Architecture Of Participation Research Articles

Francis Kéré: A Spokesperson of African Architecture? Modernism and Decolonization

In the context of past winners of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, how can one interpret the decision to honor the architectural work of Francis Kéré in 2022? This article problematizes the West’s interest in African architecture. Is it really due to the fact that African architecture excels in conditions of scarcity and climate crisis? The 18th Venice Architecture Biennale shows that Africa can be regarded as a kind of the “laboratory of the future.” Or is the Pritzker Architecture Prize more of a patronizing and orientalizing gesture that renders African architecture a curiosity, while the Global North chasteningly points out that it is time to rein in the overly spectacular ambitions of contemporary starchitecture, which has neglected its social role? The posed questions direct the analysis toward Kéré’s architecture being interpreted as a local variant of modernism, and his work as a kind of advocacy. Jyoti Hosagrahar’s helpful concept of Indigenous Modernities is invoked as a medium through which Africa’s emerging and important current of participatory architecture may be viewed from the postcolonial perspective and considered beyond the center – periphery opposition.

Jane Drew and Minnette De Silva Pioneering Participatory Architecture in Mid-Century India and Sri Lanka

Jane Drew and Minnette De Silva made significant contributions to the architectural field, namely to the broader frameworks of the mid‑twentieth-century Modern Movement and tropical architecture. They also pioneered inclusive design processes, in line with the discussion of human factors that was just starting to fuel the architectural agenda. Peons’ Village in Chandigarh and Watapuluwa in Kandy are housing schemes resulting from participatory methodologies where both architects promoted dialogue with the populations and integrated regional specificities. The collective engagement, which occurred at different project stages, effectively involved future inhabitants in decision-making and is reflected in the outcome of the projects. Drew and De Silva’s socially engaged architecture envisioned project design as a co‑creation process, contributing to redefining the architect’s role, and aiming to foster a more equitable urban environment toward a better society.

A Meta-study of Architectural Design Processes in Post-disaster Housing Reconstruction in Iran

Background and objective Despite conducting numerous studies in the two areas of “architectural design process” and “post-disaster housing reconstruction” in recent years in Iran, limited studies have been conducted for the meta-study of these two areas. Therefore, to redefine the “post-disaster housing reconstruction” and strengthen the common theoretical foundations, the current study aims to review the related studies to obtain in-depth knowledge of the concepts common between post-disaster housing reconstruction and architectural design process, extract operational concepts, and formulate a proposed conceptual model. Method This is a mixed-method meta-study using an interpretive-naturalistic approach. The articles published in Persian over the last twenty years were searched using the keywords “housing architecture design process”, “post-disaster housing reconstruction,” and “participatory architecture design process and post-disaster housing “. The initial search yielded 168 articles. After several stages of screening, 66 articles were selected for further review. Quantitative analysis was done using descriptive statistics in Excel software. Qualitative analysis was done using the coding technique and MaxQDA software. Results The studies in the field of Iranian architecture are mainly subject-oriented and independent of time and place, based on theoretical knowledge along with the global knowledge of architecture and in line with the third generation of design processes (mental processes of architects). Meanwhile, the articles in the field of post-disaster housing reconstruction in Iran are mainly experience-oriented and location-oriented, with an applied design and using a case study method. Conclusion The “post-disaster housing design process,” due to its nature, includes all three generations of architectural design processes, including systematic, collaborative, and mental processes. Recognizing and redefining the “steps of post-disaster housing design and planning”, “roles and responsibilities”, and “managing the implementation of plans and programs” related to the systematic processes; “participatory design and participatory architects”, “participation in post-disaster design and supply of housing”, “effective factors, barriers, and facilitators of participation” related to the collaborative processes; and “architect- and problem-focused design factors”, “architect’s post-disaster knowledge and attitude towards the situation”, “redefining the post-disaster contextual architecture” and “ mentalizing factors of the architect and disaster survivors” related to the mental processes are the most important issues involved in the three generations of the post-disaster housing design process.

