Playful City Jam

BACKGROUND ISSUES

On the occasion of the 2014 “Design and Emotion” Conference, Dr. Vezzani and Dr. Tang, from the University of Leeds, will work with Fabrizio Pierandrei from PACO to organize a one-day (6 hours) workshop aimed at using design thinking as leverage to create a sustainable urban community in Medellín. It attempts to test a portable model to engage stakeholders in the use of Design Jams for the development of a sustainable community.

Playful City Jam calls for the participation of Medellín communities and local organizations to work creatively and collaboratively with practitioners and students from different design areas (i.e., design students and teachers with social sensibility, government workers, community groups involved with social innovation processes, etc.) to deliver multi-sectorial solutions to promoting a sense of community and individual engagement in urban sustainability.

This proposed workshop, which is part of an ongoing project led by Dr. Tang and Dr. Vezzani, focuses on developing a design-led model and tools to enable the active participation of both individuals and local communities in sustainable living and therefore enhance their sense of community¹.

Previous experiences of running both global and local design jams in Leeds (in partnership with PACO) have resulted in a “prototype” for applying collaborative design in the improvement of community living. Playful City Jam will test the effectiveness of the “prototype” developed in enhancing creativity and supporting spontaneous design activities, aiding an inter- disciplinary group to work together on problem identification, design ideation, prototyping and implementation.

¹ McMillan, D. and Chavis, D. M. (1986) Sense of Community: a Definition and Theory, Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 14, pp. 6-21.