Project R-9258

The politics of design. Negotiating and creating futures for participatory design (Research)

The project " The politics of design. Negotiating and creating futures for participatory design " comprises the production of six pilot projects that explore the political role of design, in particular by questioning the (practical) meaning of the participatory design of cities. The projects are supervised by the Faculty of Architecture, in collaboration with LUCA School of Arts, Z33 , City of Hasselt and the City of Genk. All partners have extensive experience with participative design in urban and rural contexts, and at the same time - because of the major challenges associated with these types of processes - have questions about how this should develop in the future. The project also fits within the general increasing attention for participation in shaping our environment, partly due to the rapidly changing political climate. The project deals with questions such as: What is the importance of more artistic approaches to participatory design of cities, which methods are interesting, what do they add to the quality of our cities or how can we involve more people in this way of working? To what extent can and should these practices be a completely democratic process? The production of the participatory pilot projects serves as a practice-based inspiration for the debate between the project partners and the local and international external partners. Everyone - even our partners - has a different vision of what (good) participation is and how this takes shape. Because participation is not seen here as a neutral activity, we explore the political role of participatory design (in the sense of Hirschhorn "the political that implicates: where do I stand? Where does the other stand? What do I want? What does the other want? "). The different phases in the participatory productions of the pilot projects and their political role are discussed at 6 public meetings and documented through an online magazine and book.

01 January 2018 - 31 May 2021