A participatory approach in urban development: Co-designing resilient coastal neighbourhoods

Abstract

Follow this and additional works at: https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers Abstract: Urban development projects are complex processes that involve numerous stakeholders. Lately, urban design has gained a human-centred dynamic to be able to correspond to the needs and aspirations of the stakeholders that form the community. This paper proposes a participatory approach to bring the community to the centre of the design process. Through a case study conducted in the coastal areas of the Philip-pines, we take a closer look at how co-design can help tackle fragile living situations that emerge from challenging environmental and social conditions. First, future scenarios are co-created with residents in the form of visual summaries, boards and relationship maps. Secondly, these insights are translated into a design framework, where stakeholders can discuss and further iterate on the proposed solutions. This bottom-up approach that directly uses participants' input in identifying the essential elements of the new settlements enabled the generation of implementable design scenarios on neighbourhood scale.