Design for the Soul of the Community

Abstract

The X State University Community Playground Project (XSUCPP) employs community-based design techniques in which college students in biological engineering work with local constituents, especially children, to design and build playgrounds that reflect the unique aspects of the community which the playground will serve. In developing a community-based design process, members of XSUCPP realized that there is a dearth of literature in this area. Therefore, members sought to develop an initial set of community-based design principles and best practices that engineering practitioners could use in their own community-based design endeavors. The team completed brainstorming and concept mapping exercises using a combination of individual and group techniques to create an initial set of community-based design principles, presented here. The XSUCPP members believe that each of these principles supports the overall goal of community-based design: to express “the Soul of the Community” through co-created artifacts.