Towards a dialogue between the urban project process and the Urban Living Lab approach: Application to the Innovation Campus project of the Communauté de Communes du Bassin de Pompey in France

This article explores the persistent challenges associated with public urban project ownership, including tensions arising from insufficient user integration and multi-stakeholder coordination. As territorial challenges intensify, traditional mechanisms struggle to effectively transform practices. Urban laboratories, such as the Urban Living Lab (ULL), offer innovative processes tailored to meet the unique needs of each urban context. This study presents the outcomes of a case study investigating the ULL's contributions to public project ownership. The findings demonstrate that the ULL approach facilitates early-stage stakeholder engagement, thereby reducing uncertainties and enhancing adaptability. This results in greater agility and resilience of projects, particularly amid evolving territorial public actions and disruptions. The ULL methodology, which encourages continuous collaboration, effectively addresses traditional constraints in the urban project process. It also fosters new stakeholder relationships within the ecosystem, leading to a cohesive community interconnected by the project even before its realization. These results underscore the potential of the ULL approach to significantly improve urban project practices by promoting ongoing stakeholder dialogue throughout all project stages.