Trygge byer / Floke - A system project for making cities safer
Trygge Byer is a cross-sector innovation initiative aimed at rethinking how urban environments can feel safer, more inclusive, and sustainable by grounding design in lived experience and collaborative insight. The project explored the systemic nature of urban safety — combining research, participatory mapping, and concept development to shape a new approach to public space and community wellbeing in Oslo and beyond. Trygge byer+1
As one of two designers on the project, I led the creation of workshop materials, facilitated stakeholder co-creation sessions, and synthesized research into actionable insights and concepts. I also designed and built the project website to share findings, tools, and concepts with a wider audience — helping bridge complex systems thinking with practical, engaging digital delivery.
Check out the website of the project here: tryggebyer.no
Project by: Mads Bruun Høy, Svein Gunnar Kjøde, Bente Ødegård, Jacob Pettersen
Project length: 12 months
Where: Æra Strategic Innovation
When: 2024-2025
The actors and stakeholders
The project brought together a diverse mix of actors across public, private, and community sectors, including municipal services, local organizations, residents, and subject-matter experts. This cross-sector setup was essential to understanding urban safety as a shared, systemic responsibility, rather than a single-actor challenge.
By working closely with those directly involved in and affected by the places studied, the project grounded insights and concepts in real constraints, lived experience, and everyday practice.
The process
The project followed an iterative, participatory design process combining research, co-creation, and synthesis. We started by gathering qualitative insights through interviews, workshops, and field mapping with residents, public actors, and local organizations.
These insights were structured into themes and opportunity areas, which informed the development of worksheets, shared frameworks, and early concepts used to test ideas collaboratively with stakeholders. The process moved back and forth between exploration and refinement, ensuring that concepts remained grounded in real experiences and system constraints.
The outcomes — insights, concepts, and tools — were consolidated and communicated through a public-facing website, making the work accessible, transparent, and reusable beyond the project itself.
My role
I was one of two designers on the project, working across research, facilitation, synthesis, and delivery. I designed worksheets and tools to support workshops, co-facilitated and hosted sessions with diverse stakeholders, and translated qualitative input into clear insights and concepts. I was also responsible for designing and building the project website, ensuring that the outcomes were accessible, structured, and easy to engage with.
The Workshops
The project was built around a series of co-creative workshops with public actors, local organizations, and community representatives. Using custom-designed worksheets and visual tools, we worked together to map experiences, challenges, and relationships across the system.
Participants collaboratively drew system maps, explored cause-and-effect dynamics, and developed early concepts in real time — making complexity visible and shared. The workshop formats encouraged dialogue, iteration, and collective ownership, ensuring that concepts emerged from the actors themselves rather than being designed in isolation.
The products
The project resulted in a set of shared insights, system maps, and concept directions addressing urban safety from a holistic perspective. Key outputs included co-created concepts, practical tools and worksheets, and clear opportunity areas to support further development and implementation.
All outcomes were consolidated into a public-facing website, making the results accessible and reusable for municipalities, organizations, and practitioners working with urban safety and place-based development.