The applicability of participatory design for urban community building

Abstract

Participatory design was introduced in Scandinavia in the 1970s. This approach invited researchers, designers, developers and users to participate in software design together for promoting democracy in workplace. Later on, participatory design has applied in the field of architecture and planning. Towards a better quality of public space and life, how multiple stakeholders participate in design and governance has become an significant research and design issue ever than before. This research focus on the application issue of participator design in the aspect of community building which is a process of community self-organization and development through community mobilization and collective action. Inspired by the experiences and reflections of three participatory workshops held in different culture backgrounds developed in the early stage of this research, the author proposes that the applicability of participatory design in different community context is a key design challenge. This thesis explores two research questions: (1) "What is the interrelationship between participatory design and community?" and then (2) "How to adapt participatory design in response to community context?" Through literature review, the author reviewed the development of participatory design from the information field in the Nordic region to the community planning and construction all over the world. The author then summarized the current state of application of participatory design approach in community building, including the ladder of participatory design, processes, tools, and types. The author conducted a multi-case study on the applicability of participatory design based on Shanghai. She collected data from participatory observations, and adopted coding analysis approach from grounded-theory and discovered the interrelationship between community and participatory design. The research finding reveals the coupling between participatory design approach and community mode. On the one hand, the Chinese mainland communities show the characteristics of "community differential mode". This conception was initiated by Fei Xiaotong, a Chinese sociologist, that the concept has revealed the profound social structure in China and is still performing in nowadays community. In Chinese mainland community, the differential mode has been embodied in five aspects of the rural flavor, the resilience of family boundary, relationship circle, hierarchical order and the absence of public morality. The mode plays a two-way role of enhancement and suppression for participatory design approach. On the other hand, participatory design also affects the community by reconstructing its differential mode. The participatory behaviors of empowerment, mutual understanding, collaboration, mutual benefit and diverge, together with "non-material" design outputs of community interactions, community consensus and community rules, have deconstructed the existing differential mode of the community to a certain extent, creating a more flat community structure of "group mode". Hence, when adopting the community mode, the designers should take more consideration about the affection from community differential mode, and promote participatory design by consciously accelerating the performance of the above-mentioned participation behaviors and enhancing the above design outputs. After proposing the specific design strategies based on the differential mode under Chinese mainland context, three general principles (i.e., dynamic, transform and progressive) have been summarized for enhancing the applicability of participatory design. The contributions of this research lies in: (1) filling in the research gap of the applicability issue in community building; (2) pointing out the interrelationship between participatory design approach and community mode rather than a one-way effect; and (3) the action-based case collection has practical impetus for local community building. Community building in Chinese mainland is still in its infancy. The author expects that the research would bring inspirations to researchers, designers, social workers, and persons involving in participatory design and community building.