An incremental approach to service co-production: unfolding the co-evolution of the built environment and water and sanitation infrastructures

ABSTRACT

The literature is increasingly approaching the participation of households in the delivery of urban services through the lens of co-production. However, there has been no in-depth exploration of the relationship between incremental changes in the urban fabric (urban typologies and morphologies) and the forms of adaptations of co-produced water and sanitation services (WSS). The paper draws on three planned neighbourhoods in Hanoi to examine these incremental changes by considering the transformation of the neighbourhood at different scales and the consequent evolution of the sociotechnical arrangements for the delivery of water and sanitation services.

By exploring forms of reconfiguration of the built environment and embedded water infrastructures, the paper outlines the possibility of an alternate reading of service co-production initiatives as incremental spatial practices, with an emphasis on the role of technology in allowing transformation processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Water and sanitation services
• co-production
• urban transformation
• incremental infrastructures
• Hanoi

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by FNRS grant T.0174.16, in the framework of the PRD project Typologies of Institutionalised Coproduction of Water and Sanitation Services in the Urban South (TYCO-WSS).

Notes on contributors

Federica Natalia Rosati

Federica Natalia Rosati is PhD candidate at the University of Liège and at the Université libre de Bruxelles. She holds a Master in Architecture from the University of Ferrara and a Master in International Cooperation from the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI). Her PhD is dedicated to the co-production of water and sanitation services in the global South, with a specific focus on the cases of Hanoi and Cochabamba.

Address: e-mail: [email protected]

Luisa Moretto

Luisa Moretto is a professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the Université libre de Bruxelles, and holds a PhD in analysis and governance of sustainable development (University of Venice). She has worked with international organizations in the fields of decentralized governance (Oslo Governance Centre-UNDP) and sustainable urban rehabilitation processes (Inter-American Development Bank). She was the coordinator of N-AERUS (Network-Association of European Researchers on Urbanization in the South).

Address: Université libre de Bruxelles – Architecture, 19, place Flagey, Brussels 1050, Belgium; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

Jacques Teller

Jacques Teller is a professor of urban planning at the University of Liège, where he is leading the Local Environment Management and Analysis (LEMA) research group. His PhD thesis was dedicated to the modelling and management of urban form. He is presently a member of the Scientific Council of IRSTV and Efficacity Research Institutes in France.

Address: e-mail: [email protected]