design, civic engagement, & the challenge of wicked problems
DESCRIPTION
Together, in June 2014, the Kettering Foundation & the Community Design Research Center at the University of Virginia convened a group of urban design, planning & architecture researchers that engage directly with their communities to explore the role of design thinking as a civic engagement strategy.TRANSCRIPT
D E S I G N , C I V I C E N G A G E M E N T & THE CHALLENGE OF WICKED PROBLEMS
SYMPOSIUM REPORT
K E T T E R I N GF O U N D AT I O N
hosted by in collaboration with
JUNE 2, 2014
WW
what is distinctive about civic engagement for the
design disciplines?
what civic engagement practices are most promising for increasing the capacity of citizens (including our students) to make decisions & act
together over that issues that affect their lives?
why does engagement
matter?
are we asking the right questions?
what do we do in design schools that doesn’t
happen other places?
how do you deploy your students on the ground?
why do you think the design profession can
raise the university’s bar in engagement?
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WW
how do the design fields encounter wicked
problems?
how do the design disciplines clarify,
amplify, or challenge how higher education
institutions engage with community challenges?
what naively am I missing to be anxious
about?
what intuitively do you think design has in particular to take us to the next level?
where is this groundswell
coming from?
how can you engage with communities & work toward
tenure?
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what are we teaching
students about community
change?what
is civic capacity?
PARTICIPANTS
Suzanne Morse Moomaw, co-convener John Dedrick, co-convenerAssociate Professor, Urban & Environmental PlanningDirector, Community Design Reseach CenterUniversity of Virginia School of [email protected]
Vice-President & Program DirectorCharles F. Kettering [email protected]
Derek S. Hyra Judith E. InnisAssociate ProfessorDepartment of Public Administration & PolicySchool of Public AffairsAmerican [email protected]
Professor Emerita, City & Regional PlanningCollege of Environmental DesignUniversity of California [email protected]
Harriett Jameson Michael RiosLecturer & Program DirectorCommunity Design Reseach CenterUniversity of Virginia School of [email protected]
Associate ProfessorLandscape Architecture & Environmental DesignChair, Community Development Graduate GroupDepartment of Human EcologyUniversity of California - [email protected]
William H. Sherman Rusty SmithProfessor of ArchitectureAssociate Vice President for ResearchUniversity of Virginia School of [email protected]
Associate Chair, Program of ArchitectureAssociate Director, Rural StudioSchool of Architecture, Planning, & Landscape Arch.Auburn [email protected]
Roy Strickland Deborah Witte Professor of ArchitectureDirector, Master of Urban Design ProgramTaubman College of Architecture & Urban PlanningUniversity of Michigan [email protected]
Program OfficerCharles F. Kettering [email protected]
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The only difference between a problem & a solution is that people understand the solution.
-Charles F. Kettering
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The Kettering Foundation is rooted in the idea that truly collaborative research is the only method
that will catalyze the innovation needed to address today’s wicked problems. Likewise, the Community
Design Research Center at the University of Virginia is committed to addressing these issues through
collaborative research around place. By pushing the boundaries of design & planning, the center
pioneers innovative collaboration, design thinking, & tactical solutions.
Together, in June 2014, the Kettering Foundation & the Community Design Research Center at the
University of Virginia convened a group of urban design, planning & architecture researchers that engage
directly with their communities to explore the role of design thinking as a civic engagement strategy.
Held in Washington, DC, the symposium was entitled “Design Civic Engagement & the Challenge of
Wicked Problems.” The invitation read as follows:
We think the time is ripe for a fresh exploration of the role the design fields can play in
strengthening the connections between university campuses & the larger communities in which
they are located. In brief, while community engagement programs are now well established on
many campuses, the potential for the kind of engagement that is mutually beneficial to both
communities & campuses has not yet been fully developed. As Kettering Foundation’s President
David Mathews has argued, universities & communities are often “ships passing in the night.”
We hypothesize that professionals in the design fields are well positioned to advance the theory
& practice of democratic engagement, which is essential to advancing the core responsibilities
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INTRODUCTION
of teaching, research, & service.
The two-day conversation sparked many debates around discipline, pedagogy, & systemic issues, & raised
questions about the ways university design schools can most effectively engage in a community. Among the
topics under discussion, for example:
How do the design disciplines challenge & inform how universities engage with communities?
What conditions have created a desire for public interest design?
How do design schools address wicked problems through teaching, research, & practice?
This report synthesizes the key themes, issues, challenges, & opportunities that were explored during this two-day
symposium. While the conversations raised as many questions as they answered, they succeeded in providing a
framework for situating university design schools within their communities as agents of collaborative democracy &
change.
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INTRODUCTION
THE DESIGN EDUCATION & CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IMPERATIVE
ISSUES & CHALLENGES If the second millennium was defined by
dichotomies—urban/rural, first world/third
world, industrialized/non-industrialized,
shrinking/expanding, North/South—the
third millennium will be characterized by
morphologies. Shifts in climate, population,
natural resources, infrastructures, territories,
& economies will yield unprecedented urban
& environmental challenges. These transitions
generate wicked problems—issues difficult to
recognize & to solve because of ever-changing
conditions—for our communities.
