Teaching urban facility management, global citizenship and livability

This paper aims to explain the influence of facility design on urban quality of life from an educational perspective. The outcome of this paper is to determine the influence of facility management (FM) on the quality of life of citizens in the city of The Hague by actively using a facility design to positively influence the livability.

This current explorative study is a mix-method approach of qualitative and quantitative applied research based on observations, shadowing, interviewing, questionnaires, document analyzes, desk research including analyzing audio and video material. This applied research framework is based on the cycle for practice-oriented research and innovation by van der Donk and van Lanen (2016).

More than 2,000 bachelor FM students over the past 15 years have been dispatched into the city to conduct small-scale, applied research on urban facility management (UFM). It provided data on changing neighborhoods resulting in numerous small-scale improvements. Besides, a better understanding of UFM, it contributed to a better awareness on global citizenship.

Besides a better understanding of UFM to improve livability in neighborhoods, it also contributed into a better awareness in teaching global citizenship.

This long-running study supports the upcoming field of UFM and the debate how FM should be made explicit in the neighborhood.