Walking in my shoes: Creating a toolkit for co-designing a shared vision for city development

Abstract

This research explores the creation of co-design methods that build and maintain long-term relationships in council development projects and engages in innovative design outcomes for the future of the city. A series of workshops were conducted with participants, including designers and urban planners. Stage 1 investigated mechanisms of building trust and understanding roles and responsibilities to test different relationship dynamics. Stage 2 explored activities suitable for dealing with innovation, negotiation, and shared planning to test innovative design outcomes. Findings show that relationship dynamics developed better through conversational activities than pure brainstorming, and that innovative outcomes were best generated through the sharing of values and visions rather than one-sided communication. To support councils to build relationships with developers, we designed a co-design toolkit. The toolkit aims to facilitate meaningful discussions and navigate conflicts in a project, while allowing for the dynamicity of long-term relationships for collaborative city planning.