ACD Journal
ACD Journal Issue 1 - Free online version here
ACD Journal Issue 1
£16.00 + £2.99 postage (UK only)
We are excited to launch the ACD's first journal!
Our team have developed a fantastic 55-page journal with articles from all over the globe on collaborative design across the built environment. As such, our first journal is a celebration of what members of our community have generously shared over the past year. The content reflects the activities we have undertaken and the different voices, cultures and practices that have been present and have enriched us all.
It is tremendously heartening that the ACD’s mission chimes with so many people interested in co-design from all walks of life.
Inside, you will find articles that draw upon the ACD’s Co-design: International Voices conference, our regular thematic Conversation Labs, practitioner talks, responses to policy consultations and worldwide practice.
Five themes emerged in the editing process, which we have highlighted throughout this first issue: Digital, Policy, Practice, Inclusion and International. At this point, we invite you to scour every page linearly or dip in and out.
Editorial Team: Jo Morrison, Alex Brooks, May Newisar, Marisa Harlington
Read the free online version here
Book list
Useful websites and Guides
United Kingdom
Engagement Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work
RIBA
RIBA with generous support of the Association of Collaborative Design (ACD) and Sustrans, and supported by the Landscape Institute, have developed an Engagement Overlay to provide guidance on engagement through each RIBA Plan of Work stage to promote best practice and ensure the most successful and collaborative project outcomes.
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Global
IAPP2 - Advancing the practice of public participation
International Association for Public Participation
IAP2 is the preeminent international organisation advancing the practice of public participation. Our mission is to promote and advance public participation / community engagement globally through targeted initiatives that are guided by culturally adaptive standards of practice and core values.
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New Zealand
“Finding Māoritanga”
Olivia Haddon/ Auckland Council
From ACD International Voices Conference 2020 Public art/space as a form of indigenous resistance
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United Kingdom
Evolving design practice: Community Design
Cat Drew, Tatevik Sargsyan & Umi Baden-Powell/ Design Council
From ACD International Voices Conference 2020
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United States of America
The Future of Urbanism is democratic
Joel Mills/ AIA Communities
From ACD International Voices Conference 2020
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United Kingdom
A councillor's workbook on neighbourhood and community engagement
Local Government
Features to help think about the issues of engagement
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United Kingdom
Voice Opportunity Power
ZCD Architects and Grosvenor with the TCPA and Sport England
A Toolkit To Involve Young People In The Making And Managing Of Their Neighbourhoods. Practical guidance on involving young people (11-18)
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United Kingdom
National Standards for Community Engagement
Scottish Community Development Centre
Good-practice principles for community engagement
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United Kingdom
Engagement and nature-based solutions
Community Engagement for Nature-Based Solutions
Guide for water practitioners related to Nature-Based Solutions
https://figshare.shef.ac.uk/articles/report/Community_Engagement_for_Nature-Based_Solutions/21997478
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Global
Her City supports urban development from a girl's perspective
Her City
Urban development from a girl’s perspective
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United States of America
Guide our growth as a group
Black Space Manifesto
Activities from engagement and projects in Black neighborhoods
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United States of America
To Learn and To Share
Association of Community Design
A few articles outlining racism in the built environment and Leaders, Firms, and Voices
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Global
Human-Centred Design
Design Kit
Creative approach to problem-solving
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Global
Community Engagement: a Practitioner's Guide Part 1 and 2
Citizen Lab
Tactics for a long-term engagement plan
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United Kingdom
CLIMANIA
The Climate Action Game project
Board game to raise awareness of climate change
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Global
Digital tools for engagement
Deepr Framework
Impact of small, meaningful moments of connection
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United Kingdom
Resources page
Migrants Bureau
Multi-disciplinary social design and urbanism practice
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United Kingdom
Nottingham's Community Engagement Guide
Community Engagement Guide
Community engagement for projects within the City of Nottingham
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United Kingdom
The Power of Collaboration and Co-Design in Architecture: 2023
Collective Action!
Showcase of collaborative architecture
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United Kingdom
Towards Spatial Justice
DSDHA
A guide for achieving meaningful participation in co-design processes This research emphasis es co-design's role in addressing built environment challenges through spatial justice and collaborative processes.
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United Kingdom
A Quality of Life: Code of Practice
A Quality of Life Foundation
A code of practice for effective community consultation and engagement in development, planning and design.
