Participatory Design for Community Planning and Development : Tools to Collect, Synthesise, and Use Local Knowledge in Decision-Making Processes.

Abstract

This research examines how design processes can be used to access and communicate local knowledge and to develop connection to community and place. Members of Karitane, a small coastal community in New Zealand, were engaged in participatory design. The iterative process developed tools and techniques that augment the modes of understanding community and relating within community.

A new technique is developed to express and collect specific local knowledge, called multi-modal mapping performances. A range of context maps communicates this rich information coherently and succinctly, thus making it usable in decision-making. The research also presents ‘Karitane Korero cards’, a generative tool developed to encourage informal participation, and stimulate ideas and conversation within the Karitane community. This is an appropriate methodology to reveal local experiences of place.

This research found design processes can successfully develop connection to community and place by focusing on providing frames for interaction; the spaces within the frames are for the community to fill with their stories, conversations and ideas. It presents an inclusive and sensitive frame for ongoing interaction, that can generate real and evolving responses to community needs. This approach demonstrates how design research can extend the boundaries of conventional thinking about community development. It has validated the contribution that participatory design can make to planning and decision-making processes, and the ways it can enhance community life.