Participatory engagement overview
The only way to design places that work for under-represented groups is to engage them in the decision-making and design processes. Participatory engagement is a collaborative process that involves key stakeholders and local people.
It aims to democratise the process by bringing lived experiences directly into decision-making and design. By incorporating these perspectives, it ensures that any decision or intervention in the built environment directly responds to people's needs and aspirations, while also empowering them to continue participating in processes that affect their lives.
The key to successful participatory engagement is planning and preparing a fair and inclusive process that overcomes all recognised barriers under-represented groups face in participating. It also requires a clear commitment to demonstrating how their input has directly informed project solutions. The diagram below shows how participatory design needs to move beyond tokenistic engagement and consultation to more impactful and genuinely participatory processes.
To achieve this, the following steps should be followed:
- Develop an Inclusive Engagement Plan
- Recruit participants for engagement
- Conduct participatory engagement activities
- Analyse the results and prepare an Inclusive Design Statement
The diagram below shows how the process should be built into the brief and genuinely iterative from the start, rather than something that is applied only during the later stages of design:
