Designing Architectural Processes: Creating a Trauma- and Violence-Informed and Participatory Approach to Women’s Shelter Design View Digital Media

Workshop Presentation
Isobel McLean,  Nadine Wathen  

This workshop presents existing research regarding trauma- and violence- informed approaches to service provision within violence against women (VAW) emergency shelters, along with emerging research examining how design engagement usually occurs between architects and VAW organizations. The emerging design research uses interviews from both leaders within VAW shelter organizations and architects who have designed VAW shelter spaces, or similar projects, along with key informants within the social housing and VAW policy environments in Canada. It focuses on the current practices of architectural engagement between shelters and architects, while also asking participants to reflect on their past experiences to propose new methods of design engagement, with a specific focus on participatory design practices that engage both shelter staff and clients in meaningful, trauma- and violence-informed ways. Though the selected studies focus on the VAW service sector, they could shape trauma- and violence-informed participatory design processes for equity-deserving groups in many other contexts. After hearing about the above research, group discussion will ask participants to draw on their own experiences of design engagement processes, and methods employed to better engage end-users of space in the design process in a trauma- and violence-informed way. The session will close with emerging strategies to develop a survivor-centred, trauma- and violence-informed participatory space design and planning guide.