BUILDING NEW HERITAGE FOR THE FUTURE: INVESTIGATING COMMUNITY ARCHITECTURE PARADIGMS IN CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE OF IRAN (1978–2020)

Contemporary Iranian architecture in the last forty decades has been influenced by different currents and trends, from modern trends to postmodern and kitsch and attention to regionalism in recent years. Yet, there have been fewer participatory approaches in design and especially community architecture. As an approach, participatory architecture has not been a suitable approach for many architects because they believe the user interference leads the project to a wrong path, and it is a time-consuming process. On the other side, some governments make seductive participation for some political aims. Many recourses in this field talk about the user’s direct participation in the design process, and also many of the cases are not outstanding in contemporary architecture literature. So just a seduce participation occurs during design. Some methods used in this kind are questionnaires, workshops, interviews, etc. Some cases consider involvement during the project’s construction phases (especially in developing countries). Assessing different successful Iranian projects in four recent decades shows a little kind of participatory methods in CA of Iran. The lack of usage of community architecture paradigms leads to not being too good architecture practices. Some projects with a successful appearance made community design principles in the design process. Combining regionalism and community design approaches make responsible and sustainable projects for the future. In this study, by using the PAR research method, the typology of participatory architecture in contemporary Iranian architecture has been analyzed. Seven typologies of participation in the design process show different levels and conditions of participation for users and architects. Some typologies such as interpretive and regional participation consider more values, costumes and user behaviors, and they are more indirect. In the next step, using the case study research method and qualitative analysis by the ATLAS.ti software, the relationship between the concepts of community architecture and its impact on the formation of Iranian architecture has been discussed. Different typologies of participation in architectural cases are wide ranges of successful methods of participation that if far from previous typical involvement consideration in social mobilization and questioner’s procedures. Today, questionnaire participation and social mobilization are named seduce participation (also, in some cases, may be useful). In recent years, the tendency towards participatory design with interpretive and regionalism approaches has increased. Studies show the use of three branches: 1 – Elements of traditional Iranian-Islamic architecture (29 codes), incorporation with the environment (23 codes), use of natural light (17 codes) are the most important reasons for the formation of today’s Iranian architecture. In recent years, by combining the concepts of community architecture (29 codes) with emphasis on identity (4 codes), transparency (4 codes), attention to user needs (3 codes), privacy, sense of belonging, sense of ownership, and sense of unity have become the main criterion of architectural formations. Today, assessing the contemporary architecture of Iran (recent decades) shows the usage of responsible typologies of participation in the design process have a good impact on the built environment, and it also improves the condition of life for user and respects values, culture, costumes, needs and ideas, literature survey and recommends a sustainable future. The most influential factors in contemporary Iranian architectural ideas in recent years include topics such as the Usage of Iranian-Islamic traditional elements, harmony with nature, and natural light. Combining Iranian-Islamic traditional architecture elements (such as courtyards, Koushk, etc.) with community design architectural concepts with solutions such as social spaces, flexibility, platform spaces, courtyards are the most important features of the formation of today’s architecture. Central courtyard, Eyvan, and the Persian garden have been the three main elements of today’s Iranian architecture.

Participatory architecture workshops with asylum seekers and local people: Experiences from the Crossing Cultures project in Southern Italy

Background: Participatory architecture can promote dialogue across cultures while working together to create physical outputs. A team of academics with a background in architecture, psychology and health sciences evaluated a participatory architecture workshop in Southern Italy as part of the Crossing Cultures project. The goal was to explore participants’ experiences and perceived benefits. In the context of situated learning, the workshop brought together architecture students, local citizens and asylum seekers, who by working together and learning from each other formed a community of practice (CoP). Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of members of the CoP, their beliefs about the benefits of the project and ways to improve it. Setting: Data collection took place in 2019 during a participatory architecture workshop in Belmonte, Italy. Method: Twenty-five asylum seekers, locals and students took part in in-depth interviews, which were later subjected to thematic analysis. Results: Participants reported experiences relating to ‘living together’, ‘working together’, ‘making home’, ‘making locals comfortable to be involved’ and ‘understanding and respecting differences’. Perceived benefits were ‘creating a space for connection’, ‘revitalising local communities’, ‘promoting development of towns’, ‘broadening horizons’, ‘gaining or practising skills’, ‘having your ideas heard’ and ‘creating lasting things’. Conclusion: Findings suggest that creating a CoP not only fulfils individual goals but also addresses common concerns. Participatory architecture workshops in an area with high immigration can create connections between asylum seekers and local people, and promote intercultural dialogue while helping to reactivate an economically and socially deprived area.

