Abstract
This project explores participatory design through community engagement, facilitating the design and implementation of a cross-generational play area in the North East U.K. The challenges for the project were to address the issues of risk in play, use the co-design of play equipment to provide a physical vision for change and initiate the participation of partners and stakeholders to gain and understanding of the context for use. This project took a fun, playful approach to problem solving. The focus of the paper looks at the relationship of the facilitator, an experienced practitioner and four groups of young people working within the participatory project, they challenge some of the barriers to play and risk taking in a wider context by considering what play was and what the groups wanted from play. There is an opportunity to share those intimate sessions and the methods of communicating ideas through drawing, language, and discussion that took place. The project also offers to share some of the emotions that a playful approach generated for the children and the facilitator. We discuss how the groups of young people found their input to be valued equally as stakeholders in a project that impacted on the wider community and attracted international interest. This case study uncovers how the participatory design process brought about the design and manufacture of a product that owes its form to playful exploration of problem solving.
Presenters
Lee BrewsterPhD Researcher, ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University Mirian Calvo
Lecturer in Participatory Architecture, Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA), ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University (UK), United Kingdom Rosendy Galabo
Research Associate, ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, United Kingdom David Perez
Lecturer in Radical Co-Design, ImaginationLancaster, Lancaster University, United Kingdom Leon Cruickshank
Professor of Design and Creative Exchange, Lancaster University
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Play, Risk, Education, Participatory, Co-Design
