Co-design workshops for cultural landscape planning

Abstract In the last twenty years, citizen participation has become a formal requirement in landscape and heritage planning all over Europe. The European Landscape Convention (2000), in particular, encourages public participation in defining landscape heritage values and identifying strategies for its protection, management and planning. However, despite the development of various participatory methods, citizen participation in landscape planning remains rarely applied in practice. With an empirical case study, the research presented in this article tries to bridge the gap between theory and practice, evaluating a methodology in which citizens, stakeholders, planners, and heritage experts are invited to co-design a spatial strategy for local cultural landscape valorisation.

The medium and venue of participation are key determinants for who participates and who is empowered (Fung, 2006;Chambers, 2006).Geo-design methods and other map-based tools have taken off in the last two decades, as these tools and methods are particularly well-suited for overcoming limitations commonly found in other participatory activities (Steinitz, 2012;Chambers, 2006;McCall, 2021).Digital map-based tools with simple, user-friendly interfaces have proven their worth as an effective means of communication and have been shown to foster the exchange of ideas between laypersons and professionals (Gottwald et al., 2021;Opmeer et al., 2019).The settings of these tools can be configured to help prevent power relationships from influencing and intimidating participants during the participatory activities, e.g. by allowing all participants to provide input anonymously.Furthermore, digital maps can be used as a common language between different stakeholder groups or knowledge systems, translating knowledge, concepts and ideas into spatial information (Gottwald et al., 2020;Gottwald et al., 2021).
Despite these methodological advances, citizen participation in defining landscape heritage values and identifying strategies for its protection, management and planning as promoted by the ELC remains rarely applied in practice (Jones & Stenseke, 2011;Conrad et al., 2011).This is partly due to the difficulties faced by local and supra-local planning offices in managing the above-mentioned limitations of participatory processes, alongside other contributing factors such as a lack of resources, time and personnel.In response to these difficulties, this study proposes a methodology that facilitates integrating ELC principles into the planning practice, suggesting the use of co-design participatory methods with digital map-based tools to help translate citizen input into a planning strategy.