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United Kingdom
Community-Led Regeneration: A Toolkit for Residents and Planners
UCL Discovery
Guide to community-Led regeneration with tools and strategies for resisting social housing demolition and proposing community-led plans, with case studies from London communities
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United Kingdom
Every One Every Day'
Nat Defriend/ Participatory City
Imaginative ‘hands-on’ projects for people and neighbourhoods
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Spain
Rethinking spaces from new paradigms
Sara Ortiz Escalante/ Collectiu Punt Six
To break with discriminations and hierarchies
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United Kingdom
Communities
Public Practice
Resources and records primarily on the theme of Communities
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United Kingdom
Resources
Glass-house
Practical resources, films, and publications about their work
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United Kingdom
CCQOL The Inclusive Engagement Toolkit: A Toolkit For Change
Quality of Life Foundation
Addressing the gap between participation in engagement and inclusion
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United Kingdom
Place-based toolkit for working is about collectively
Place Standard Toolkit
Assessing places in various stages
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Global
For the Love of Community Engagement
Becky Hirst
Concerns for the future of public participation
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United States of America
Digital Engagement Guide
Hester Street
Guides and publications on techniques and methods
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Spain
Publications on feminist urbanism
Collectiu Punt Six
Gender-based urban assessment and methods
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Global
Collaborative Design
Philippe Coullomb & Charles Collingwood-Boots
Field guide on design & facilitation
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Australia
Introducing the mindsets for co-design
Beyond Sticky Notes
Mindsets for co-design
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United Kingdom
Guide on collaborative approach
The Collaboration Guidebook 2023
Guidebook for collaboration journey
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Global
Guide to Participatory Practice
Participatory Practice in Space, Place, and Service Design
Importance of participatory practices in problem-solving
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United Kingdom
Engagement with Rural communities
HAT Projects
How rural communities were supported for codesign
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Global
Public Square Year 1
Democratic Society
Prototyping new approaches for citizen participation
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United Kingdom
Guide to working with residents
People Powered Places
Working with existing communities for engagement in planning and housing
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United Kingdom
Co-designing Infrastructures
Sarah Bell, Charlotte Johnson, Kat Austen, Gemma Moore, and Tse-Hui Teh
Community collaboration for liveable cities
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Case Studies: Digital Participation
High Street Renewal Project | Streets Reimagined
East Street is a historical, and much loved high street located a few miles to the south of Bristol city-centre. Like many high streets of its kind, it has experienced challenges in recent years with the decline in physical retail.
Streets Reimagined were recently commissioned as part of a multi-disciplinary team by Bedminster Business Improvement District, Bristol City Council and developer partners to create a spatial vision for East Street.
Stage 1 of the project has been undertaken before and during the Coronavirus, lockdown using a ‘mixed-method’ approach, including observational analysis, historical research and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders. We also developed a digital community engagement platform with an interactive map and user-centred surveys which have generated more than 700 interactions to date.
High Street Renewal Project (ongoing): aims to develop proposals to reimagine a historic high street (www.eaststreetvision.com). Includes an interactive geographical map.
Community-led plan | Place Studio
We have prepared an approach that seeks to enable people to engage in different ways throughout the project - to enable 'depth' and 'breadth'. We want to balance a range of digital tools to enable people to engage with the project in ways in which they feel are accessible.
We are also linking into a few physical events (bearing in mind the restrictions of the pandemic) to give people an opportunity to find out more about the project and to get out into the place to show people how to use the digital tool (i.e. place check) out and about.
Breadth: website/stakeholder email list / Place Check map/newsletter
Depth: Online focus groups (via zoom) for different stakeholder groups including schools and youth groups / Google forms / Place Check https://placecheck.info/en/ walkabouts - taking the phone or tablet out to populate the digital map whilst out on a walk
Co-PLACE | Nottingham City Council
Co-PLACE is an open resource that offers tools, techniques and examples of best practice for Place-making engagement during the design and planning stages. Training and up-skilling sessions and courses are also available for individuals and for organisations.
PlaceChangers | Digital Tool
PlaceChangers is a digital public engagement platform based on interactive maps and designed to aggregate feedback to facilitate reporting. Our short-term aims are to expand the platform toward many greater value-adds for architects, planners and developers managing a site portfolio. Our long-term aim is to build an industry-standard toolset which becomes part of the best practices of the industry.
PlaceChangers is the digital tool involved. It's been used by several firms for community engagement at various phases, and most commonly to support planning applications. These projects have ranged from needs analyses to town-sized masterplans. The overarching benefit of PlaceChangers is that it's easy to use on mobile or desktop, and easy to share online, meaning developers, architects and local authorities have been able to reach out to people who might not turn up to a public exhibition.
Shomiround | Digital Tool
Shomiround is a mobile app designed to facilitate community engagement with environmental issues.
Our project aims to increase participation in community engagement in local planning policy decisions by use of recording data on the phone. The ability to photograph, geotag and add audio and text commentary allows a wider spectrum of society to put forward their views, and to have their voices included in discussions that influence their lives.
Our project gathers community feedback on the places that matter to them, during Covid-19 and social distancing. People are looking for greater ways to connect to their built environments and each other, and digital tools facilitate that directly. Our project works with local groups, like historical societies and girl guides, using our app to share personal stories, insights and tours. These tours deepen engagement with planning issues, cultural heritage, migration and demographics and personal and oral histories of place.
We used Shomiround, a bespoke app for art and architecture tours. Users are empowered to provide their own take on the places that are meaningful to them, through a decentralized platform. Users provide their own photos, their own captions and audio recordings in a layered tour. While the app was developed before the pandemic, its structure is suited to gathering meaningful place data in a way that’s compatible with social distancing.
Woodside Making Places | RaeburnFarquharBowen
The Woodside Making Places project will transform the streets, green-spaces, play areas and courtyards of Woodside; creating an attractive, multi-functional green infrastructure network with a strong sense of place. The project will integrate walking and cycling routes, biodiverse habitats, sustainable rainwater drainage, vibrant doorstep play and edible landscapes.
The design will be informed by engagement with the local community. We are asking local people to help guide design decisions and ensure the needs of the local community are identified and met throughout the design process. This first stage of consultation has been to engage positively with the local community, introduce the project aspirations, listen to people’s thoughts on the environment around them, and then to present concept designs for them to comment upon.
These initial concept designs are at a preliminary stage, and The Woodside Making Places team are now incorporating feedback from this first stage of consultation to present the updated designs for another period of review in October.
Digital tools have been paramount in our engagement process to date, to enable dialogue and communication of information. Online, we created a bespoke consultation website for the project at www.woodsidemakingplaces.org.uk (via SquareSpace). We used Disquis integrated online discussion board forum and videos we used to help ground the proposals in the existing areas and to help the community orientate themselves on the plans.
We also made use of social media, particularly a targeted Facebook group and our own Twitter networks. We are engaging with the PlaceChangers digital platform, which we can integrate within our existing website. We are also able to include a ‘guided tour’ functionality, helping us better explain the proposals in detail.
Albion Waterside Regeneration | JTP Partnership
Albion Waterside Regeneration, Gravesend, a brownfield, an urban site that will include new homes, new commercial uses, public space, and pedestrian access to the riverside in a previously inaccessible area. Over the last three months, JTP has sought the local community’s issues, dreams, and ideas on possible uses for the Albion Waterside site and its relationship with the surrounding neighbourhood. All comments received from the community have been fed to the design team as they work up a Vision for the site.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have not been able to hold face to face meetings and exhibitions, so we have ensured easily accessible engagement with the community digitally via the Create Streets ‘Communities’ platform in tandem with physical newsletters and a Freephone number.
The initial leaflet had a detachable Freepost postcard for people to send in their comments instead of using the online platform. The combined approach of digital, hard copy printed material delivered door to door and Freephone will ensure nobody from the community is excluded from the process by lack of access to technical hardware or skills. Combining digital and printed will ensure the process remains open, transparent and interactive.
Making Together | Automated Architecture
Our project 'Making Together' with Knowle West Media Centre and funded by South West Creative Technology Network and Transforming Construction Network Plus aims to bring advanced technologies to the hands of everyday people by creating accessible design software using Augmented Reality and gaming platforms, as well as new modular housing systems, to design and build homes and community spaces.
The project broadly aimed to address the fact that construction remains one of the least digitised industries worldwide, heavily reliant on manual labour practices. As automation slowly becomes more widely embraced in construction, due to a significant labour shortage, a primary focus of construction automation R&D has been increasing productivity, which has remained stagnant since the post-war period. This is predominantly done by replacing human labour with robotic labour, requiring significant capital investment. Yet the benefit in short term labour cost savings makes a little notable impact on existing inefficient, production chains.
We developed a browser-based design application in Unity that enabled people without any knowledge of design to access a modular housing system, making design processes that are usually held in the hands of designers and architects available to people without expertise in design or housing. We also created an Augmented Reality application that allowed people to fabricate and assemble the modular housing system in real-life and real-time. We used Mozilla Hubs as a virtual platform for discussing and sharing work, providing those without access to physical exhibition spaces during lockdown to experience the work created in our project.
https://automatedarchitecture.io/projects/the-collaborative-construction-platform