Executive summary
The project initially aimed to collect such experiences through a participatory online platform where people could share their own urban serendipity stories. While this platform generated limited responses, it helped shape the direction of the research. The project shifted then towards qualitative interviews, allowing for richer insights into how people navigate, explore, and make sense of cities. One of the main outcomes is the development of a typology of urban discovery, identifying five distinct ways in which people discover urban environments: instrumental-rational, go-with-the-flow, social, flaneur, and habitual. Rather than being purely planned or goal-driven, urban discovery often unfolds in open, exploratory, and socially embedded ways.
The project also generated a deeper understanding of how people experience serendipity in both urban and digital contexts. These insights, together with the research in the Serendipity Engine project, informed the development of the Serendipity Cards, a hands-on tool designed to spark conversations and support practitioners in thinking about how to create conditions for meaningful, unexpected encounters in both offline and online environments.
Why it matters
At the same time, digital platforms increasingly shape how people navigate urban environments, often guiding them toward familiar or highly rated places. This can unintentionally limit the diversity of experiences people are exposed to (e.g., through so-called “urban filter bubbles”)
By better understanding how people discover the city in practice, this project highlights the importance of keeping space for openness, exploration, and chance encounters. It also offers concrete tools, such as the discovery modes and Serendipity Cards, to support policymakers, cultural organizations, and urban practitioners in creating environments that invite discovery and meaningful interaction.
Project objectives
Objective 1: To understand how people discover and experience cities in everyday life.
Objective 2: To explore how moments of urban serendipity emerge in both physical and digital environments
Objective 3: To translate these insights into tools and formats that support reflection and design for serendipity
Key findings
Key finding 1: People discover cities in different ways, ranging from planned and goal-oriented to spontaneous and exploratory.
Key finding 2: Discovery is often non-linear, exploratory, and socially embedded, rather than purely rational.
Key finding 3: Urban serendipity is widely experienced in everyday life, even if people do not always explicitly label it as such.
Key finding 4: People find urban serendipity a recognizable and engaging topic, and are often eager to share and reflect on their own experiences.
Key finding 5: Public engagement formats proved more effective than a standalone digital storytelling platform for discussing and exploring urban serendipity.
Output
Project website: https://www.serendipityengine.be/
Publications:
- Beyond rational choice: A typology of urban discovery.
- Intended, afforded, and experienced serendipity: overcoming the paradox of artificial serendipity.
Resources:
Podcast episode: Serendipity for Recommender Systems with Annelien Smets
More info
Reach out to Annelien Smets