Participation: A Disciplinary Border for Architectural Research and Practice

This editorial note provides an extended summary and transversal analysis of ten articles gathered for the 2022 Special Issue on participation in contemporary architecture. The call for contribution circulated in June 2021 attracted papers from Central Europe (n = 8) and North America (n = 2), and presents an overview of ongoing practices and research in participatory architecture in these areas. The Special Issue aimed to study the connections between disciplines and gathered nine empirical cases and one literature review. In this editorial note, we first analyze these contributions to better understand the nature of architecture in participating in the profiles of end-users and project teams, and the scale of the projects. Secondly, we highlight four lessons taken from these practices and studies: we emphasize how participation in architecture (1) emerges and operates in interstitial spaces; (2) often deployed for and with “vulnerable” end-user groups, this “vulnerability” provides power and originality to processes and outcomes; (3) inspirational principles, guides, and frameworks are produced as outcomes; and finally, (4) social architectures are deployed beyond tangible concepts through a multilevel relationship to pedagogy. Finally, we observe that reflections on gender, politics, decoloniality, and disciplinary transfers remain underexplored and need to be explicitly studied and integrated.

Promoting Social Interaction through Participatory Architecture. Experimentation, Experience, Evaluation in a Social Housing Complex (Grand’Goule, Poitiers, 1974–2021)

Has the increase in social life and conviviality commonly imagined by the designers and decision-makers taken place? There are few systematic post-project evaluations of the methods and tools used to answer this question. Therefore, this article wishes to draw lessons from a housing experiment from the end of the 1970s, the Grand’Goule residence in Poitiers, the objective of which was to create a dense social life through design and means of participation. Some devices consisted in the creation of Surfaces d’Activités Partagées (SAPs, shared activities surfaces), which are common spaces where residents can intervene in both the interior design and the function of space itself. In this study, we analyze the Grand’Goule project, which has been displayed as a participative experiment, with the objective of creating a dense social life through original architectural and social devices. We use different sources (interviews of the inhabitants, project owners, and architects, alongside press articles and the architects’ archives) to dissect the practices in order to lead a retrospective analysis of the participative process, its successes and failures. We show that, as a very complex and fragile process, enabling the active participation of people in the design and use of a large-scale architectural project is far from obvious and suffers from several kinds of difficulties. We highlight the gap between initial intentions, final realizations and actual uses in the Grand’Goule project, and how it can inform every participative architectural project.

Reactivating underpopulated areas through participatory architecture in southern Italy by creating a home for newcomers

Crossing Cultures is a university-based research initiative that is part of London Metropolitan’s Centre for Urban and Built Ecologies (CUBE) which aims to develop a new pedagogical model. The focus is to provide an inclusive learning environment that facilitates intercultural relationships and group learning, equipping students with essential skills for a globally connected world beyond the subject of architecture. We have paired the design studio activities in London with a field experience of live engagement in southern Italy, in a region suffering from depopulation, while simultaneously experiencing the arrival of asylum seekers. The confluence of these opposing developments creates a need to rebuild local communities and presents an exceptional opportunity for our students to become agents of change. The article outlines how, through the creation of an additional teaching and learning platform for multi-disciplinary research outside the boundaries of the university campus, this teaching practice is raising social capital by attracting and integrating students and asylum seekers alike, adding to population and economic growth. The article concludes by highlighting the unique opportunity to scale up this hybrid studio/field study model, which has arisen because of the COVID-19 pandemic. What is proposed is that now, as universities are developing blended learning delivery models, our observations could feed into a new, expansive model for studying architecture as a student-in-residence mode of study.

