Beyond Academia (BA) gathers contributions from practitioners active in community, commercial, government, and not-for-profit spaces who are exploring participatory frameworks in their work. Contributions are grouped in two (2) thematic sessions. Note: sessions might be plurilingual.
BA Chairs: Penny Hagen (Auckland Co-Design Lab – NZL), Jeannette Blomberg (IBM – USA), María de Mater O’Neill (Rubberband Design Studio – PRI), Cristian Job Nieman Janssen (Universidad de los Andes – COL), Guilherme Meyer (Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos – BRA)
BA1 – Socio-Political context for transformation – Video presentations
Thursday 18th of June 1:00 pm (UTC -5)
Session chair: Guilherme Meyer
Participatory Design as a Method to Support Community Forms of Urban Life in the Contemporary City: Palo Alto Cooperative
Abrahán Rodríguez Buendia – BIOS
In this article we want to introduce to the public the work we have realized with the Palo Alto cooperative (Mexico City) through a participatory process since 2015, with many moments of participatory design. The goal of our work is to support and strengthen this cooperative, as a community form of urban life in the contemporary city, as a few examples of this kind in this place. We want to share the methods we used in the process, the potential and challenges that we found and receive feedback from the experts at the conference.
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Creating Global Learning Systems Infrastructure: A collective for multidisciplinary and cross-sector practice to tackle complex public problems
Nicole Anand, Lauren Weinstein – BIOS
The future of work and education across the globe is uncertain. For practitioners solving complex public problems, limited learning opportunities and constraining work environments threaten possibilities of expanding and elevating their collective practice. Within institutions, practitioners face a multitude of challenges ranging from siloed work to homogenized practice. From the time they enter the workforce, to retirement, they hit difficult-to-traverse learning plateaus. The Residency is a global collective of Change Designers—civil servants, civil society and social designers/innovators upskilling in multidisciplinary and cross-sector practice. A year of research, concepting and co-designing informed a learning prototype embedded in a collective action model. The collective is a first-of-its-kind test of global learning systems infrastructure that can facilitate the exchange of mindsets, share power across adjacent disciplines, and privilege plural craft through self-determined exchange.
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Whānau Room Rejuvenation: Valuing Whānau as an Integral Dimension of Hauora for patients at Auckland DHB
Emma Wylie, Justin Kennedy-Good, Vanessa Russell – BIOS
In 2003 Auckland City Hospital’s new building included a Whānau Room in each inpatient ward to provide space for whānau (extended family) to gather around the patient as is customary in Te Ao Māori (the Māori world). However, under the pressures of an acute hospital, the Whānau Rooms’ purpose became diluted, with many used for clinical or storage needs or falling into disrepair. The Whānau Room Rejuvenation Project, initiated in 2018, aims to re-establish the kaupapa (purpose) of these spaces and renovate them to be fit for purpose. Using a co-design approach, patients, whānau, staff and architects worked collaboratively to understand the needs of whānau and the ward context and develop design solutions. Participatory design enabled Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) principles to inform the process and designs. Methods honouring bi-cultural values are especially relevant in public health care, as government bodies recognise our colonial history and work to change its legacy of inequitable health outcomes for Māori.
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The role of Community Organizations in the transformation of foodscapes for the consolidation of peace economies and territorial peace in Colombia
Ana Prada – BIOS
This paper addresses the relevance of rethinking the opportunities of Participatory Design as an interdisciplinary perspective that stimulates community innovation and co-designing effective solutions to the daily crossroads of COs in the current Colombian context for the transformation of foodscapes, in which relationships in the value chain are framed by trust, the building of close relationships between producers and consumers, the recognition of local knowledge and the generation of added value. Through the project “Custodians of hope”, was found that in Colombia exists community processes, like the experience of the Ecobufalo, strengthening the bonds of trust between the actors involved in value chains to contribute to the construction of peace economies with a territorial approach.
BA2 – Architecture as Action – Video presentations
Thursday 18th of June 3:30 pm (UTC -5)
Session Chair: Cristiaan Job Nieman Janssen
Projeto Vizinhança: a cidade como experiência coletiva e festiva
Márcia Machado Braga, Aline Callegaro de Paula Bueno – BIOS
O Projeto Vizinhança é um projeto colaborativo e participativo que ocorre em diferentes bairros de Porto Alegre, Brasil. Trata-se de uma ação em arte urbana de carater temporário que discute questões relacionadas ao espaço público e sua capacidade de produzir encontros no cotidiano de uma comunidade. Nesse sentido, o projeto busca ativar espaços ociosos ou «intersticiais» da cidade, transformando-os em lugares, estimulando processos de troca e aprendizado em um ambiente construído coletivamente e, portanto, lúdico, festivo, criativo e informal.
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Re-Imagining Benefield: A Catalyst for Change
Divya Nautiyal, Nick Cooper, Philip Miller – BIOS
Our goal is to share our experiences of working on an architectural project with community members in Highland Park, Richmond, Virginia (U.S.), which is a predominantly black neighborhood that has been historically overlooked by the political system. The rationale for the process was that the partnership and engagement with the participants would lead to architectural solutions that provide participants control not just in the development but in the long-term use and appropriation as the community’s vision changes over time. The theme of representation, resistance, and governance relates the most to our project. Instead of relying on «universal» cookie-cutter solutions in community-based architectural design processes, we have been exploring participatory design methods as a way of broadening participation and building community capacity. We want to share our participatory design approach and open it to critique and feedback from other Participatory Design practitioners present during the session.
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Workshops Arquitecturas Colectivas
Yazmín M. Crespo Claudio, Omayra Rivera Crespo, Irmaris Santiago Rodríguez – BIOS
The taller Creando Sin Encargos is a design collective that has developed design-build Workshops titled Arquitecturas Colectivas (WAC). WAC is an inclusive methodology that encourages the exchange of knowledge at the horizontal level. We aim to present two WAC: 2013 WAC design-build in La Perla neighborhood and the 2017 WAC design-build in the Puerta de Tierra neighborhood. The WAC looks at the ideation and construction of spaces together with students, volunteers, and the community. We would like to share the way in which each WAC develops its own approaches to participatory community engagement towards solidarity and action. The Workshops Arquitecturas Colectivas support community design projects attending to cultural and social challenges and differences; promoting equity and social justice; exploring methodologies and various forms of communication and representation to exchange knowledge and experiences between designers, students and residents; and builds in situ with situated knowledges.
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Participatory Lighting Design in Puerto Rico
Marién Vélez, Nasheli J. Ortiz González – BIOS
Puerto Rico is significantly jeopardized by sociopolitical contexts reflecting among other issues in the access to lighting design. After hurricane María (2017) residents lacked power for over a year as a result of the vulnerable electric infrastructure. A community in Comerío addressed the lack of civic participation in rural public areas inviting 22 Studio to co-design a solar lighting infrastructure. Through participatory design methods and techniques we helped expand knowledge and practiced democracy by shifting sociocultural components of light and architecture to inform design outcomes. Stakeholders developed surveys, presentations, plans, photographs, layouts, renderings, and elevations to analyze architectural and light components. Throughout the process we provoked questions to challenge visual culture and imposed current lightscapes to explore concrete solutions to the community necessities. The construction phase was organized by the community’s leadership, employing neighbors and coordinating with external manufacturers the acquisition of solar energy equipment.
