Balancing interests, development of a mediation strategy for the spatial planner and designer operating as a mediator in collaborative interest based urban development processes

The role of the Spatial Planner and Designer (SPD) is changing due to changes in the communication among stakeholders of urban development. Increasingly the design is used to communicate conflicting interests among stakeholders which means that the traditional role of the SPD as a ranslator of a program of requirements is shifting towards the role of a facilitator of communication. This means that the design is becoming interest based, with a direct participation of stakeholders. In order to achieve a balanced design where no interest has become too dominant the SPD has to evaluate the interests and weigh them. This leads to the SPD becoming a mediator among the stakeholders in the process of urban development. The problem with this development is that the SPD is not trained to operate as a mediator which is why this research focuses on the development of a Mediation Strategy which provides the SPD with a theoretical background as well as a practice based methodology to function as a mediator.Spatial Planning and DesignUrbanismArchitectur