Streets as Laboratories: Test Before You Build

Test ideas in real streets, not just on paper. Cities can prototype the future before locking it in. Street experiments, living labs, and temporary pilots are ways for cities to learn quickly, reduce risk, and involve people directly in shaping change.

Small experiments, big impact

From pop-up bike lanes to neighbourhood-scale transformations, experimenting in real streets generates knowledge that planning on paper cannot provide.

Examples in Europe include: Living Streets in Ghent, Piazze Aperte in Milan, Coronapistes in Paris, Barcelona’s Superblocks, and the European Network of Living Labs.

Together, these approaches show how temporary interventions can inform long-term, scalable urban transformation.

Key Ideas You Can Use

• Testing temporary or reversible street interventions

• Using living labs for co-creation and evaluation

• Learning from real-world use of space

• Scaling successful pilots into long-term solutions.

Explore the Takeaways

Explore these key ideas and practices in a short visual guide available for download.

For more examples and practical approaches, download the full Actionable Framework for street justice. The report is part of the Justice Toolkit developed by our research partners: University of Westminster, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Universidade do Porto, Fondazione LINKS, and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.