Being experts in their own experience, users are central to the design process. We know that we design more successful projects when we work with wider groups of stakeholders.
Our studio is a place where we play with space and scenarios. There is a lot of ‘What if?’ discussion. As designers working together, we have a shorthand: we scribble, we model, we leap forward, we backtrack. But we do work in a vacuum, because our field of operation is inherently connected with the people who will use, live in, work at or visit our projects and we have much to learn from them. Their insights, experiences and off-the-cuff comments are valuable, so we pay attention in every way we can. We co-design.The key principle of co-design is that users, being experts in their own experience, are central to the design process. We know that we design more successful projects when we work with wider groups of stakeholders.Co-design takes many forms. As we develop a brief, it can involve working out loud with clients and users to closely define scope and ambience, working with quick capacity studies and sketches. As the vision for a project emerges, we might workshop these ideas around a table or take work out onto the street while a project is still in flux. Naturally, we use digital platforms but face-to-face encounters are our best way to move the design on and find the authenticity of each project. We know through experience that good solutions emerge through hard work, rapid iteration, broad-brush visioning and haggling over details - all of which benefits from the aerating of ideas with as many participants as possible.It is not unusual for project managers in the construction industry to see design as a process that needs careful handling and control. They will only contemplate contact with wider groups once the design is all but fixed in order to minimise risks to a programme. Our experience is that early co-design processes can validate some ideas and perhaps throw others into question and that this early feedback loop is a more efficient, less contentious and, in the long run, less time-consuming mode of decision-making.
An alternative vision for replacing a tired 1960s shopping precinct in Norwich
A masterplan for a town extension of 2,000 new homes in Slovakia.
Negotiating the community’s priorities for a new public square in south London.
Reinventing a pioneering centre of rural regeneration, education, social justice and the arts.
A building designed to support, enable and celebrate carnival arts.
Co-designing with young people to make a new youth centre in north London
Two rural co-housing sites at Dartington, Devon
Co-creating new communities; getting two sides of the tracks to talk to each other.
