Co-conception spaces: New organizations to support participatory projects

Abstract

The emergence of new virtual reality and prototyping technologies has created new cooperation possibilities in design and has originated design spaces that aim at the collaboration and exchange of knowledge. These new features have made it easier to understand the consequences of design technical choices, something that has enriched information and reality in different design review formats. Among these new spaces, co-conception spaces, that put together resources to bring closer together professionals and users of different backgrounds, are noteworthy. This work aims to analyze the use of a company’ collaborative design center from the point of view of co-conception spaces’ constitution. Despite the variety of technological resources and the positive perception of the users involved, some design difficulties of either organizational, political and technological point of view make it difficult to better use the space. In addition, there was little integration of end users into the design process. Based on this initial study about the concept, it is perceived that the use of these resources that strengthen participation still occurs in an essentially non-collaborative design logic, once the use of these technologies is restricted to design reviews.