Albadra, D; Elamin, Z; Adeyeye, K; Polychronaki, E; Coley, D A; Holley, J and Copping, A (2021) Participatory design in refugee camps: Comparison of different methods and visualization tools. Building Research & Information, 49(2), pp. 248-264. ISSN 0961-3218
Abstract
Shelters for the displaced can suffer from socio-cultural incompatibility and significant levels of occupant dissatisfaction. Participatory design (PD) is known to help reduce such issues. This is the first study to investigate the effectiveness of different PD methods at engaging and capturing users' needs for shelter design in refugee camps. It also aimed to identify which visualization tools are best at: engaging participants; communicating designs (e.g. concept, size and materials); and facilitating proposing modifications. This is a particularly large study with 16 workshops and 161 participants. Two PD methods were deployed: (i) design-your-own (where refugees proposed their ideal shelter); (ii) adapt-a-design (where refugees evaluated and modified pre-existing shelter designs). The shelters in (ii) were presented using three visualization tools: computer models, physical prototypes and virtual reality. Design-your-own proved less engaging and led participants to produce designs similar to their existing shelters. Adapt-a-design stimulated more dialogue and was more informative. Physical prototypes facilitated engagement in shelter modifications, computer models proved least able to communicate concepts, while virtual reality was best at communicating scale and size.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | participatory design; refugee camps; temporary shelters; visualization tools |
| Index terms: | visualization, refugee, prototype, effectiveness, temporary shelter, virtual reality, workshop, participatory design |
| Subjects: | design practice, modelling and simulation, performance management, virtual reality, demography, design methods, construction type |
| Topics: | Engineering Principles, Construction Technology, Design Practice, Quality Management, Urban Studies, Digital Applications |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
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