DThe OP-OD method is particularly suitable for medium-sized planning tasks in structural engineering, urban planning, and open space planning. The development of the method is based on the experiences made by a cooperative, the Genossenschaft Kooperative Großstadt eG (LINK), with a number of projects in the field of cooperative, experimental housing construction. Cooperative construction is an obvious field of application for the method owing to the immediate availability of the concrete user perspective well before the planning starts and to actual experiences with participation processes. The method’s transferability to players in another field, rental housing, is just as obvious. A concrete but fictitious example can be found under Real Fictions. The application of the OP-OD method to a construction project by a municipal housing association is demonstrated by way of example.
In principle, the use of the method beyond housing construction is conceivable and desirable. First of all, public construction tasks in the education, leisure, and cultural sectors might be mentioned. Likewise, OP-OD is suitable for special construction tasks at the interface between urban or district-specific questions and concrete structural engineering tasks. Thereby, the multitude of actors and often conflicting interests in this area can be brought together within a concrete planning process, and a directly implementable solution can be developed. For example, meeting places and buildings in the wake of new transport schemes would be conceivable here.
In addition, it is hoped that a method such as OP-OD might be particularly suitable for construction measures within the existing stock and might be relevant even from a very minimal depth of structural intervention. This could already begin with the repurposing of buildings or rooms, or the negotiation of new or newly shared uses and the structural measures flowing from these. We assume that the specific dynamics of the OP-OD method and the opportunities it offers for parallel readjustment of a task will be beneficial precisely for this purpose — especially compared to classic competition procedures. In addition, an OP-OD process requires significantly fewer precommitments than a competition procedure, where the competition entry is, at the same time, a binding tender for a later planning commission. In a process using the OP-OD method, on the other hand, all participants can shape the updating of the task descriptions through their contributions and ideas. In addition, all technical and specialist perspectives are already represented during this process. This can lead to higher efficiency, as well as to a more precise and, thus, more sustainable planning concept for the existing building stock.
In addition, all technical and factual perspectives are already represented in this process. This can lead to greater efficiency, but also to a more customised and therefore more sustainable planning concept for the existing building stock. This assertion needs to be evaluated in further steps of method adaptation.
