Co-design is a key example of citizen design in a TED talk

Jess McMullin gives a TED talk on the importance of citizen participation in design - especially for public space.  The VIVA Vancouver Co-design street party is a key example of recording desired experiences as a starting point of design.  Furthermore, we engaged the public where they are:  on the street.   

From co-design to breaking ground: Project BUG work party

photo credits: Ian Marcuse

A year ago, GWFC asked us to help engage teens in the design of their school garden. Community organizer Ian Marcuse led this process which included the participation of UBC SCARP and Evergreen. Recently, GWFC organized a workparty and the youth who participated in the co-design all pitched in. In all, about 100 youth participated in the build party, assisted by Environmental Youth Alliance.


"When commenting on their experience, students highlighted that they enjoyed the drawing out or “co-designing” of the project, helping with the design, and in particular “the collaborative effort with members of the community and other students within their community schools”. For students, the planning process was one of “creation of the gardens, just watching them come to life”, which leads directly into the hopes and aspirations these students have for the garden in the future. There was a resounding hope from students that they can see this garden to completion in the near future."


Project BUG final report , prepared by Ian Marcuse, Grandview Woodland Food Connection
Zsuzsi Fodor and Erica Lay, UBC School of Community and Regional Planning June, 2011

Little Mountain Co-design Video

This video is great for describing the philosophy and rationale of co-design.   A 20 minute video of the Little Mountain co-design, facilitated by The Co-Design Group.  Co-design images are created by citizens and therefore, the citizens feel a great sense of ownership of the drawings.  The artist is only the hand for the mind's eye.  When the drawings are done, the design team analyzes and prioritizes all ideas to create a design solution from the complex and rich compilation of vignettes.  This co-design workshop was the start of an extensive consultation process.  A summary of their concepts can be found here.


Little Mountain Redevelopment: Meeting #1 The Stanley King Experience from David Vaisbord on Vimeo.

Co-design Demo at the Viva Vancouver Street Party

There will be Brazilian martial arts, dance food and... co-design! Click on the image below to get the schedule.  photos of event here.

Early work, 1970s

Some photos of early co-design work pioneered by Stanley King.  In this case, the site was a huge parking lot in downtown Vancouver.  Stanley organized a "City on the Wall" and also a "Design- in". During the site walk, teens analyzed the car lot for sight, smell, sound, movement and circulation.  The resulting drawings illustrated public desire for activities supported by abundant green space, a dome with a skating rink, outdoor eating, water features.  

People asked for car-free pedestrian spaces for relaxing, socializing, eating.   The ideas, drawn from ordinary citizens, demonstrate how co-design can sensitively tap into citizen's desires for how they wish to live.  Drawings were given to the design team led by Arthur Erickson who designed Robson Square.  Erickson asked Cornelia Oberlander to design the landscape:  the first roof garden in North America. 

These still shots are from Chairs for Lovers, a documentary film directed by Barrie Howells for the National Film Board of Canada.

Robson Square Before

Robson Square (after) designed by Arthur Erickson

children ask the artist to draw a dome with skating underneath

the parking lot that became Robson Square: view of the law courts, now the Vancouver Art Gallery

Stanley King starting the "city on the wall": "imagine you were here when the land was new...."

Stanley encourages kids to draw anything they want in a city

Sustainable VSB Show and Tell

Vancouver School Board: Sustainability from Josli Rockafella on Vimeo.

Kevin outlines the VSB sustainability framework an invites response

Kevin Millsip, district sustainability coordinator for Vancouver School Board, hosted a VSB Sustainability Show and Tell to engage staff to respond to the VSB sustainability framework.   Next Up youth leaders led a world cafe dialogue.   I facilitated a co-design timeline as a grafitti wall: A Day in the Life of a Sustainable VSB.  Kevin asked for youth input during the  Plan-It Earth conference.

Plan-It Earth, planned by youth for youth

200 people were in attendance at Plan -it Earth 2011 on April 15th.  This event enabled 120 youth to draw, write and describe their sustainable region.  Planned by a core group of five dedicated youth and an action team of about 30 students, all from Churchill, Prince of Wales, St. Pats and Kitsilano Secondaries. Participants came from throughout Vancouver, and we warmly welcomed the presence of Windermere Secondary and Magee Secondary youth leadership groups. Students from David Lloyd George Elementary attended the Children's program.  Plan-it earth was a collaboration of Vancouver youth with a passion for the environment.  This event was hosted once again by Prince of Wales Secondary.  Thanks  PW admin team!

We are very grateful for support from Bruce Ford and Vanessa Lee (Metro Vancouver); from Amanda Mitchell (the City of Vancouver); from Kevin Millsip, (sustainability coordinator, VSB)  and Stanley King from the Co-Design Group who donated facilitation services.  We accepted funding, with thanks from  Architecture Canada: The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, the Vancouver Foundation Youth Philanthropy Council, and the Vancouver School Board through Kevin Millsip's project eco-logo contest.

