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Thematic Area: Participatory design

Participatory design involves community members in the design process. Also known as ‘co-creation’, ‘co-design’, or ‘co-operative design, it encompasses techniques useful to both initial discovery and subsequent ideation phases of a project, where the end-users of a product, service, or experience take an active role in co-designing solutions for themselves (UX Magazine).

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Urban Planning and Design Labs: Tools for Integrated and Participatory Urban Planning

This toolkit provides a great project-based approach for Participatory Planning and Participatory Design. It incorporates the concept of “planning labs”, and includes cases from the Global South. UN-Habitat founded its in-house Urban Planning and Design Lab in Nairobi in order to provide assistance to local, regional and national authorities with urban planning and design. The…
  • Publication year: 2016
  • Content Type: Toolkit
Recommended

The Challenge of Time in Community-Based Participatory Design

This study tackles in detail the problem of time and different timings of each stakeholder involved on PD processes. One of the most critical issues is the time coordination of stakeholders in participatory design articulation of their actions in terms of time. The difference in background, role and motivation between the participating actors can result…
  • Publication year: 2017
  • Content Type: Academic paper
Recommended

A Framework for Organizing the Tools and Techniques of Participatory Design

This guide provides a detailed and comprehensive collection of tools and strategies to be used in Participatory Design and co-design sessions. The field of Participatory Design (PD) has grown rapidly over the last 20 to 30 years. For more than two decades non-designers have been increasingly involved in various design activities through a large number…
  • Publication year: 2010
  • Content Type: Toolkit
Recommended

Insights, Solutions and Empowerment: A Framework for Evaluating Participatory Design

This study provides key assessing methodology to understand the potential transformative capacity of Participatory Design in people working on the project. This article presents a new outcome-focused framework to assist in the evaluation of Participatory Design projects. The Insights, Solutions and Empowerment Framework draws from extant literature, and first-hand case studies in rural Cambodia, and…
  • Publication year: 2018
  • Content Type: Academic paper

Using Minecraft for Youth Participation in Urban Design and Governance

The purpose of this paper is to outline UN-Habitat’s approach to using information and communication technology (ICT) as an enabler to encourage youth participation in urban design and governance. In 2012 UN-Habitat started working with Mojang, the makers of the popular computer game Minecraft. Through the partnership with Mojang, Block by Block, UN-Habitat uses Minecraft…
  • Publication year: 2015
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Design

Participatory design is about the direct involvement of people in the co-design of the technologies they use. Its central concern is how collaborative design processes can be driven by the participation of the people affected by the technology designed. Embracing a diverse collection of principles and practices aimed at making technologies, tools, environments, businesses, and…
  • Publication year: 2013
  • Content Type: Book

The Future of Cities: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward

This report identifies challenges influencing the future of cities in Europe and beyond. It also presents several perspectives from which to look at resolving these issues. The main aim is to raise open questions and steer discussions on what the future of cities can, and should be, both within the scientific and policymaker communities.  It…
  • Publication year: 2019
  • Content Type: Report

Agonistic Participatory Design: Working with Marginalised Social Movements

Participatory design (PD) has become increasingly engaged in public spheres and everyday life and is no longer solely concerned with the workplace. This is not only a shift from work-oriented productive activities to leisure and pleasurable engagements, but also a new milieu for production and ‘innovation’. What ‘democratic innovation’ entails is often currently defined by…
  • Publication year: 2012
  • Content Type: Academic paper

Map Kibera

Map Kibera is an initiative that in 2009 empowered young residents of Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, to create the first digital map of the area, which was previously a blank spot on the map. The initiative has since expanded into a full community information and media project that uses tools like mapping, SMS,…
  • Publication year: 2009
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Shaping Urbanization for Children: A Handbook on Child-Responsive Urban Planning

Shaping urbanization for children, a handbook on child-responsive urban planning, presents concepts, evidence and technical strategies to bring children to the foreground of urban planning. By focusing on children, this publication provides guidance on the central role that urban planning should play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), from a global perspective to a…
  • Publication year: 2018
  • Content Type: Toolkit

The Future Is Ours: Strategic Foresight Toolkit – Making Better Decisions

The world is changing. The climate crisis, the digital revolution and mass migration are just some of the forces driving change at greater speed than ever before. The challenges are immense. But for those that can adapt, it can bring incredible opportunities too. In an unstable and unpredictable world, all of us – organisation, teams…
  • Publication year: 2019
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Are We Building Competitive and Liveable Cities?: Guidelines for Developing Eco-Efficient and Socially Inclusive Infrastructure

