Abstract
Living Lab (LL) is a design approach to create technologies and/or services through long-term citizens involvement and experiments in real-life environments. LL has the “openness” of the design process, since citizens are involved as “design partners” in its process. LL has been attracting much attention globally in recent years; projects in various fields, for example, urban design, healthcare, and ICT, are being actively implemented in various cities and regions. However, the theorization and systematization of knowledge on LL have not been sufficiently carried out. In fact, research on LL is often presented dispersedly in conferences and journals in various fields; this situation makes it very difficult to grasp the latest trends and overview of LL research arena. In this study, we first summarize the concept of LL. We then conduct a literature survey on LL research published in the last five years to clarify the latest trends in LL research. Based on the results of the literature survey, we present a concept of “building an infrastructure to support LL practices” as a future direction of LL research, and discuss some specific research themes.
