Urban Laboratory for Innovation and Dialogue (Mad City Baltics)

Urban Laboratory for Innovation and Dialogue (Mad City Baltics) is a WUF13 Urban Library side event presenting Mad City Baltics as an operational method for urban innovation, participation and co-creation, with a specific focus on housing challenges at neighbourhood scale. The session moves beyond abstract policy debate and demonstrates how cities can organise dialogue, generate ideas and build partnerships that lead to more inclusive, resilient and liveable housing environments. The event builds on the established practice of Mad City Baltics as an urban laboratory that brings together municipalities, planners, developers, communities and international experts in structured innovation formats. Central to the session is the Mad City method, which combines hackathon-style idea generation, participatory workshops, open dialogue and curated partner involvement to translate complex urban challenges into concrete, implementable directions. A key evidence base for the session is the 2023 Mad City event “Shining Microdistrict”, which focused on the future of large-scale housing neighbourhoods and microdistricts. That event addressed ageing housing stock, public space quality, mobility and everyday liveability, demonstrating how housing outcomes are inseparable from the surrounding urban environment. Through the Mad City method, stakeholders jointly explored how microdistricts can be transformed into more attractive, inclusive and resilient places to live, generating ideas relevant to housing renewal and neighbourhood upgrading. The Urban Library session will present both the method and the results of this work, showing how innovation processes can support housing development beyond traditional planning and consultation models. The Shining Microdistrict experience is used as a concrete example of how participatory innovation can inform housing-related decisions and strengthen community ownership. The session is further enriched by perspectives from partners and practitioners from Belgium, Estonia and Japan, enabling comparison across different planning cultures and governance contexts. As an Urban Library event, Urban Laboratory for Innovation and Dialogue (Mad City Baltics) supports the WUF13 theme “Housing the world: Safe and resilient cities and communities” by demonstrating how better housing outcomes emerge through collaboration, experimentation and shared ownership of urban change.