Dream and Design: A Dreamtown co-design practice
By Stine Kronsted - Dreamtown’s Urban Designer
Dream and Design is one of our approaches and tools to include youth in the design of public spaces in cities. It has grown out of our project in Zimbabwe, Reshaping Communities Through Art.
The title, “Dream and Design” comes from the process of revelation of the dreams of young people through a creative, collaborative process, and turning them in to real-life designs in public space.
Through the project, Reshaping Communities Through Art, a series of artworks by young people were planned to happen in three different communities around Harare in Zimbabwe; Hatcliffe, Hopley and Mbare. The idea with the project was to give young people a voice where they could communicate their dreams, wishes and hopes for the future, through artworks in public space.
In Dream and Design, a creative visualisation process allows you to imagine your innermost dreams for your community. The dreams you envision are then being turned into a concrete design proposal for, in this case, a designated public space. The artistic medium allows a broad range of young people to participate in the creation of their common public space in a non-academic, youth friendly way.
The first Dream and Design workshop was held in the community of Hatcliffe. The workshop was facilitated with, and for, the members of our partner organisation, House of Arts. The first workshop was a pilot workshop, where we tested the format and fine-tuned it with the team members of House of Arts. Later on, House of Arts took the experience from the first workshop and facilitated similar workshops in the communities of Hopley and Mbare, where they invited youth from very diverse backgrounds in each community.
The workshop is divided in three parts; Explore, Dream and Design. This is a brief guide to make your own Dream and Design workshop.
Explore challenges and potentials in your community
Go for a walk in your community. Bring along 2-3 friends. Look at the city. Find a public space that means something special to you or to the community as a whole. It can be a space that is used by a lot of people. A central space. A peripheral space. A space that is very safe/unsafe. A space that has a lot of unused potential. Talk about the challenges of the space. Talk about the potentials as well. Talk about the atmosphere, the feeling of being there. What is special about exactly this space? Why? Should it be different than it is? How can it be transformed in to the better? Take five pictures that characterise the entire space and bring them back to the workshop. Present your findings to the group.
Dream opportunities and visions for your community
Sit down in the same group as you were walking with. Think about the space that you have chosen. Now, it is time to draw. Start by drawing your memories/stories from this space. Then draw your feelings being there. Then draw the challenges that are present in this space. Lastly, draw your dreams for the space or draw your ideal public space. All the drawings have to be on the same paper. Within each theme, you have to draw whatever that comes to your mind. You can also paint, make a collage or make a mix of all the media. The exercise is made individually, but each group has to choose the same space. In the end, present each of your visualisations for the entire workshop group.
Design artistic and public space interventions
Go back to your groups. Find similarities from your dream collection drawings. Did you find the same challenges? Did you share the same dreams? Inspired by your drawings, you have to develop an artistic installation in the chosen public space. Each group makes one installation. Start the design process by writing down all your ideas on post-its. Agree on a topic for your artwork. Draw/illustrate the idea in all the ways you can imagine. Once ready, start to build your design idea with whatever materials you have available. Use Lego, sticks, clay, wood, plastic, whatever you have. You can either build the entire public space or just the artistic installation that you dream of creating..
Pictures from the workshop in Hatcliffe and examples of the participants artwork.
A lot of creative, innovative and visionary ideas came out of the workshops in Hatcliffe, Hopley and Mbare. Some were artworks on walls, communicating a statement, an issue or a dream. Some where sculptures, representing youth and marking their importance in their communities. A lot of ideas were about spaces for youth to meet each other, hang out, dance, do sports, music or the like. Most importantly, they were ideas from young people who had dreams about how their city and community could become a better, more youth-friendly place.
And the best ideas from the workshops were realised shortly after the workshops were held, and are now representing what the city looks like, when young people take the lead.