What Participation Creates in Experimental Design Practices. The Case of a Mobile Third Place Built in a Retirement Home

Abstract

This article explores the rise of a new generation of practices combining architecture, design, and art, trying to answer the transition issues faced by society. It develops original operating procedures, including public participation. In doing so, those so-called “specialised” professions expand their sphere of operation and incorporate more immaterial dimensions and resources. The main objective of the article is an attempt to clarify how participation is embodied in specific intervention methods, within those experimental practices. The article will take as a case study a participatory project taking place in a retirement home and aimed at building a mobile third place that brought together various professionals coming from those experimental practices. The study of the participatory project will outline three devices and methods supporting the participation work, as follows: the use of permanence, the use of the prototype and self-construction, and the conception of ephemeral production. The article suggests that based on their analysis, we can understand what architects and designers “manufacture” through the agency of participation. Or more accurately, what participation “manufactures” in those experimental practices. The main result of the article is that the participatory project is more concerned with the motives and aspirations of the design activity, its methods and processes, its context and socialisation than it is with what would be classically considered as the outcome or result (the work, the realisation, the production, the built).

Participation: A Disciplinary Border for Architectural Research and Practice

“…This work resonates with Royer's process-oriented outcomes instead of outcomeoriented design [6]. In her description, Royer reveals how the daily equipment in the retirement home was adapted and deviated from its usual use to serve the creative participation of aging residents.…”

“…In her paper, Royer [6] presents the case of an interdisciplinary project (architecture, design, and art) in the south of France that aims to create participatory design conditions for elderly people to explore new usages. The author shows how residents and workers of a retirement home can become active makers of their architectural space, which is no longer limited to retirement home buildings.…”

“…Royer's analysis of a mobile-home project connected to a retirement home shows that architecture is not limited to the building of the retirement home itself, but may expand beyond it in time and space through a third place [6]. The mobile home's design, production, and uses became a participatory project between the residents; this alternative, temporary architecture thus crystallizes participation.…”

“…Sanders, Murteza, and Sabatelli, after analyzing the particularity of participatory actions in semi-public restrooms, propose six lessons to keep in mind when designing participation for/in sensitive spaces [7]. Royer draws a tripartite framework of participation in multidisciplinary projects [6]. She highlights how the use of permanence in the community, the process of self-construction of prototypes by these communities (together with interdisciplinary actors), and the conception of an ephemeral production are embodying participation.…”

“…Participatory architecture, as discussed in four articles [6,10,11], reveals the close and strong link between participatory science and education. From the projects studied by the authors, we emphasize three main observations:…”