A three-step approach: combining instrumental and deliberative approaches
There are two kinds of approaches for assessing social values: instrumental and deliberative.Instrumental approaches (Raymond et al., 2014), such as Public Participation GIS (PPGIS), can be used to create a spatial representation of social values.PPGIS has been used, amongst others, for the assessment of sense of place (Gottwald et al., 2021), landscape values (Garcia-Martin et al., 2017), and perceived environmental quality (Kytt€ a et al., 2016).Such values, assessed through an instrumental approach, can be used in planning as they provide place-based information for knowledge-informed planning (Gottwald et al., 2020).
Geo-design workshops are an example of a deliberative approach and offer the ability to both spatially assess sense of place and integrate the information assessed through the instrumental approach without sacrificing spatial references.Geo-design is a planning-support process and can be defined as 'a design and planning method which tightly couples the creation of design proposals with impact simulations informed by geographic contexts, systems thinking and digital technology' (Steinitz, 2012;p. 12).Geo-design makes it possible to map or sketch ideas and opinions onto a geographic map (Alexander et al., 2012;Janssen & Dias, 2017) and thus translate them into specific spatial information.
The study presented in this article seeks to combine PPGIS methods (instrumental approach) with geo-design (deliberative approach) based on the conviction that such a combination has great potential because both approaches are based on geo-referenced maps and assume the prevalent importance of place-based values (Wissen Hayek et al., 2016).
Following on from the above, this article proposes a three-step participative co-design approach in which map-based tools are used to develop design proposals through the combination of a PPGIS questionnaire and four co-design workshops.To this end, a case study area was chosen (the Brindisi plain, in south Italy), and the local community was invited to participate in different phases of the landscape planning process, including the idea-gathering and design phases.This approach opposes the dominance of expert knowledge and proposes a methodology in which the visions of citizens and experts alike are represented, valued and integrated.For this purpose, the community was involved in defining local cultural landscape elements and identifying spatial strategies for the valorisation of these elements.The three-step approach consists of an inventory (1), design (2) and integration (3) phase, which follow one another and each build on the results of the previous phase (Figure 1).
The case study revolved around developing a cultural landscape valorisation strategy based on slow tourism, taking into account ongoing projects and transformations in the area.The first step was to inventory what local communities perceive as heritage elements in the landscape and consider possible landscape transformations, which was done through a questionnaire open to the entire community.A PPGIS application called Maptionnaire was used to map and evaluate the local heritage values and possible landscape transformations by asking participants questions based on maps and images.With this inventory, the aim was especially to map not only official heritage, designated as such by the authorities, but also to include unofficial heritage, i.e. heritage as perceived by the local community (Ducci et al., 2023).
Starting from the inventory results, the second step consisted of two co-design workshops involving citizens and representatives of small private associations.In this phase, citizens were asked to design possible strategies for enhancing the local cultural landscape, particularly by focussing on the development of slow tourism in the area.An online GIS application was designed especially for these workshops using the ArcGIS App Builder, which allowed participants to draw their input on the map.
As a third step, representatives of institutions and associations were involved in integrating their perspectives and knowledge in two further co-design workshops.For ease of reference, in the remainder of this article, we will refer to the first workshop group as 'citizens' and the second as 'experts'.
Citizens and experts were divided into separate groups and different days and phases to allow citizens to express their design ideas freely, without being influenced or 'awe' by power relationships or by the knowledge and professional experience of the other group, while still integrating the input of both groups into the overall project.The integration of the input of both groups was also safeguarded by having the questionnaire results served as the starting point for the citizens' workshops on the first two days, which in turn served as input for the experts' workshops.While the questionnaire is described in detail in Ducci et al. (2023), the present article deals primarily with the co-design workshops.By analysing the results of our empirical case study, we will answer the following question: Can co-design participatory methods based on digital map-based tools facilitate the integration of the European Landscape Convention principles into the planning practice and help translate community input into a planning strategy?This question, in turn, prompts the subsequent questions: Can co-design workshops effectively integrate citizens' inputs and experts' knowledge to define a spatial planning strategy base on cultural landscape valorisation?Can citizens contribute to the different phases of the design of spatial planning and strategies?Do the workshops demonstrate that different perspectives exist between citizens and experts?How did the local community, experts and stakeholders perceive the workshops and the results obtained?Did the different types of engagement tools use affected the results?If so, how did the results differ?
The case study: the Brindisi plain in the Apulia region (Italy) The collaborative process presented in this article was implemented in a case study area in the Apulia region, in south Italy (Figure 2).The area spans 773 km 2 , stretching out along the final section of the Via Appia Antica, a route that retraces the ancient Roman artery connecting Rome to Brindisi.The area is home to five municipalities, with populations of between 15 000 and 80 000 inhabitants: Brindisi, Mesagne, Latiano, Oria and Francavilla Fontana.They are united by a strong territorial identity as part of the Brindisi plain.The area is rich in listed cultural and natural heritage and is an example of what could be called a 'cultural landscape' (UNESCO, 2020;Droste von et al., 1995).It is representative of the agricultural traditions, social organisation and land management methods typical of the Apulia region.Yet, the Apulia Regional Landscape Plan does not identify this area as a landscape of particular value (Regione Puglia, 2015).As a result, the landscape of the Brindisi plain has been subjected to major transformations, such as renewable energy development, land-use change and urbanisation.
This area was chosen for our case study because of its territorial unity and the presence of a rich but undervalued cultural landscape, which makes it suitable for exploring new planning strategies.In addition, it was also selected because of the long and trusting relationship already established with the local community by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, which has been collaborating with local associations and institutions in the field of cultural heritage management for many years already (Opmeer et al., 2019;Burgers et al., 2023). 1 This established relationship facilitated the engagement of the local community in participatory activities.
Once the study area was defined, a survey of the existing planning strategies was performed, and preliminary fieldwork was done to engage the local community and representatives with the project.As part of one of the main existing strategies for the territory, the national government has embarked on a project to valorise the ancient Via Appia Road as a UNESCO World Heritage site, which is set to be linked to a national walking route (Ministero della Cultura, 2022).This project aligns with regional strategies, which aim to enhance slow mobility and sustainable tourism.These strategies constitute the point of departure for the present study, while the scope of the workshops presented in this article was the co-design of a slow tourism strategy based on cultural landscape valorisation.

