Jonathan Feddersen
Collaborative Innovation Processes at BLOXHUB
The Temporal Emergence of Social Relations: An event-based perspective of organizing
Danish Architecture Center and Copenhagen Business School (CBS)
2017-2021
In a nutshell, what was the topic of your PhD project?
My doctoral research examined how diverse actors engage in collaborative innovation processes to develop sustainable solutions. Empirically, I investigated BLOXHUB’s Match & Create program, a series of collaborative innovation sessions, each gathering 10-15 representatives of different organizations across the private, public, and non-profit sector to develop solutions to a particular sustainable urban development problem (e.g. integrating anti-terror architecture into the urban fabric, developing a one-stop shopping solution for green backyards or envisioning the recycling station of the future).
What surprised you most about the process?
The role that the physical BLOX building attained in my study surprised me. Halfway through my research, in mid-2018, the BLOX building was inaugurated. In the months before, I began to realize the importance of the physical building in facilitating the collaborative processes I was studying. Therefore, I conducted a historical case study of the building, investigating how BLOX became not only an architectural landmark, but also a landmark for sustainable urban development. The building’s patient materiality served as a projection screen for diverse stakeholders and their future ambitions, committing them to collaboration around sustainable urban development.
What is the most important thing, writing a PhD has taught you?
The Industrial PhD taught me to follow unfolding processes in the world of practice, simultaneously with developing abstract analyses and theories based on these observations in the academic realm. Making my results relevant for practitioners again, in turn, took more time and energy than I had anticipated. In my current research, I listen even more closely to the challenges and questions raised by practitioners.
What impact has your PhD project had on you, personally?
Firstly, the affiliation with DAC provided me with excellent empirical access to the opening phase of the BLOX building, as well as to the BLOXHUB Match & Create sessions. Secondly, the Industrial PhD was a stepping-stone to pursuing an academic career. My doctoral research won the 2019 Andreas Al-Laham Best Paper Award and was a finalist for the 2022 Grigor McClelland Doctoral Dissertation Award. DAC provided me with the freedom to conduct cutting-edge research in an inspiring (empirical) environment, which formed the basis for these achievements.
What was the key learning of your project?
My research revealed the temporal suspension of collaborative innovation processes between past and future. Collaborators are working towards an undefined future, while trying to distance themselves from their past. At the same time, experiences made in the past and emerging projections of the future are the only materials at hand from which collaborators may develop innovative solutions. My analysis showed how collaborators in the present drew connections between the reinterpreted past and the imagined future to overcome their temporal suspension. For instance, they searched their respective pasts for knowledge and experiences that could help them move towards the future they envisioned. Conversely, existing knowledge and competencies framed the kind of innovations they imagined. Based on these observations I developed a model of ‘temporal abduction’ that explains how actors configure a shared, collaborative trajectory.
What makes your research relevant?
Collaboration of diverse actors from the private, public, and non-profit sectors is crucial for the development of urgently needed (urban) sustainable solutions. My research reveals how the challenge of such collaborative innovation processes is temporal, and how to sustain successful collaboration by facilitating connections between past and future.
What are the perspectives for your research?
While my results indicate the potential role of material buildings and collaborative innovation sessions, each of these may also have adverse effects. The ‘patience’ of material buildings may create tensions as actors find it hard to collaborate around their contradictory future projections. Likewise, while collaborative innovation sessions potentially enable rapid testing of different ways of connecting past and future, these connections may prove premature, and thus may not endure over time.