The guidelines have been developed to inspire change among local governments (and other actors in the field of urban development) in the planning, designing and managing of urban infrastructure. The goal is to encourage an integrated approach, taking into account principles and criteria of eco-efficiency and social inclusiveness. Such an approach will help decision makers…
  • Publication year: 2011
  • Content Type: Report

Monitoring Government Policies: A Toolkit for Civil Society Organisations in Africa

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Christian Aid, and Trócaire started the toolkit project to assist partner organizations in holding their governments to account for the consequences of their policies. This 100 page document is a resource for civil society organizations operating in Africa. This toolkit specifically targets African partners, seeking to share the…
  • Publication year: 2007
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Urban Heart: Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool

The Urban Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool (Urban HEART) helps urban policymakers, communities and other stakeholders better understand the local socio-economic factors that influence health outcomes and tackle urban health inequities. The tool serves to identify and correct policies that perpetuate these inequities, for instance, the higher rates of illness and death among the children…
  • Publication year: 2010
  • Content Type: Report

Diseño Participativo de Espacios Públicos con Perspectiva de Infancia

This document presents the value of participatory methodologies to integrate girls, boys and adolescents’ knowledge and perceptions, as an input for the design of urban public spaces. The experience of the Sustainable Urban Development Centre (CEDEUS) in Villa Marta Brunet (Puente Alto, Santiago, Chile) as a case.
  • Publication year: 2019
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Beyond the Networked City: Situated Practices of Citizenship and Grassroots Agency in Water Infrastructure Provision in the Chamazi Settlement, Dar Es Salaam

The paper argues in favour of newly emerging forms of citizenship within participatory spheres that enhance access of the poor to urban services through direct participation aimed at socially equitable outcomes. It develops principles of inclusiveness and social justice, contributing to long-term improvement. Concept: infrastructure deficit is not solely a technical problem of extending pipe…
  • Publication year: 2017
  • Content Type: Academic paper

Motivations, Results and the Role of Technology in Participatory Design Research During 2000’s – A Review in the Field of Architecture and Urban Planning

This study analyses motivations, results and technology of the participatory design approach. It is a review based on 32 papers, presenting recent studies on participatory design in architecture and urban planning during the time period from 2000 to 2014. As a result, the main motivations, outcomes and the role of technology are emphasised and discussed.…
  • Publication year: 2016
  • Content Type: Academic paper

Designed to Scale Mass Participation to Build Resilient Neighbourhoods

Small, fragmented, low frequency participation will not transform neighbourhoods. Is local participation at scale possible and does it hold the potential to improve people’s lives and make lasting positive change? The Open Works research project aimed to test if a platform approach could scale up the new type of ‘participation culture’ that has emerged over…
  • Publication year: 2019
  • Content Type: Toolkit

Emergency Architecture & Human Rights Annual Report

After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, and series of catastrophic tsunamis that followed in its wake, the team behind EAHR recognized that the profession of architecture had forgotten the most vulnerable people of the world and the significant impact architecture could have on building resilience and stimulating development before and after emergencies. In the following…
  • Publication year: 2018
  • Content Type: Report

Block by Block

Block by Block is a global initiative that uses the popular video game Minecraft to involve youth in the planning process in urban areas by giving them the opportunity to show planners and decision makers how they would like to see their cities in the future. The project is a collaboration between Mojang, the creators…
  • Publication year: 2012
  • Content Type: Other document

Participatory Design in Architectural Practice: Changing Practices in Future Making in Uncertain Times

The ways that architects invite participation in the design of future environments has evolved. This paper traces a history of architectural participatory design from the mid-twentieth century. This exploration suggests that current interest in participatory design reflects more progressive forms of architectural practice, where participatory interventions in everyday settings acknowledge and embrace value pluralism. Architects…
  • Publication year: 2018
  • Content Type: Academic paper

UN Women’s Global Flagship Initiative, Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces

UN Women’s Global Flagship Initiative, Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces develops, implements, and evaluates tools, policies and comprehensive approaches on the prevention of and response to sexual harassment and other forms of sexual violence against women and girls across different settings.
  • Publication year: 2010
  • Content Type: Other document

Enabling Inclusive Cities Tool Kit for Inclusive Urban Development

This toolkit has been prepared to provide support for the inclusive cities theme.  It presents methods to gather the required information on a particular context and location for IUD; to decide priorities; and to plan, design, and implement inclusive urban projects.  The toolkit presents an opportunity to create a record of the project design process…
  • Publication year: 2017
  • Content Type: Toolkit

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DeCID: Co-designing social infrastructure with children affected by displacement is a project led by The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (UCL) and CatalyticAction, and funded by UKRI through the Global Challenges Research Fund.

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