Pluchinotta and colleagues treat urban natural space as a knowledge problem before treating it as a design problem. In Thamesmead, participatory system dynamics modelling brings stakeholders together to identify variables, causal relations, feedback loops and possible interventions affecting the use of natural space. The model combines tangible conditions such as maintenance and accessibility with less easily quantified variables such as safety perception, awareness and participation. Its distinctive operation is the formalisation of plural knowledge without pretending that every relation is already empirically settled. Workshops and simulation generate social learning, expose assumptions and create “knowledge objects” that can circulate among actors. The paper’s wider significance lies in reframing modelling as an epistemic commons rather than an expert prediction machine. It connects urban systems research, co-production, governance and design by showing that a model can become a negotiated interface through which different understandings of the city are made explicit, tested and potentially transformed.