Prelude to the workshops
As a prelude to the workshops, the results of the questionnaire (inventory phase) and the setting of the workshops are presented in this section.In the following section, the focus will be on the results of the workshops and the evaluation of the design and integration phases.

Inventory: the online map-based questionnaire
The objective of the first step of the three-step approach was to inventory landscape elements perceived as heritage by locals and collect useful information from the community to design a slow tourism heritage valorisation strategy.This information consisted, among other things, of the main landscape issues, acceptable landscape transformations, the integration of renewable energy and the implementation of services.
The inventory was made through a questionnaire open to the entire community.The application used for the questionnaire design (Maptionnaire) is an online PPGIS application with a simple and intuitive interface that allows even those unfamiliar with maps to participate, making participation engaging and effective.Participants could fill in the questionnaire on their smartphones, tablets or computers.The questionnaire was disseminated through the social media of local groups and institutions, but also e-mails, press releases, and word of mouth.
Map-based questions were used to inventory participants' heritage perceptions.Participants were first asked to map their places of the heart, which included any place they value.Then, to map some official heritage categories, such as archaeological sites, natural sites, panoramas, landmarks, monuments, rural buildings and farms.Finally, to map sites associated with economic and social heritage, such as local companies or productions, associations or institutions and hospitality structures that promote and enhance local traditions and culture.Other questions focussed on collecting useful information for designing a slow tourism heritage valorisation strategy, such as indicating walking or cycling trails, landscape treats, and preferences for land-use transformation, renewable energy integration and service implementation.
The map below (Figure 3) shows the results of the Maptionnaire survey.Respondents mapped 233 places of the heart representing sites such as traditional farms and production sites, viewpoints and entire landscape portions.They also identified 197 heritage sites.Of these sites, 78 were not recognised as official heritage but were valued by the community.These included several architectural, archaeological and natural sites, as well as several local associations, viewpoints, city districts, landscape roads, and landscape portions.Additionally, over 2770 preferences were expressed regarding favourites trails, possible land-use transformations, ways of integrating renewable energy within the landscape and services that could be integrated by reusing the existing heritage.
All these results were elaborated on and provided as a starting point for the co-design workshops in the form of map layers and infographics.

The workshop settings
Four co-design workshops were held, consisting of two workshops in the design phase with citizens and representatives of small private associations, and two in the integration phase for representatives of territorial bodies and associations.The four workshops were spread over different days, and each took about 3 h.
A GIS application with a simplified interface was created for the co-design workshops using ArcGIS online, which allowed participants to share their ideas by entering input directly on a shared digital map through geo-referenced layers.Participants could provide their input from smartphone, tablet or laptop.For those who did not have a suitable device at their disposal, tablets with an internet connection were available.
Participation in the workshops was voluntary, and each participant was invited to attend only one of the days.The first two days were open to anyone who wished to register.Citizens were enrolled partly through a questionnaire and partly through word of mouth or customised e-mails to individuals and small associations who were encountered during the preparatory fieldwork.For the second two days, representatives of territorial bodies or associations were recruited by invitation, seeking to involve all bodies involved in tourism, planning, mobility, culture and cultural heritage, landscape, economic and sustainable development, and so on.
Figure 4 shows how the workshops were structured: the introduction was followed by three co-design rounds to develop planning strategies for slow tourism development based on cultural landscape valorisation.The objectives of these rounds were: (1) to identify the sites to be included in the plan that are representatives of the local cultural landscape; (2) to identify trails that connect these places or are representatives of the local cultural landscape themselves; and (3) to implement services at the sites and along the trails.Each round started with individual input to ensure all ideas were collected, followed by a shared discussion to combine these ideas.
The citizens' workshops had a maximum of 15-20 participants each day.Tablets or smartphones were used in the individual phases, while a data projector was used for the joint discussion phases.The expert group were planned for a maximum of 10 participants each day.
Participants were asked to bring their own laptops to be used for the individual phases.A large touch table (A0) was used for the joint discussion phases (Figure 5).
A library of map layers was available to be used as a background for the various design steps.These map layers showed the results of the Maptionnaire survey, the heritage sites and routes mapped by the regional authorities, and other spatial information about the area.