Participatory architecture of the Saal and the Porto School

This article analyzes the experience of the Porto School in Portugal in the 1970s with regard to the housing deficit and its interactions in the political and social process of the April 25 Revolution. The Porto School has become a "synonym" of Portuguese architecture in recent years, in which the media has become relevant by opening to the public's knowledge the work of architects. The Porto School was thrown into the whirlwind of social movements of the 1960s, in which students wanted more than an academic model, arguing that the course should enable the architect to answer social questions, so that students and teachers of the former School of Fine Arts of Porto – now The Faculty of Architecture of Porto – starred in an important project that became known as the Local Ambulatory Support Service (Serviço de Apoio Ambulatorial Local [Saal]) Operation. The process of participatory architecture called Saal was an important milestone in the course of Portugal's housing policies with international repercussion, having a greater visibility in the city of Porto. Although brief in the period that it was in force (1974-1976), its great differential was the participation of residents in the project process, a fact that was still unheard of, putting architects, workers, and the government “side by side”.

Business Network Literature Review: A Mini-Review Approach

This study aims to find the formulation of factors that can influence the development of business networks both locally and globally. This study used a qualitative method by reviewing 27 journals from previous researchers. The results of this study indicate that multi-actor factors are useful for understanding business networks. Ex-ante signaling and filtering factors at the contractual relationship formation stage are complementary mechanisms that enhance network performance. Agency approach, structure approach and practice approach affect the performance of the business network. Another factor that can improve the performance of a business network is clustering social audiences in a business information network. Organizational variables such as participatory architecture, organizational integration, and mechanisms play a relevant role in protecting and developing business networks. The next finding is that the management relationship factor can improve the performance of the small and medium business network. Value creation innovation includes new capabilities, technology and processes as well as partnerships for the purpose of co-creation that can reduce risk in the business network. Linkage factors and their effect on network connectivity can play a relevant role in strategic business decisions. The role of dynamic capabilities in encouraging business model innovation, especially in market-oriented small and medium enterprises, can encourage innovation in the business model of the small and medium enterprises themselves. Other factors that can affect the efficiency of a business network are intellectual agility, leadership and micro-enterprise innovation mediated through entrepreneurial leadership. The large structure in a business network can positively affect business performance through linkage mechanisms. Whereas the presence of a large number of affiliates in the first company layer of the affiliate structure causes a decrease in the effect of size on the group level performance of the business. Limited diversification at the business group level in the first corporate layer of the affiliate structure results in reduced returns in terms of risk sharing, because shareholders can reduce their investment, thus negatively impacting the overall group level performance. The role of religion and spirituality in the context of a business network greatly influences the strength of a business network.

Open innovation in the face of the COVID‐19 grand challenge: insights from the Pan‐European hackathon ‘EUvsVirus’

Being a grand challenge of global scale, the COVID‐19 pandemic requires collective and collaborative efforts from a variety of actors to enable the expected scientific advancement and technological progress. To achieve such an open innovation approach, several initiatives have been launched in order to leverage potential distributed knowledge sources that go beyond those available to any single organization. A particular tool that has gained some momentum during COVID‐19 times is hackathons, which have been used to unleash the innovation potential of individuals who voluntarily came together, for a relatively short period of time, with the aim to solve specific problems. In this paper, we describe and analyze the case of the hackathon EUvsVirus, led by the European Innovation Council. EUvs Virus was a 3‐day online hackathon to connect civil society, innovators, partners, and investors across Europe and beyond in order to develop innovative solutions to coronavirus‐related challenges. We have identified four dimensions to explore hackathons as a crowdsourcing tool for practicing effective open innovation in the face of COVID‐19: broad scope, participatory architecture, online setting, and community creation. We discuss how these four elements can play a strategic role in the face of grand challenges, which require, as in the case of the COVID‐19 pandemic, both urgent action and long‐term thinking. Our case analysis also suggests the need to look beyond the ‘usual suspects’, through knowledge recombination with atypical resources (e.g., retired experts, graduate students, and the general public). On this basis, we call for a broader perspective on open innovation, to be extended beyond openness across organizational boundaries, and to explore the role of openness at societal level.

