Relational Planning

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Introduction: An Invitation to Inquire the Relations Inside Planning

      • Marko Marskamp, Julio Paulos, Monika Kurath, Jean Ruegg

      Pages 3-26

3. Identifying Planning Artefacts

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 27-27

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   2. Analysing Urban Government at a Distance: With and Beyond Actor-Network Theory

      • Ola Söderström

      Pages 29-50

   3. Artefacts, the Gaze and Sensory Experience: Mediating Local Environments in the Planning Regulation of Major Renewable Energy Infrastructure in England and Wales

      • Yvonne Rydin, Lucy Natarajan, Maria Lee, Simon Lock

      Pages 51-74

   4. Politics of Zoning: Plans, Procedures and Publics in Land-Use Change

      • Marko Marskamp

      Pages 75-96

4. Distributing Planning Agency

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 97-97

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   2. Can the Craft of Planning Be Ecologized? (And Why the Answer to That Question Doesn’t Include ‘Ecosystem Services’)

      • Jonathan Metzger

      Pages 99-120

   3. Constructing the Urban Citizen: How Public Knowledge Is Translated into Urban Planning Processes

      • Monika Kurath

      Pages 121-149

   4. Tracing the Democratic Deficit: An Actor-Network Theory Approach to an Urban Governance Network in Madrid

      • Guillén Hiram Torres Sepúlveda

      Pages 151-177

   5. Master Plans as Cosmograms: Articulating Oceanic Forces and Urban Forms After the 2010 Earthquake and Tsunami in Chile

      • Ignacio Farías

      Pages 179-202

5. Assembling Planning Practices

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 203-203

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   2. Re-Assembling a City: Applying SCOT to Post-Disaster Urban Change

      • Anique Hommels

      Pages 205-227

   3. Performing Urbanity: An Inquiry into the Modes of Knowing the City

      • Julio Paulos

      Pages 229-257

   4. Planning Ecologies : Issue Publics and the Reassembling of Urban Green Trajectories

      • Anders Blok

      Pages 259-282

   5. Saving Schools: Vacancy, Ruin, and Adaptive Reuse in Detroit

      • James Macmillen, Trevor Pinch

      Pages 283-314

6. Afterword

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 315-315

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   2. Afterword: Planning and the Non-modern City

      • Andrew Karvonen

      Pages 317-325

7. Back Matter

   Pages 327-337

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This volume introduces the notion of ‘relational planning’ through a collection of theoretical and empirical contributions that explore the making of heterogeneous associations in the planning practice. The analytical concept builds on recent approaches to complexity and materiality in planning theory by drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS) of urban issues. It frames planning as a socio-material practice taking place within the multifaceted relations between artefacts, agency and practices. By way of this triad, spatial planning is not studied as a given, linear or technical process but rather problematized as a hybrid, distributed and situational practice. The inquiries in this collection thus describe how planning practices are negotiated and enacted in and beyond formal arenas and procedures of planning, and so make visible the many sites, actors and means of spatial planning.


Addressing planning topics such as ecology, preservation, participation, rebuilding and zoning, this volume takes into account the uncertain world planning is embedded in. The implications of such a perspective are considered in light of how planning is performed and how it contributes to the emergence of specific socio-material forms and interactions. This is an invaluable read for all scholars of STS, Ecology, Architecture and Urban Planning.

• STS
• Urban Planning
• Planning Theory
• Built Environment
• Architecture and Society
• Zoning Policy
• adaptive reuse
• actor-network theory (ANT)
• Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs)

• ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

  Monika Kurath, Marko Marskamp, Julio Paulos

• University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

  Jean Ruegg

Monika Kurath is a senior researcher and group leader at the Center for Research on Architecture, Society and the Built Environment (CASE) at ETH Zurich, Switzerland.


Marko Marskamp is a PhD researcher and research assistant at the University of Lausanne and the ETH Zurich, Switzerland.


Julio Paulos is a PhD Candidate at the ETH CASE Centre on Society, Architecture and the Built Environment in Zurich, Switzerland. He is an assistant researcher on the project 'Rethinking Zones: A comparative study of planning cultures'.


Jean Ruegg is a professor of Human Geography at the University of Lausanne, Faculty of Geosciences and the Environment, Institute of Geography and Sustainability, Switzerland.

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