werk, bauen + wohnen 5–2024
Activating Collective Knowledge
That buildings and cities are erected for people is clear. But how much say about architecture and urban design does the general public, the future residents and users, have? How can we help design our own environment? The key term here is participation. Today local planning is almost always preceded by participation processes, in cooperative housing developments the involvement of the future tenants is already standard practice.
Nevertheless, many prejudices still exist. The criticism from one side is that architects believe they are omniscient and design buildings in which they would not be willing to live themselves. On the other side is the conviction that participation is an empty promise, which merely makes building even more complicated. But in fact, participation can point to problems that planners may overlook and can suggest solutions previously undreamt of. It can unleash creativity, encourage communication, and contribute to making cities more inclusive and better places to live in. To benefit from the knowledge of the many, such processes must be intelligently conceived. Planners must ask the right questions, find illustrations and formats that are understandable and fun. This requires new skills, experts who work in an interdisciplinary and openended fashion, who can mediate and chair discussions but also listen, negotiate, and show patience. This enriches the architectural profession with new tasks and forms of cooperation.
Such ideas are not entirely new: in the Social Turn of the 1970s architects like Simone and Lucien Kroll redefined their own role, seeing themselves more as mediators than authorities. In designing a student residence in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert near Brussels they defined a grid in which the students themselves could help build their own living spaces.
Today participation is very much a part of planning: from the communal design of out door space to the use of games in urban design, to schoolchildren who help design the spaces in which they learn. E-participation is also in the starting blocks. Digital city models that provide information about planned projects and which, above all, can be commented on are just the start. — Jasmin Kunst
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