Public Space Design
LAURA THOMAS | PosadMaxwan
Quest for methods designing inclusive, healthy urban spaces.
Can active involvement of residents lead to better design and use of public space? That was the question Laura Thomas, designer and researcher at the urban development agency PosadMaxwan, asked in her recent design research with the municipality of Dordrecht. In the Dordrecht district ‘De Staart’, public space was generally very little used. Together with the Municipality, PosadMaxwan set out to create an inclusive design for the neighborhood that would make healthy living accessible to all while reflecting the diverse wants and needs of a wide variety of users and stakeholders.
She took a specific approach: a concrete design research on location, on the basis of which she sketched and further tested an abstract framework for inclusive design. In the research she mainly focused on making the analysis phase more inclusive. The analysis was divided into four layers: health data, spatial quality, policy and perception. This 'reading of the neighborhood' on these four layers contributes to a richer representation of the wishes and needs of the neighborhood. Laura draws three lessons from her experience in Dordrecht with design research: (1) that co-creation is essential to ensure that public spaces, which should enable the desired healthy behavior, are actually used; (2) that momentum may be more important than measurable impact; and (3) that the key to inclusive design lies in bringing together diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives.
Laura is an urban designer and graduated at the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University Delft (MSc cum laude 2020). Since her start at PosadMaxwan, Laura has been involved in establishing a new research team that aims to cluster, further develop and share knowledge. This Research & Design team is strongly involved in current architectural developments and takes a position on all kinds of themes: from research into the interaction between geodata analysis and resident participation to devising buildable forms of floating (high-urban) urban development.
