Academia and industry increasingly recognise the need for multifunctional urban spaces. But how do we meet this need? Emerging responses point to the promise of transdisciplinarity. We critically reflect on this claim by analysing the role of transdisciplinary practice in the successful conversion of a Sydney laneway into a multifunctional urban space. We trace the co-existence of different disciplinary practices throughout the project stages, to better understand how much transdisciplinarity contributed to its success. A tentative explanatory framework emerges from our analysis and is offered to map the enabling conditions, disciplinary dynamics and strategies that allowed this laneway’s transformation into a multifunctional space. Enabling conditions were the municipality had institutionalised a concern for the environment; an organisational change programme ensured the project’s independence from the capital budget; and an environmentally aware community group played a core role. The disciplinary dynamics observed were diverse. Planning and design were transdisciplinary, but implementation and maintenance were not. Finally, practitioners used various strategies to bring actors together: they understood the political nature of the organisation; they recognised the different types of actors involved in the project, and then used appropriate language to communicate ideas and to manage risks and expectations.

学术界和工业界越来越意识到对多功能城市空间的需求。但是，我们如何满足这一需求？新兴的回应指向了跨学科的承诺。我们通过分析跨学科实践在成功将悉尼车道转换为多功能城市空间中的作用来批判性地反思这一主张。我们在整个项目阶段跟踪不同学科实践的共存，以更好地了解跨学科对成功的贡献。我们的分析提出了一个试探性的解释性框架，该框架旨在绘制使该巷道转变为多功能空间的有利条件，学科动态和策略。启用条件市政当局是否已将对环境的关注制度化；组织变革计划确保了项目与资本预算的独立性；环保型社区团体发挥了核心作用。观察到的学科动态是多种多样的。规划和设计是跨学科的，但实施和维护却不是。最后，从业人员使用各种策略将参与者聚集在一起：他们了解组织的政治性质；他们认识到项目中涉及的不同类型的参与者，然后使用适当的语言来交流思想并管理风险和期望。