Tesicca, youth co-design artist, plan-it earth core team

day in the life of a sustainable region

day in the life graffiti wall

Stanley King, The Co-Design Group, and Architecture Canada (RAIC) representative

Bridging the generation Gap

North shore news featured youth co-design in West Vancouver:

"Through outreach, the co-design process adopted by Grosvenor attempts to bring in voices from different demographics, says Michael Mortensen, Grosvenor Americas’s senior development manager. It’s a unique opportunity for youth to be involved in a process that usually takes place among adults.  Co-design forums were pioneered by Vancouver architect Stanley King, who is leading the Ambleside forums. He created the concept while working on Granville Island and Robson Square.

In the end, the youths’ ideas became a big part of Vancouver’s identity. It was their suggestion to place a skating rink in Robson Square; famous West Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson was inspired by their sketches filled with greenery when designing the provincial courts."

Full article here:  "Bridging the Generation Gap" by   Rebecca Aldrous, North Shore outook

conversation with Cornelia Oberlander

Visited Cornelia Oberlander, the "Grande Dame" of Canadian landscape architecture. She'd been helping out at my school and wanted to catch up on a garden project. Cornelia has a reputation for being charming, gracious and immovably persistent. These traits are useful: she sometimes faced bureacratic hurdles as a pioneer of sustainable landscape architecture.  There is a bit of the rebel in Cornelia that helps her to connect with youth and we were very grateful to have her come and speak to youth at the Sustainable Design Ideas Fair.

Thinking about David Owen's Lecture,  I asked Cornelia about her thoughts on dense urban centres and biodiversity: "Is it possible to merge density with ecological design?"

thoughts on David Owen's Lecture: Why Manhattan is the Greenest City in North America

Co-design attended David Owen's lecture in Vancouver.  A summary of Owen's ideas can be found in his blog here, and in the New Yorker article here.  Owen argues that dense urban centres are an effective alternative to sprawl for preserving farmland and ecological habitats.  And  "living smaller, closer, driving less" reduces our carbon footprint.  While this is true, I'm not convinced that density on the scale of NYC is a green solution.   

If high-density urban centres preserve earth's wilderness and farmland by virtue of avoidance, then this solution might be even more green than NYC:  

Moon base Alpha

Density is an efficient solution but is it ecological?  Ecological systems are self supporting. Take into consideration the following factors: living plants and animals forming the food source, waste absorbed by the landscape;  inhabitant's psychological need for light and green space...  If we now draw a radius from NYC , what would be the extent of the circle?

Training youth co-design artists for Plan-it Earth

Youth from five different Vancouver Schools are training to be co-design artists for the Plan-it Earth conference on April 15th.  Planned by youth, for youth, registration started last week. Today's training session was at Granville Island.  They learned:  how to draw people in a one and two point perspective;  marker techniques on vellum paper; and how to draw foliage quickly.  First steps in learning co-design dialogue techniques from Stanley King.

Stanley knows the art of gentle crit

Project BUG next step

Project BUG, organized by Grandview Woodland Food Connection moved into the next design stage today.  Flickr set of photos here.  Students examined the data gathered from the community input.  All the co-design drawings were rated by the community:  Students, parents, teachers and community members had an opportunity to vote on their desired features.  Erin, from SCARP, facilitated a session where groups of students walked through the site and marked their ideas on a plan.  The purpose of the session was to synthesize all the ideas into a plan for the three garden sites.  Dolores Altin, a landscape architect from Evergreen Learning Grounds,  gave students a presentation on food security and garden design.  She showed examples of school food gardens in BC, and emphasized that design of a space is an on-going process.  Followup to this, (update, Oct 2011): The Build party occurred  Fall of 2011

all the features of the drawing were rated "I love it, go for it", "needs more designing" or "this belongs elsewhere".  Today, students considered the features that received a high rating from the community.

Dolores discussing priorities for the design

students learn strategies for overcoming bureaucratic hurdles

Erin displaying the plan for the site

Erin demonstrates a shadow study for the garden site

Stanley facilitates discussion of design ideas in one group during the site walk: "Ask yourself what would you be doing here?"

Project BUG

Grandview Woodland Food Connection asked Stanley and Susan to help facilitate a youth program  in Vancouver.  Using some of the techniques described in the Youth Manual,  students shared their ideas for how they wish to experience a community garden on school grounds.  Here is the flickr set of photos  as well as the follow-up session here and, later a build party for the new student garden

Stanley is facilitating a drawing with youth participants

Susan invites participants to create a city on the wall

participants create a city out of wilderness

Desired personal experience and perceptions noted on this drawing

Day in the Life of the Garden, a graffiti wall.

Susan draws youth harvesting mushrooms on a cob house, at the direction of the participants

Drew Ferrari facilitating a collaborative design dialogue.  This sequence of drawings took less than an hour. activities and features are dictated precisely by participants.  

the collaborative drawing is now complete and features are numbered for voting

Why include youth in sustainable design?

If youth designed a city, what would it look like?  More importantly, what would it be like to live there?  Would they create places very different from our cities today? Our work with Vancouver youth reveals that a youth designed city would be green, full of light and life.  Skateboarding, cycling and blading would be the wheels that rule the roads.  Places for dancing, art, music, gathering, sports, napping would dot the urban landscape.  School would take place outdoors.  Youth have fresh eyes, new perspectives that are unencumbered by thoughts of mortgages and economics and politics (King, 1995).  Paul Goodman said "No city is governable unless it grows citizens who feel it to be theirs".