Background
Govan Community Trust (GCT) is a community organisation based in Govan, Glasgow, dedicated to improving the lives of local residents through ‘community-led property ownership and regeneration.’ As a post-industrial community, Govan faces challenges such as high shop vacancy rates, limited resident participation, and the absence of voices from marginalised groups.
Core Project Issue
In driving community-led renewal, GCT found that existing participation methods often limited engagement to a small group of active residents, failing to reach a more diverse community. The lack of low-threshold, visible, and sustainable participation mechanisms made it difficult for ordinary residents to feel that their voices were heard and had an impact on decision-making.
Design Challenge
How to design an inclusive, sustainable, and trust-building community participation mechanism that allows residents from different backgrounds to express their experiences and needs, and ensures that these voices translate into tangible impacts on local spaces and future planning?
My Role
As a transformation designer, I collaborated with GCT to explore and test new participation tools and mechanisms. The goal was to enable residents to express their experiences and visions for local spaces in a more intuitive and engaging manner, while helping GCT establish a long-term, cyclical participation model.
Outcomes
I designed a five-stage participation mechanism (Connect, Express, Co-Create, Acknowledge, Practical Interpretation/Adaptation), later adding ‘Revisit & Update’ to form a cycle.
Through visual, modular, and low-language-dependent tools (such as honeycomb cards, fantasy props, keyword walls, and vision maps), the participation threshold was lowered.
The mechanism not only collected residents’ needs but also allowed them to see the feedback results, enhancing trust and participation enthusiasm.
This outcome helped GCT establish a more inclusive channel for voices in decisions regarding the reuse of vacant shops and provided a replicable participation method for future community projects.