Synthetic Planning - Digital Mediatisation of Collaborative Communication Work and Changes in Planning Knowledge

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Hannes Krämer, since 10/2024
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; City Planning, Spatial Planning, Transportation and Infrastructure Planning, Landscape Planning
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 468938518

The project "Synthetic Planning – Digital Mediatisation of Collaborative Communication Work and Changes in Planning Knowledge" applies a comparative research design to investigate how the digital mediatisation of urban and infrastructure planning processes affects the professional knowledge and collaborative work processes of architects, engineers and planners. Firstly, the effects on the professional requirements and consequently on professional planning knowledge are examined in order to clarify which challenges result for the practical planning activities. Secondly, it will be investigated which new forms of communication work and collaborative planning activities arise through the digital mediatisation of planning and how the communicative actions of heterogeneous project groups of planning professions are situated and coordinated materially, spatially and temporally. And thirdly, the question is posed of how new socio-technical constellations and the work with “digital objects” objectify and stabilise knowledge and data locally and at distance. From a sociological perspective of knowledge and interaction, these questions are examined using the example of collaborative planning with Building Information Modelling (BIM). BIM as a research object stands prototypically for the digitalisation of planning and aims at the processual and project-based collaboration of heterogeneous planning professions on a digital model. The qualitative research design follows the methodological premises of focused ethnography and workplace studies. In addition to participant observation, ethnographic and semi-structures expert interviews and the visual analysis of artefacts, video data will be collected and analysed using ethnomethodological video-interaction analysis. Furthermore, mapping methods are applied to visually reconstruct the context and the synthesis of the various actors, things, places and times in the planning trajectory.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr. Ajit Jacob Singh, until 9/2024