Unboxing the Conference on the Future of Europe: A Preliminary View on its Democratic Raison-d’être and Participatory Architecture

As the European Union undergoes a major, self-proclaimed democratic exercise – the Conference on the Future of Europe –, this article offers a preliminary assessment of the Conference’s participatory architecture and, more broadly, its democratic raison d’etre. After reconstructing the genesis of the Conference by rehearsing the standard account of this initiative, it offers an alternative account, aimed at contextualizing the Conference within past attempts at reforming the Union and framing it as potentially compensating for the lack of a genuine, pan-EU political and media space. The article then moves to unpack the Conference’s participatory design by discussing its legal basis, overall architecture and governance. While it would be naive political solutionism to expect that this ad hoc democratic innovation initiative will magically address the EU democratic malaise, the Conference’s embedded experimentalism can be seen as a promising first step towards the realization of the legitimacy-enhancing potential of participation, as it was originally conceived in the Constitutional Treaty and eventually resurrected into the Treaty of Lisbon. A few concluding remarks suggest that the Conference’s success should not be measured against the sole prospect of Treaty reform, but rather its ability to offer both EU institutions and its citizens a foretaste of a more intelligible, deliberative, and therefore more inclusive, transnational Europe.

Unboxing the Conference on the Future of Europe and its democratic raison d'être

AbstractThis article situates the Conference on the Future of Europe within past attempts at reforming the Union by unpacking its democratic raison d'être and its experimental participatory architecture. After rehearsing the standard account of its genesis, the article frames the Conference as an attempt at creating a new, yet temporary, transnational opportunity structure for participatory deliberation capable of compensating for the lack of a genuine, pan‐EU political and media space. While it would be naïve political solutionism to expect that this ad hoc, top‐down initiative could magically address the EU democratic malaise, the Conference's embedded experimentalism offers a promising first step towards the realisation of the legitimacy‐enhancing potential of participation. Ultimately, the launch of the Conference marks the first explicit admission that citizens—not the Member States or the EU institutions—are the EU's ultimate source of authority and legitimacy. Once Europe's democratic genie is out of the bottle, it will be difficult to put it back in.

AGEING IN AN UNEQUAL WORLD CO+LIVING DESIGN: PARTICIPATORY DESIGN SIMULATION GAMIFICATION FOR LIFE-ENHANCING BUILT ENVIRONMENTS IN AGE-APPROPRIATE, INCLUSIVE AND MULTI-GENERATIONAL CO-LIVINGBUILDINGSWITHOUTLIMITATIONS

This article reports on conducted research on co-design for multi-generational co-living architecture and development proposals for urban living as solution to deal with ageingpopulations that are spatially disconnected like in the Metropolitan Region Perth/Western Australia. A gamified scenario simulation, the ‘Co-living2 game’, has been invented to explore uses of spatial activity, ambiance and features of individuals anticipating to live together in a specific urban setting. The aim was to enable potential inhabitants to explore and to adjust their needs and desires within a potential future built environment,using their contemplated daily activity patterns and qualitative considerations ofcommon areas, which transfer easily into the design process of a masterplan for Cohousing3 settlements. The results of the simulation survey includes the evaluation of programming priorities and concepts for the further urban and architectural development of Co-housing communities that enable age-appropriate, inclusive, multi-generational co-living buildings without limitations.Keywords: participatory architecture, collaborative research, sustainable urbandevelopment.

Living Through and Living On?

In this article, we examine the school project implemented by the architecture charity CatalyticAction in the informal refugee settlement of Jarahieh, in the Bekaa, Lebanon. In doing so, we propose an approach to participatory humanitarian architecture that extends beyond the mere act of designing “together” an “object building.” We see participatory architecture as a process that develops incrementally through the socioeconomic life of precarious communities—through what we call the “living through” and “living on” of participation. While remaining attentive to the infrastructural and political limitations to architectural durability in refugee settlements, we foreground the social life of architectural forms, and consider the built environment as not simply “used,” but produced and (re)productive through time, beyond, and often in spite of, humanitarian interventions.

Worldmaking as Techné: Participatory Art, Music, and Architecture edited by Mark-David Hosale, Sana Murrani and Alberto de Campo; Foreword by Roy Ascott. Riverside Architectural Press, Cambridge, 2018. 460 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-1988366098.

