Exploring Participatory Design for Sustainable Landscape for Public Housing Neighborhoods in Singapore

Singapore’s reputation as a green city is largely achieved through political will, strong policies, and effective execution of policies. While greening Singapore for most of the past five decades can be generally described as a public-sector led approach, where citizen engagement was not necessarily the focus, in recent years the public sector is increasingly interested in engaging the community in the planning and design of public green spaces. As this is a nascent movement, there remain considerable gaps in the types, process, and efficacy of participatory design. In this paper, we describe a research project that aims to provide a sustainable landscape design framework—based on the concept of ecosystem services—through a participatory process. Our study focuses on public housing estates, locally referred to as “HDB” (Housing and Development Board) estates, which houses 80% of Singapore’s population in high-rise, high-density towns. We describe the research process, in which we include multiple stakeholders in the planning and design of HDB neighborhood landscapes. They include relevant public agencies, design professionals, residents, and NPOs/NGOs. We also discuss the lessons learned through such a process. Since a participatory approach to landscape design remains to be fully explored in Singapore, we anticipate that this research project could provide valuable insights into the adoption of participatory design in Singapore to promote a more bottom-up approach to the planning and design of public green and open spaces

Irrigation, collective action, and property rights

"Governments are now shifting their role from direct management of irrigation systems to regulation of the water sector, provision of support services to water user associations, and capacity building among water user associations and irrigation service providers.... International experience suggests that successful irrigation sector reform programs establish both a policy working group and a national secretariat that help to guide and coordinate the planning and implementation of the reform process. The process should include: strategic, participatory planning; research and stakeholder consultations; mobilization of political support; design and adoption of an appropriate policy, legal, institutional, and regulatory framework; strategy to coordinate lending and technical assistance; public awareness campaigns; and monitoring, evaluations, and course corrections." from Text.Collective action ,Poverty alleviation ,natural resources management ,Property rights ,

Urban community-led total sanitation: a case study of Nakuru

The urban poor are detrimentally affected by lack of access to proper sanitation facilities. Informal settlements are typically overcrowded, polluted and lack basic services such as water and sanitation. One area for assisting urban development is to enable poor people and the local public and private sector to improve urban sanitation conditions and services. The Realizing the Right to Total Sanitation (RRTS) programme in Nakuru initiated by Practical Action and Umande Trust has adopted the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach, introducing it in informal settlements (Rhonda and Kaptembwo) in an urban setting. The process has triggered CLTS at the community level, intensified hygiene promotion, introduced participatory design development, empowered informal sector workers, enhanced strategic partnerships and facilitated sanitation financing

Civic engagement as participation in designing for services

In spite of the increased interest on collaborative and participatory design approaches to design in public sector, less attention has been paid to the contribution of design into civic engagement in local decision-making. This paper takes an organisational perspective to explore the role of civic engagement activities in local decision-making cycles, drawing on literature and insights from a workshop with local authorities’ representatives and art and design academics. Zooming out from specific civic engagement activities, the paper outlines local decision-making as a design process, proposes four scenarios, and provides insights into better understanding the decision-making cycles that lead to service transformation in local authorities. The authors argue that while design can facilitate civic engagement practices, an increased understanding of local decision-making cycles can enhance the adoption of participatory approaches in designing for public services in local authorities

Make it so! Jean-Luc Picard, Bart Simpson and the design of e-public services

In this paper, we report on a project applying participatory design methods to include people who have experience of social exclusion (in one form or another) in designing possible technologies for e-(local)-government services. The work was part of a project for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in the UK, and was concerned with ‘access tokens’ that can provide personal identification for individuals accessing public services, based on technologies such as multi-functional smartcards, flash memory sticks, mobile phone SIMs or similar devices. In particular we report on our experience using the ‘pastiche scenarios’ technique recently developed by Mark Blythe. Our findings indicate that the technique can be effective and engaging in helping people to create realistic scenarios of future technology use and highlight some possible pitfalls to consider when using this technique.</p

Mapping and Developing Service Design Research in the UK.

This report is the outcome of the Service Design Research UK (SDR UK) Network with Lancaster University as primary investigator and London College of Communication, UAL as co-investigator. This project was funded as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council Network grant. Service Design Research UK (SDR UK), funded by an AHRC Network Grant, aims to create a UK research network in an emerging field in Design that is Service Design. This field has a recent history and a growing, but still small and dispersed, research community that strongly needs support and visibility to consolidate its knowledge base and enhance its potential impact. Services represent a significant part of the UK economy and can have a transformational role in our society as they affect the way we organize, move, work, study or take care of our health and family. Design introduces a more human centred and creative approach to service innovation; this is critical to delivering more effective and novel solutions that have the potential to tackle contemporary challenges. Service Design Research UK reviewed and consolidated the emergence of Service Design within the estalished field of Design

Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government

Offers strategies for realizing Knight's 2009 call for e-government and openness using Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies, including public-private partnerships to develop applications, flexible procurement procedures, and better community broadband access

Amplifying Quiet Voices: Challenges and Opportunities for Participatory Design at an Urban Scale

Many Smart City projects are beginning to consider the role of citizens. However, current methods for engaging urban populations in participatory design activities are somewhat limited. In this paper, we describe an approach taken to empower socially disadvantaged citizens, using a variety of both social and technological tools, in a smart city project. Through analysing the nature of citizens’ concerns and proposed solutions, we explore the benefits of our approach, arguing that engaging citizens can uncover hyper-local concerns that provide a foundation for finding solutions to address citizen concerns. By reflecting on our approach, we identify four key challenges to utilising participatory design at an urban scale; balancing scale with the personal, who has control of the process, who is participating and integrating citizen-led work with local authorities. By addressing these challenges, we will be able to truly engage citizens as collaborators in co-designing their city

Getting Communities Engaged in Water and Sanitation Projects: Participatory Design and Consumer Feedback

Community engagement in water and sanitation service delivery is key for ensuring project sustainability and accountability. In all of its programmes, WSUP works with local service providers, community groups and local authorities to enhance stakeholder participation. This Topic Brief looks at community engagement approaches used by WSUP in three cities within the African Cities for the Future (ACF) programme: Antananarivo (Madagascar), Kumasi (Ghana) and Maputo (Mozambique). The specific focus is on ways to encourage community involvement in the design of water supply and sanitation projects, and ways in which service providers can elicit input and feedback from people living in low-income communities. The Topic Brief discusses several cases in which community engagement has positively contributed to the development of WASH services. It highlights some of the key challenges currently faced by WSUP and other sector organisations, and ends with practical recommendations for programme managers about how to engage low-income communities