Combining Placemaking and Co-creation Approaches for Curriculum Design: an exploratory journey.

 In urban design it is an accepted part of the placemaking methodology to involve residents or users of a site to be developed. The dialogical process (to borrow from Paulo Freire) between the urban designer and the residents/users provides much richer information to inform the design process and therefore increases the responsivity of the site.  In the case of the review of the curriculum of the BA in Urban Design, Planning and Development, the dialogical process is seen as key to increase engagement from the student and staff bodies and to make sure all partners in the programme (students and staff) develop a sense of ownership and belonging. Encouraged by the need to develop an NSS Action Plan to deal with low scores (not many at all!) from the 2023 survey, I have decided to kickoff the co-creation process. I want the students to really be a meaningful part of the review of the programme. I found myself repeating the word meaningful several times during my professional life...

How do I make the quinquennial review of my UG course exciting? Earlier this year I was asked to conduct the quinquennial review for the BA in Urban Design, Planning and Development (BA UDP or UDP). This is already a year delayed due to covid, etc. At first instance any review adds to the workload and therefore generates a negative reaction by all members of staff who need to be invovled in it.  However, I am full of ideas and wanting to take this opportunity to engage with the process of CREATING in the same manner as when I was asked to develop the programme for the first time. Key words in this process should be: CO-CREATION, CREATIVITY, INNOVATION, IDEAS, SUPPORT, LISTENING & MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT. Ideas are really flowing and I'm getting closer to an approach where CO-CREATION and PLACEMAKING, two well known models in planning urban design as well as Brookes IDEAS framework, help guiding the review of the BA UDP programme. I'll be updating the blog as I go but here it ...