<i>Worldmaking as Techné: Participatory Art, Music, and Architecture</i> edited by Mark-David Hosale, Sana Murrani and Alberto de Campo; Foreword by Roy Ascott. Riverside Architectural Press, Cambridge, 2018. 460 pp., illus. ISBN: 978-1988366098.

Capital of Feedback

The body of work by British architect Cedric Price (1934–2003) is largely concerned with architecture’s relationship to technology and its impact on society. As contemporary architecture finds itself confronted with similar issues today, Price’s designs are being revisited and hailed for their prospective and inventive visions. As such, it seems timely to ask if Price’s designs can be regarded as precedents for future projects that aim to couple participation and technology through architectural design. In this article, I depart from the economic logic of today’s digital platforms to analyse the participatory elements Cedric Price designed for Oxford Corner House (1965–66) to be ‘self-participatory entertainment’. As user participation has gradually been capitalised on through the evolution of digital technologies, I argue that the conditions for what participatory architecture entails have changed in turn. Whereas Price regarded the transfer of information as an activity for users of the Oxford Corner House to engage with freely, the operation of today’s digital platforms instead suggests that such activities are entirely facilitated in order to retrieve information from its users. In order to make this argument, I look at how Cedric Price envisioned digital technologies to sustain participation and in turn how he understood the concept of user participation and its relation to the architectural programme.

Developing Political Strategies across a New Democratic and State Architecture

Under new democratic regimes, civil society organizations (CSOs) alter their political strategies to better engage public officials and citizens as well as to influence broader political debates. In Brazil, between 1990 and 2010, CSOs gained access to a broad participatory architecture as well as a reconfigured state, inducing CSOs to employ a wider range of strategies. This article uses a political network approach to illuminate variation in CSOs’ political strategies across four policy arenas and show how the role of the state, the broader configuration of civil society, the interests of elected officials, and the rules of participatory institutions interact to produce this variation. Data for this article’s analysis come from a survey of three hundred CSO leaders in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte. The survey identified the strategies they employed to promote policy change and direct resource allocation in the arenas of participatory budgeting, health care, social services, and housing. Sociographs generated from survey results reveal a distinct clustering within each policy arena of the strategies employed by CSOs, providing further support to the usefulness of the analytical framework.

Robust Collective Action in Healthcare: Mobilizing to Address a Grand Challenge

This research analyzes how a healthcare social enterprise convened other stakeholders to create a health information exchange. Three robust action mechanisms- participatory architecture, multivocal inscription, and distributed experimentation- undergird efforts to address grand challenges such as the cost and quality of healthcare. This research extends extant organizational scholarship on grand challenges by illuminating how an organization applied these mechanisms as a convener of collective action. In addition, this research conceptualizes the role of effectuation in enabling robust action and effectuation’s broader relevance to a convener’s efforts in mobilizing stakeholders to address grand challenges.

The Application of the Environmentally Friendly Co-Housing Concept in the Residences at Desa Tegaldowo, Kecamatan Bantul, Yogyakarta

Humans’ comfort when living in their residences is heavily influenced by their economic level, and it distinguishes the design of residences of the poor and the rich. Having limited position, architects and society should participate in order to solve the aforementioned problem. In participatory architecture, the client’s special position that is non-profit and non-private, and in this case the clients are the communities and people in lower class should be considered. The participatory architecture is also supported by a concept called ‘CoHousing’ or ‘Community Housing’. It is a community-based concept in Yogyakarta where its people are identical with communal work. The study case took place at Desa Tegaldowo, Kecamatan Bantul, Yogyakarta where the people still live in simple houses. The participatory architecture concept and ‘CoHousing’ concept will complement each other in involving the community that can give impact for their household. So we can apply the concept of eco-friendly Cohousing on settlements in Desa Tegaldowo based on the participation of community. This research used the method of design guidance. The result of the research was the guidance of settlement design with concept of design participation, co-housing’ and permaculture concept using environmental friendly materials and structures at Desa Tegaldowo.