task. Many of the stories and analyses were thoughtful and well developed, grounded and imaginative at the same time. The recommendations produced were strong and aligned well with the stories they created, reflecting the underlying emotions and tensions expressed through the narratives. It was clear that they understood how fictional and imaginary elements can reflect lived experiences and reveal patterns and dynamics that might be overlooked in more conventional methods. As well as being an inspiring experience, this also served to validate the design of our methodology and showed that anyone can use it to produce in-depth and accurate insights from community perspectives.
Participants also shared interesting and important reflections on the methodology itself. Some questioned the breakdown of the story building process and its limitation in reflecting the complexities of someone’s thoughts. At the same time, they recognized that the structure is necessary to be able to find consensus and that it helps to surface tensions that can lead to further discussion. Others commented on the difficulty of creating imaginaries while acknowledging the power of representing real sentiments through fictional stories, especially on difficult topics. There were also thoughtful discussions around how imaginary storytelling can foster new kinds of insights, while also raising questions about how such processes are received by institutions: would municipalities take these narratives seriously? How do we ensure that the right people are at the table, and that participation is not tokenistic? What about the growing reluctance of citizens to take part in participatory processes due to fatigue or distrust?
We really appreciated the opportunity of being part of such a global, diverse and collaborative experience, and to see our methodology tested and discussed by such an engaged group of participants. Thank you to the Centre for the Just City, particularly Roberto Rocco and Juliana Gonçalves, for inviting us. We loved being part of such an open and constructive learning environment!
