Democratic Design Without Borders - Three

Henry Sanoff MArch, North Carolina State University
Lourdes Marcela Lopez Ph. D, Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi, Mexico
Zeynep Toker Ph.D., California State University Northridge, Northridge, CA
Eva Brandt Ph.D., The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, Copenhagen, Denmark
Nadezda Snigireva Project Group 8, Vologda, Russia
Dmitry Smirnov Project Group, Russian Federation
Rachael Luck Ph.D., The Open University, United Kingdom
Carlos Cobreros Rodriguez Ph.D., Design School at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Julieta Trevino Sherk North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Avigail Sachs Ph/D., University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN

Learning Objectives:

• share and learn innovative participatory techniques in democratic design.
• exchange lessons in democratic design across distinct cultural, political, and institutional contexts.
• re-examine and advance the discourse and practice of democratic design through sharing of knowledge and experiences.
• develop a stronger network of democratic design practitioners and educators internationally.

Session Abstract:

Democratic design in forms of community participation has risen in prominence in areas around the world where practitioners and scholars have made significant progress in democratizing design and planning practice in one project after another. These practitioners and scholars have also introduced new techniques and approaches that respond to specific issues and contexts that they face.

The goals are to provide a forum for democratic designers who might never have known each other to share and discuss their work; and to determine interest in forming a democratic design without borders global network.

The first meeting of Democratic Design Without Borders convened at EDRA 46. The intensive workshop organized by Jeff Hou, Randy Hester and Henry Sanoff, featured seventeen presentations of community design research, and reflections by activist designers from Asia, Europe and North America. The meeting grew from efforts of multiple groups who share a commitment to culturally suitable, justice seeking and empowering design. The purpose of this second all-day intensive workshop (EDRA 47) engaged practitioners and scholars in roundtable discussions related to democratic design practice in diverse cultural contexts. It was followed by a hands-on participatory design workshop. The purpose of this third half-day intensive workshop (EDRA 50) is to extend the global network and continue the exchange at EDRA by engaging an international audience to focus on democratic design as a continuously evolving practice that can be enriched through sharing and exchange of experiences, both successes and pitfalls through presentations and discussion sessions. We believe it is only through such continued examination that theory and practice in democratic design can continue to advance and flourish. This intensive is intended to engage practitioners and scholars, in roundtable discussions related to their design research practice in diverse cultural environments in Mexico, Russia, Denmark, England and the USA.

Democratic Housing Design Process in Milpitas, Mexico

Lourdes Marcela Lopez

Bertha, a waste picker and single mother from 'Milpillas' lives by a landfill in a rented room made out of pallets, cardboard and canvas with her three children. She is part of a community where entrenched poverty, patriarchy and ground and air pollution take its toll on health, literacy levels, labor opportunities, access to basic services and nutrition security and women's participation on community decisions. In this context of deprivation, women like Bertha seize the gaps of the system through survival strategies, such as informality and community organization to secure income and shelter. Bertha's story reflects what other women in her community experience on a daily basis. By presenting her case in this work, we connect her story with a democratic housing design process led by the Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi (the local public university) in partnership with Bertha's community and a Milpillas-based non-profit focused on education. Through this account, we seek to demonstrate the potential that democratic design holds to empower and integrate the voices of those traditionally unheard in space production processes. Furthermore, we argue that democratic design in contexts of informality and waste-related labor can also promote the joint production of knowledge to design adaptable housing that considers risk, the use of materials and alternative waste-construction techniques, comfort and habitability.

Latinas Involvement in Urban Planning

Zeynep Toker

Urban planning was established as a profession in the United States during the first quarter of the 20thcentury with a focus on aesthetics through beautification efforts, which then gradually gave way to more efficiency concerns regarding infrastructure elements of a city. Before then, social work, public health, and architecture were the professions addressing various aspects of urban planning. Nevertheless, women were not allowed to enter the profession until 1950s. Starting in the Progressive Era, women participated in urban planning related tasks through alternative channels. One effective way was for them to volunteer in women's clubs, which took upon a variety of tasks related to urban planning, such as neighborhood beautification, environmental preservation, advocating for parks, playgrounds, and greening of urban environments among other issues related to public health, which prompted political activism. In an attempt to justify their involvement in public affairs, women apologetically called their efforts "municipal housekeeping." However, as in other built environment related professions, women who had contributed to urban planning efforts were neglected when it was time to acknowledge their efforts. The purpose of this study is to understand women's contributions to urban planning practices in Los Angeles County between 1890 and 1920 through Women's Clubs. Patterns of activities and elements of organizational structures will be sought addressing their communities' problems in terms of the physical environment, which is identified as one of the factors for the physical inactivity problem among Latinas. The ultimate purpose is to contribute to the discussion of how to address physical inactivity problem among Latinas. The analysis of women's clubs at the turn of the previous century might provide a useful template for Latinas to be involved in urban planning efforts in their communities addressing the contemporary problem of their community, which is physical inactivity.

