Children and Design Students as Partners in Community Design

The Growing Up in Cities Projects in Montreal and Guadalajara

Abstract

*Youth Transforming Their Environments and Communities | Reports from the Field

Learning through action is a pedagogical method currently used in design-oriented professional schools such as architecture and planning. Grounded in real contexts and developed with local actors, community design projects can integrate learning, research and action in a participatory process. This paper examines two community design experiences developed within the framework of the UNESCO Growing Up in Cities program in Montreal, Canada, and Guadalajara, Mexico. Involving local university students as well as children from the neighborhoods, both projects resulted in design proposals for community outdoor spaces. These experiences offer evidence of the value of integrating children’s participatory processes into the university context.