Dr Rosie Hornbuckle, co-founder of the Complex Collaborations Research Hub at University of the Arts London, reflects on facilitating a series of co-design workshops for the Abundance Project.
Almost a year ago, Maria – the Abundance Project Principal Investigator – approached me with an interesting proposition: could we bring some of the co-design methods from the Complex Collaborations Hub at UAL to support community-based approaches for accessing South West London’s cultural and green places and spaces?
I’m a Reader in Design at UAL and I’ve worked on developing collaborative methods for addressing complex challenges in the fields of health and sustainable innovation over the past 10 years.
The Abundance Project presents an especially complex challenge: five community hubs (Asian Resource Centre of Croydon; Connect: North Korea; Kingston Voluntary Action; Reach Foundation; Refugee Action Kingston) with two or more workshops at each; a huge variety of different needs, cultures, ways of communicating, with over 80 different participants, representing a richly diverse range of personalities and contributions to bring together within four months of engagement.
So how did we do it?
The first ingredient in joyful participation through co-design is people. If you have enthusiastic and generous participants, then you’re halfway to an effective co-creation process. Abundance participants didn’t disappoint. It was such a pleasure to work with these communities, to walk into welcoming and vibrant rooms in New Malden, in Richmond Park, in Feltham, in Croydon, and at Chelsea College of Arts. Each time, people from communities, museums, sports facilities, local government, charities, parks, libraries and the NHS were keen to get on and work though the challenges, to generate new ideas for how to improve access for communities.
The second ingredient is a safe and welcoming atmosphere. People really need to feel that if they share their inner-most thoughts in this space then they will be heard and respected, that their ideas will contribute to something meaningful. Starting in the right way is important. We use warm-up techniques to put everyone at ease and get them ready to think differently. The ‘Elephant in the Room’ warm-up gets everyone laughing as they try to tear an A5 piece of paper into the shape of an elephant with their hands behind their backs!
The third ingredient is to provide guided activities that allow people to explore the terrain together, whilst also aiming towards some concrete ideas that can be taken forward by the research team. One framework we used in Abundance focuses on peer groups discussing their ‘Hopes and Fears’ for accessing a particular place. Then we all listen, bring together and prioritise these insights together. We also use mapping techniques, such as user journeys, to bring latent experiences and feelings to the fore.
The final ingredient is appreciation. At the end of each session, we ask participants to take it in turns to share a key takeaway or feeling. What we so frequently took away from these sessions were feelings of ‘hope’ and ‘community’, and this is (for me as a facilitator) the highlight of my work on Abundance, because it really can’t be overstated how important it is for participants to have a meaningful experience when they engage in co-design processes.
In between each round of workshops, the research team reconvened to reflect on the interconnections and commonalities between the various contributions. This is an important part of co-design, to make sense of the rich output of participation so that we can amplify the effort given by participants and ensure that the work builds towards interventions that bring meaningful change to communities.
As we come to the end of the co-design workshops, it’s fascinating to look back and think about where we started from – the point at which we began the co-design process, in a workshop space at Kingston Voluntary Action. Everyone was a bit unsure about how we go about ‘co-design’ and I could feel the tension in people as they realised I was asking them to step into the unknown, where there is very little certainty, where it feels uncomfortable not knowing what would come from the process. It’s humbling that this rests upon the process that I’m about to take people through. It takes courage, experience and commitment to the power of collaboration, and my ability as a designer, especially during the inevitable ‘sticky’ moments of disagreement of direction or misalignment in expectations.
Yet here we are… We now have six distinct and promising ideas that the research team can confidently take forward in the knowledge that communities are invested and have put something of themselves into the shaping and honing of these interventions.
It’s an empowering and beautiful place for us to be in, full of abundance and ready for piloting.
This post was written by Dr Rosie Hornbuckle, Reader in Design (Associate Professor) and co-founder of the Complex Collaborations Design Research Hub at University of the Arts London. Live illustrations of the co-design workshops by Palak Garg.