Design: citizens' workshops
The design phase consisted of two co-design workshops organised solely for citizens and small (private) associations.The objective was to collect and represent possible spatial strategies to enhance the local cultural landscape, particularly by focussing on the development of slow tourism.Participants were tasked with (1) integrating the questionnaire results, adding missing sites they considered important, (2) suggesting and designing trails, and (3) suggesting services for the development of slow tourism.
In the design phase, we had 23 participants (15 on the first and 8 on the second day), 35% of whom registered through the questionnaire.The participants came from almost all municipalities, except for Brindisi.From a statistical point of view, the participants were quite diverse.The male-female ratio was 6 to 4, with ages ranging from 25 to 65 years old.As for education, 22% of the participants had a professional or high school qualification, 33% had a university degree, and 4% had a doctorate, while the educational background of 29% was unknown.The professional sectors involved were culture, tourism, archaeology, geology, agriculture and livestock farming, hospitality, engineering/architecture, social work, health, industry and education.In addition, 57% of the participants indicated they were actively involved in their local community.
In the first round of the workshops, participants were asked to identify relevant cultural landscape sites and integrate the questionnaire results.Some participants focussed on specific sites, while others indicated larger areas.Several new sites and areas were integrated, and some sites that had already been identified in the questionnaire were reiterated.Among the added sites were various rural buildings and traditional farms, landmarks and monuments, archaeological sites, natural sites, associations and local productions.Especially during the joint discussion phase, citizens mentioned the specchie, 2 some local churches, the Canale Reale river and several specific natural and geological sites.They also discussed the rural landscape and traditional agriculture and repeatedly mentioned the importance of the traditional farmhouses, the so-called masserie, pointing out their value for transmitting traditional techniques and production methods.Two examples are quoted below: In the area north of Latiano, there are several very beautiful masserie, an area where the landscape is one of the most beautiful there can be.Between Francavilla and San Vito, there are many trulli 3 still to be recovered but also well-organised trulli as accommodation facilities.
For me, masserie farms are repositories of cultural products.They tell pieces of the history of a civilisation, which must regain possession of its heritage, which it no longer even knows it has.
In the next rounds of the workshops, citizens were asked to indicate routes for slow mobility, connecting the previously identified sites (2), and then to suggest functions and services to enhance both the places and the routes (3).The overall result is shown in Figure 6.
In the workshops, citizens demonstrated their ability to come up with focussed planning ideas and identified several spatial strategies.Seeing the Via Appia as a thread from which several paths branch out, several suggestions were made: a few of the suggested trails crossed the local rural landscape and connected the traditional masserie, archaeological sites or other heritage sites in the area.A couple of them also connected natural sites or traditional productions to the  In many of the suggestions, citizens also underlined the importance of both urban and rural trails and of interrelating different aspects, such as history, heritage, archaeology, nature, landscape, as well as traditional buildings, agriculture and productions.Furthermore, citizens highlighted the relevance of connecting trails with existing trails and creating a well-organised network of services composed of inter-modality stations (bike rent þ train/bus) and hospitality structures for slow tourists.The masserie and the stations were recognised as key buildings for this development plan, to be remodelled and equipped with new functions.Citizens also highlight the importance of a storytelling and experiential approach to engage more visitors and make them experience the cultural landscape.For instance, a couple of participants commented: I included a city route that connects the Archaeological Park of Muro Tenente to Latiano, starting from the station.This is a discourse that, in general, can be extended to other of our towns, because stations are very important hubs for slow mobility.Being able to connect stations with sites of cultural interest or sites with a landscape value can be a way to enhance the urban area as well [ … ].
[ … ] we could think of masserie as sentinels, info points, places in the territory that can welcome travellers but also explain things, share, show them videos, inform them about the territory, create moments of aggregation, enhance the storytelling dimension.[ … ] Things exist here, there is enormous capital, but the story is missing».In part of the discussion, citizens also examined the problems and transformations of the landscape that may affect slow tourism.For example, they raised concerns regarding the excessive spread of wind turbines and the effects of the so-called Xylella disease, which is slowly destroying the vast olive groves in the area. 4Other concerns included the lack of road signs and the accessibility of heritage sites, as well as the underuse of existing heritage and the problem of involving private owners.In the design phase, the participants took targeted actions to remedy some of these problems, such as including many more signs and suggesting that existing buildings be equipped with new functions.In addition, citizens also repeatedly mentioned which target group they wanted to target with the strategy, such as foreigners, tourists travelling long distances and school trips.
With regard to services (round 3), citizens had clear ideas on the minimum services that slowmobility trails should possess.Apart from bins, benches and water points, citizens included bike rent stations, recreational facilities, intermodal nodes (reusing train stations), and networks of hospitality structures and local productions, highlighting the importance of making connections to food service establishments and shops and tasting establishments for traditional products, especially by reusing traditional buildings.

