Value Sensitive Design and the creative smart city

Abstract

Current smart city projects exploit Big Data analytics and IoT devices to create efficient and sustainable urban environments. However, these technologies are also powerful instruments of surveillance and control, which are deployed in accordance with existing power relations. In this context, citizens’ privacy and freedom end up being threatened. An alternative kind of smart city, based on the values of privacy and creativity, is envisioned in this thesis. By having their privacy protected, citizens can limit the influence that power has on their behaviour; by developing their creativity, they might become able to conceive different forms of life than those imposed by power. Value Sensitive Design, a common method in the field of ethics of technology, is the approach chosen to realise this alternative kind of smart city. In particular, this method is here used to incorporate the values of privacy and creativity into the design of a smart bridge. The aim of this thesis is to prove the effectiveness and show the limits of Value Sensitive Design, with regard to its application to a smart infrastructure. Its incapacity to effectively deal with existing power relations proves to be one of its most important limits, while the presence of resistant, critical subjects is needed to question the power relations underlying any design work.