Emergence, Complexity, Design, Planning, Control – Approaching issues of emergence in urban sustainable development through the lens of qualitative complexity

What space and role is there for emergence in culturally sensitive, creativity-oriented initiatives for sustainability? As part of an ongoing research project on ‘The City as Space of Possibility’ (www.leuphana. de/sam) carried out in the German city of Hannover, we are following a number of urban actors who are developing various creativity and arts- based engagements for more sustainability in their city. We observe a commonly occurring tension in these projects, groups and approaches oriented towards sustainable development: A tension between on the one hand, an imaginary of planning and control for an engineered ‘bet- ter’ future, and on the other hand, an imaginary of emergence and of the qualitative complexity of possible desirable futures. At the crossroads of those two orientations, and caught in a specific way in this tension, is the practice of design. This paper will focus on the case of a ‘design thinking’ workshop format implemented in Hannover (a so-called ‘sustainability jam’, interrogating the qualities and limits of the observed practices under the aspects of ‘Emergence, Complex- ity, Design, Planning, and Control’. Furthermore, beyond the observed practices, and involving other practices (in the research field in Han- nover and elsewhere) related to arts-based methods, potential interven- tion-approaches aiming to modify the existing balance of Planning & Control vs. Emergence & Complexity, will be presented and pondered upon. The discussed tensions will be further reflected through the lens of qualitative complexity (after Edgar Morin).