Integration: experts' workshops
As the third step of our collaborative process, representatives of territorial bodies and associations (both public and private) were involved in two further co-design workshops for experts, which took place after the citizens' workshops.These workshops aimed to integrate experts' perspectives and knowledge with the citizens' suggestions to obtain a joint spatial strategy.The experts were tasked with integrating the citizens' results from the viewpoint (1) of possible relevant sites, (2) trails and (3) services for developing a strategy that enhances the local cultural landscape and aims to develop slow tourism.
In these workshops, participants were recruited by invitation only.The experts' workshops had 22 participants (9 on the third and 13 on the fourth day).In addition to representing the various municipalities, we also looked at representing different spatial scales.For this reason, we also invited representatives of the national Via Appia project, regional authorities (such as the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio and the region's olive-growing office), provincial bodies (such as the Local Action Group, the local section of the National Federation of the Environment and Cycling, and the Canale Reale River Contract) and local bodies (such as ecomuseums, archaeological parks, professional schools, tourism organisations, etc.).In this sense, the participants were homogeneous, with 2-6 participants from each level of scale and municipality.
From a statistical point of view, the experts' workshops were less diverse than the citizens' workshops.The male-female ratio was still 6:4, but the age range was much less homogeneous, with most representatives being between 45 and 55 y/o.The level of education was significantly higher, with 68% of participants having a university degree and 9% having a doctorate, while the educational background of the remaining 23% was unknown.As for the professional sectors involved, we had representatives from the fields of marketing, engineering/architecture, hospitality and tourism, education, archaeology, arts and entertainment and culture.55% of participants mentioned having an active role in their community, either through their work, as a member of an association or as a volunteer.
In the first and second rounds, experts were asked to integrate citizens' input with relevant sites and trails to enhance the cultural landscape.They identified or highlighted additional sites for their historical or landscape relevance, suggesting routes that cross the landscape and connect to official heritage sites, such as churches, archaeological and natural sites, and 'minor' heritage sites, such as cisterns connected to the traditional masserie farmhouses and the specchie.Compared to the citizens, experts focussed much more on built and historical heritage and landscape changes than on traditional productions or local history, inserting, in some cases, personal experiences as areas and routes to be considered.A few examples of this are reported below: I do not know if it has already been included, but on the Via Appia there is a Basilian crypt at S. Croce Inferiore that is important and very interesting.
I included this area on the border with Grottaglie because it represents the only area in the province of Brindisi where there is still a manifestation of the ravine area, a karstic terrain, with a plateau, because then there is the Brindisi plain.So, it serves as a geological boundary whilst also showing what will be [the landscape of] the Appia along almost the entire Apulian route.
From a planning point of view, experts also thought of the Via Appia not as an isolated route, but as a system from which trails should branch out into the territory.Here too, many participants hailed the idea of creating trails that connect different aspects such as the natural, recreational, historical and archaeological, as well as the possibility of using stations as intermodal nodes, and linking up with other existing routes, especially regional ones (such as the tratturi 5 or the Acquedotto Pugliese cycling route).The overall integration of experts' input on top of the citizens' input is shown in Figure 8.
Many of the experts' proposals were linked to other ongoing projects: some suggestions promoted connections with existing projects, such as the recovery of a former railway or the creation of a religious route; others promoted the connection to areas with plans approved by municipalities, such as those along the Canale Reale or Latiano dog park.Instances of this are reported below and shown in Figure 9: I was trying to include this, which already exists, as an area and as a religious route.In the sense that a tourist association that deals with enhancing religious routes has linked the sanctuary of the Madonna del Gancio with the sanctuary of San Cosimo alla Macchia and the sanctuary of Erchie, as a tourist route.
We have identified a series of strongholds along the route of the Canale Reale, e.g. the springs and an area near Francavilla Fontana where the Urban Plan envisages the creation of a park [in Figure 9 in yellow] [ … ] This area in the Mesagne countryside features a remarkable integration between the scattered residences in the countryside and the historical artefacts along the canal, so it is also relevant from the point of view of making it available for leisure use.
In the expert group, slightly more attention was paid to problems and changes in the landscape that could jeopardise the development of tourism.These included landfills in the proximity of valuable landscapes, vandalism to signposts or bike-rental points, the excessive spread of solar panels, areas with an excess of squatter buildings and the safety of walking and cycling routes.However, from a planning perspective, no real proposals were made to curb these problems.
With regard to services (round 3), experts also included a large number of signs, information points and maps, as well as picnic and rest areas, observation points and the reuse of public buildings for new functions.

Evaluation
The map-based questionnaire proved an effective tool for inventorying local heritage perceptions and using them to plan the local cultural landscape (Ducci et al., 2023).It engaged a large group of people and made it possible to collect geo-referenced data that later could be used as a starting point for the design of spatial strategies.
The co-design workshops also proved effective, with all participants showing a high level of involvement.Some, especially the older participants, needed assistance, but thanks to the support staff, the step-by-step instructions provided, and the joint discussion phases, they were able to actively participate and contribute.The atmosphere was generally friendly, relaxed and collaborative, both between participants and with the moderators, and the brainstorming sessions were very productive.
During the workshops, citizens and experts demonstrated similar awareness of the strengths of and threats facing the local cultural landscape.Both groups brought up valuable, concrete projects as well as broader spatial and conceptual strategies.However, citizens' suggestions were perhaps more focussed on the final objective of gathering possible spatial ideas and strategies to enhance the local cultural landscape through the development of slow tourism.On the contrary, experts' contributions focussed more on including existing projects and integrating visions at a broader scale.In the case of the experts, the task of integrating citizens' suggestions was only partially accomplished because they often failed to consider citizens' input and instead made their own suggestions.
For the individual input phases, smartphones turned out to be ineffective because the screen was too small and challenging to use.Tablets and notably laptops were certainly easier for the participants to use.As for the tools used during the joint discussion phases, there was no significant difference between the projector used on the first two days and the touch table used on the last two days in terms of results.Both groups were able to interact, discuss and exchange ideas.The touch table was more engaging than the map projection.In some cases, however, it proved challenging to manage the participants, who could not all use the table simultaneously.
At the end of each workshop, the participants were also asked to evaluate the day's work.The overwhelming majority stated that they were very satisfied with the workshops, giving an overall mark of 9.3/10 for: communication on the part of the organisers (9.7), communication with the other participants (8.8), the tool used for co-design (9.0), the technical support provided (9.1), the clarity of the instructions (9.5) and the topics covered (9.5).In terms of the usefulness and quality of input, participants expressed the greatest appreciation for the areas (8.9) and paths (8.8), which best enabled them to express their ideas, and lastly, for the icons (8.1).Finally, the relevance of the results obtained for cultural landscape planning was also rated positively by the participants (9.1).

