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Better Places Start With Listening

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Case Study 7 January 2026 Androniki Pappa

From city detectives to city planners: The city through the eyes of children

"Der perfekte Versteckplatz, aber nur wenn man kleiner als 1,30m ist" (The perfect hiding spot, but only if you're shorter than 1.30m). A 9-year-old researcher documented this secret space between two recycling bins and a hedge, completed with measurements and a 'visibility chart' from different heights. She rated it 5 stars for play but warned that "Erwachsene können uns hier sehen" (adults can see us here). This small observation captures something essential about how children experience urban space: at a different scale, with different concerns, and often with surprising precision. This was one of thousands of insights collected during our Urban Observations project, a two-year pilot , where we embarked on unlocking an entirely new form of urban intelligence shaped by the voices of children, transforming Vienna's students into urban researchers.

Citizen Science
A practice in which members of the general public actively contribute to scientific research, typically by collecting observations, recording data, or participating in analysis. Citizen science broadens the reach and scale of research beyond what professional teams alone could achieve, while producing findings that are grounded in the direct experience of the people involved.
Lived Experience Data
Information gathered directly from people about how they personally experience a place, situation, or environment, as distinct from data derived from technical measurement or administrative records. Lived experience data captures the subjective, qualitative dimensions of place: how safe a street feels at night, how comfortable a public space is in summer, how welcoming an area is to different groups, knowledge that objective datasets alone cannot produce.
Participatory Mapping
A method for collecting location-specific knowledge directly from the people who use and experience a place. Rather than relying solely on technical surveys or expert analysis, participatory mapping invites participants to contribute observations, concerns, and ideas anchored to exact locations on a map, turning lived experience into structured spatial data.
Placemaking
A collaborative approach to the planning, design, and management of public spaces that centres the needs, experiences, and aspirations of the people who use them. Placemaking treats public space not as a fixed infrastructure problem to be solved by experts, but as a living part of community life that benefits from ongoing input, care, and stewardship from the people it belongs to.
Public Participation GIS (PPGIS)
An approach to geographic information systems that involves the general public as contributors of spatial knowledge, rather than relying solely on technical experts or official data sources. PPGIS methods collect location-based observations and experiences from communities, combining the structure of spatial mapping with the breadth of public input to produce evidence that reflects how places are actually experienced.