Exploratory Design Games As a Participatory Method

Eva Brandt

As the core of democratic design is participation in design experimentation and decision making about possible futures it seems obvious to engage the people that possibly would be affected by a future change in the design process. Still, many professionals are unsure about how to organise sessions that involve people with diverse agendas, roles and views on a matter in fruitful ways. I would like to share and discuss experiences with designing and using exploratory design games in the fuzzy frontend of design as a methodology for participation. In regard to the general functionality of participatory design/codesign games Vaajakallio and Mattelmäki argue that they are "(1) creating a common design language; (2) promoting a creative and explorative attitude; (3) facilitating the players in envisioning and enacting 'what could be'; and (4) helping to define the roles of participants in the interaction during a session" (Vaajakallio and Mattelmäki 2014, 66). My special interest is in exploring how exploratory design games in various ways can build upon everyday practices and assist players in evoking and exploring new possible futures through different hands-on material engagements.

Social Sustainability As a New Challenge for Design and Planning in Russia

Nadezda Snigireva and Dmitry Smirnov

The traditional top-down approach towards decision-making in Russian city planning has led to the social crisis -- citizens not taking the responsibility of urban commons faced the evident limitation of the resources of mutual benefit. Heavy resistance and protest is now a common reaction towards city development projects led by government and developers. The alternative participatory design approach led by architects and activists is being developing as an alternative model and method to create a framework in which the process is run by a dialogue between different stakeholders: activists, neighborhoods, communities, professionals, businesses, local and regional governments, developers, etc. Such a concept as a way to develop territories is still very new for Russia. The concept of sustainability has always been about sustainability in physical features -- distribution of production, land use, traffic, climate -- but never people. In 2017 as a result of the work of professionals the political discourse changed towards people's inclusion in the development of public spaces and housing yards. It is a big change, but still not enough and rapidly becoming new routine and political argument, which professionals again need to strike against. This presentation is from professionals who will address the strengths and weaknesses of the described processes in Russia and try to answer the question whether such participatory processes are leading to social sustainability.

Under-Acknowledged Participation in Architectural Practice

Rachael Luck

Under-acknowledged in most descriptions of architectural practice are the ways that architects invite participation in the process to design future environments. This paper addresses this oversight, tracing the history of architectural participatory design from its roots through various ways that architecture has been practiced since the mid-twentieth century. This exploration suggests that current architectural interest in participatory design is not nostalgia for a counter-cultural past. Instead it reflects a more progressive offering, through practice-based forms of participation, applying interventionist approaches in everyday settings, in ways that acknowledge value-pluralism explicitly. Today's architects engage with people in different ways and at different scales in design processes of future making. These re-alignments in architectural participation pose new questions for practice-based design research, in the relevance and impact of architectural research, as well as the education of architects for the twenty-first century.

Participatory Design Methods for Creating a Sustainable Community in Tilaco, Mexico

Carlos Cobreros Rodriguez and Julieta Trevino Sherk

TheEco-Lab is a design-build living laboratory in the Architecture, Art and Design School at the Technologic de Monterrey in Queretaro, Mexico. Ethnographic research and participatory design methods were part of a collaborative process aimed at empowering students in creating a sustainable community for the residents of Tilaco, Mexico.Ethnographic research is about discovering the real needs of the community. Student teams were involved in daily activities of the community, the important events, and the festivities. This part of the research is about building empathy with the people for whom they are designing with, getting to understand who they are, what they do, what they think and feel. Techniques such as shadowing and one-on-one interviews allow for the development of interactions that establish direct contact with people. "Tilaquenses" cards resulted from these interactions, which included participant personal data, trade/work, family information as well as revealing relevant leaders, topics of interest and concerns of the community. In conjunction with the ethnographic information determined during the discovery phase, students applied participatory design methods beginning with activities that helped community members develop a vision for their development. Participatory methods were employed in all the phases of the process, which were implemented through community workshops. These workshops helped to address complexities, empower the community, and balance the need to preserve natural cultural resources. The student and community's work culminate in co-design proposals of high social impact through key strategic actions including the construction of environmentally responsible projects.

Participatory Design's Role in Challenging Hegemonic Architectural Practice

Avigail Sachs

Participatory design's role in challenging hegemonic architectural practices in the United States in the 1960s is well documented. Less known is its place in the discussion of environmental design--a broad discourse that posited architecture as a mediator between "man" and "environment." Born of pragmatist philosophy in the tumultuous years of the Great Depression, environmental design was characterized by a dual allegiance to both political action and to scientific inquiry and knowledge. Catherine Bauer described this in the 1930s as "simultaneous action." The postwar celebration of expertise, however, strained this duality, and caused many environmental designers to focus exclusively on science (especially behavior) to the detriment of their political commitment. Seen through this lens, participatory design represents an important recalibration of the original intent of environmental design and a return to a true "simultaneous action." This recalibration was also registered in in the reconceptualization of the design process, especially in Horst J. Rittel and Melvin Webber's notion of wicked problem. This paper will examine the history of environmental design as to elucidate this philosophical context and argue for the importance of joining participatory practices with evidence based strategies in the realm of sustainable design.