Conclusions
Integrating three steps made it possible to design strategy proposals for the development of slow tourism and valorisation of the Brindisi plain cultural landscape.In the first step, an inventory of existing heritage was made through a map-based questionnaire open to the entire community.The questionnaire results were used as a starting point for the second step; this step involved collecting design ideas and proposals from a smaller number of citizens through co-design workshops.The final step comprised integrating these proposals in co-design workshops organised for territorial bodies and association representatives.
This three-step approach proved to be a suitable method for integrating citizens' input and experts' knowledge to define a spatial planning strategy.The tools and the methodology used facilitated the representation and exchange of values and ideas, helped avoid conflicts and ensured that everyone could express themselves freely without being intimidated by power relations or experts' knowledge.
A specific characteristic of our approach is that in all three steps, the map is used as a platform for communication: in the online questionnaire, participants enter their responses on a map; in the co-design workshops, participants enter individual map inputs and consequently discuss and negotiate around a joint map.In practice, non-experts can successfully enter their opinions on a map as long as the area discussed is small enough to relate the map to their environment (Arciniegas et al., 2013).For this reason, workshops were organised at two locations serving as a pars pro toto for the region.This could be done for larger areas involving a larger group of people, but this would have required more workshops.
By integrating the perspectives of citizens and experts in different sectors, such as heritage, mobility, renewable energy and agriculture, this approach facilitated the constructive exchange of ideas and enabled the creation of a joint project.For this reason, it can be concluded that this methodology makes a positive contribution to applying the European Landscape Convention principles in planning practices, engaging communities in defining landscape heritage values and identifying strategies for its protection, management and planning.
Despite all the positives listed above, the drawbacks and limitations of the approach must also be considered.The questionnaire showed limitations in involving certain groups of people (e.g. less educated people), and it proved challenging to manage larger groups of people in the workshops.Therefore combining inputs from different approaches (instrumental and deliberative) is essential to mitigate these limitations.Furthermore, additional attention should be paid to include a more significant sample of participants for a landscape scale.Additionally, to provide a concrete task and to align with ongoing processes in the region, we focussed on slow tourism during the workshops.However, other topics could have been addressed for the local cultural landscape planning, such as renewable energy integration and land-use change.A final critical note is that although this methodology has great potential for gathering and integrating design ideas, a further step should be taken to create a unified vision.
To conclude, the three-step approach presented in this article has large potential both with regard to the inclusion of participants and the quality of the results.However, to be most effective, it is important to include the approach in long-term processes, which would help involve more people, consider additional topics related to cultural landscape planning, and develop a unified strategy.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Results of the Maptionnaire survey.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Experts' workshops: discussion phase around the touch table.
dark history of Mesagne town, where the Apulian mafia ruled until 30 years ago.Two examples of this are reported below and shown in Figure 7.I thought of creating a path linking masseria Canali [a property confiscated from the mafia] with the historic centre of Mesagne [in Figure 7, from the town centre going to the north-west] [ … ] We call it the path of legality.[ … ] Combining history, the fight against the mafia, but linking it to the historical and artistic values of Mesagne.[ … ] It is a starting point for telling the story of an area from the point of view of agriculture, production, but also history and art.I traced a route [ … ] I went as far as the Lucci forest [in Figure 7 from the town centre to the south-east] [ … ] It is a wonderful route to take by bike or on foot [ … ].There are vineyards, and it is surrounded by farms of different sizes, beautiful … and I don't know if you know the story of the Lucci forest, where a girl was killed by the mob and raped.So, there would be several aspects to intertwine.

Figure 8 .
Figure 8. Combined results of the expert and citizens' workshops.

Figure 9 .
Figure 9. Example of experts and citizens' inputs.

Notes 1 .
Examples of this are the scientific direction of the Archaeological Park of Muro Tenente and the Via Appia Ecomuseum.2. Specchie are archaeological structures of various ages consisting of large heaps of stones of irregular shapes and dimensions.3. Trulli are traditional farmhouse of the labourers.4. Xylella fastidiosa is a bacterial plant pathogen which afflict a wide range of plants causing their death.5. Traditional sheep tracks used to move the flock during the different seasons.