Lausanne Lab: AI is used as a participatory tool to accelerate car-free futures for Lausanne residents.

What’s this project all about?

Lausanne is considering removing cars from its urban area to reduce their carbon emissions. The accelerating climate crises demands that organizations and individuals co-design sustainable futures together. 

The “Lausanne Lab” is a workshop format that enables individuals and organizations to engage, explore and co-ideate potential car-free futures for their city.

AI helps visualize strategies with boundary objects that serve as starting points for debate. In this participatory process, generative AI creates visualizations of speculative design scenarios. 

Workshop participants use the AI model to generate images based on a prompt. Designers serve as curators to help non-designers achieve their vision. Using AI as a creative director helps non-designers produce engaging and understandable visions faster. 

Using AI and boundary objects is cost-effective and easy to set up, making it an innovative and manageable approach for the local government.

Who’s the service designer behind this project?

Gloria Ntawuruhunga gratued from the Master Service of the HSLU in 2023.