“Doctors have an ethical & professional responsibility to act when they see a crisis. Architects need to be the same way. Institutions like the Rural Studio exist because the profession is not fulfilling the need.”
-Rusty Smith, Auburn University
The responsibility of higher education
institutions for shaping & preparing future
architects, landscape architects, & urban
designers & environmental planners to meet the
ever-growing, complex, & shifting challenges
of the 21st century has never been greater.
There is a need for current programs in the
built environment to respond—to be more
innovative, integrative, responsive, & relevant—
both to professional practice & the needs of our
communities. Curriculum & education delivery
must respond by thinking & acting outside the
box.
The question of how these disciplines should
adapt remains a matter of debate. Several
tensions arise. First, academic programs are
required to develop both theoretical & skill-
based competencies related to socio-spatial
issues, open-minded inquiry & research, &
problem solving skills via either critical analysis
(planners) or an iterative design process
(designers). Secondly, professionals/employers
expect these programs to provide students with
a tool-box of basic skills—such as GIS analysis,
3D modeling, & graphic representation—
needed in the professional setting. Lastly,
community organizations, activists, & citizens
want their universities (especially public higher
education institutions) to engage disadvantaged
citizens, advocate for community needs, &
contribute to issues of environmental & social
injustice.
Beyond this plethora of expectations for what
programs should be doing, there are also
questions of when these expectations must
be met. Academic institutions operate on a
very different time-scale than do communities.
Course work & student involvement rely on
a semester or quarter cycle. The academic
calendar usually spans nine months, with a four-
week break for the holidays. Often, grants must
be completed & outcomes delivered within one
fiscal year. Tenure-track faculty members must
complete a project that is meaningful, impactful,
& relevant in a designated timeframe.
At the community level, change happens much
more slowly. It can take five, seven, or ten years
for a community to successfully execute a new
comprehensive plan or realize a newly designed
public space. Communities are subject to the
fluctuating tides brought about by elections,
budget appropriation changes, & shifting
priorities, making cultural change difficult. And,
while a citizen may live in a community where he
or she can be affected by a design proposal for
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an entire lifetime, a student is in & out within a
course & a faculty researcher may be associated
with a project only within the limited duration of
a grant cycle.
Finally, there is a lack of clarity among higher
education institutions, faculty, students, &
community members regarding what role
the academy should play in trying to institute
change in their communities. Town and
university relationships continue to be tenuous.
Design & planning students are idealists &
dreamers—itching to get out into the world &
save it. However, while they think they know
what the world should be, or could be, their
education must teach them how to make that
happen. Without that knowledge & experience,
students cannot be seen as community
consultants. Furthermore, most of them are not
community members in the places where they
are attending school. So what is their role in
assisting in community projects?
A similar question arises regarding the
appropriate role of design & planning faculty
in the process of community design & change.
It is easy for academics—pushing for research
publications & tenure—to see community
issues as an opportunity to apply a particular
theoretical solution or disciplinary fad to a
site-based challenge. Educators offer the
solution—be it transit-oriented development,
mixed-income housing, green streets, or
sustainability—before the problem is framed by
the community.
Understandably, academics & community
organizations can have different objectives &
visions of success, a state of affairs that may
ultimately produce unsatisfactory results for both
parties. Terms like sustainable, engagement,
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These opportunities coalesced around
three strategies: disciplinary, temporal, and
pedagogical.
DISCIPLINARY STRATEGIESFirst, the academy must reframe conventional
disciplinary boundaries & spheres of influence.
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“One of the things I am interested in is the power of these disciplines to actually act as a convener. The way to get beyond the architect-planner division is to find a common language.”
-William Sherman, University of Virginia
Wicked problems are both interdisciplinary &
transdisciplinary. Therefore, conventional boundary
lines (and inherent animosities) between the realms
of architecture, landscape architecture, design, &
planning must be transcended.
These can be overcome by focusing on the
complexity of a wicked problem, rather than
prioritizing a solution, often grounded in
disciplinary theory or objectives. We need to ask
the right questions. Asking the right questions will
require that architects & planners speak a common
language. Language barriers are often the result of
conceptual barriers—how we see ourselves, how
we define our roles, & how we measure success. In
order to develop this common language, architects
& planners must meet at the table & cultivate
universal objectives.
Second, professionals in the built environment
need to adjust their priorities & their professional
responsibilities in order to encourage relevance
& agency in the academy. Wicked problems are
creating global environmental & cultural crises.
Just as doctors or firefighters are expected to
respond to crises whether or not they will be paid,
designers & planners have a professional & ethical
responsibility to act on a crisis at hand. & this ethic
& mixed-use are so commonly used in such a
diverse array of circumstances & situations that
their meanings have become muddled. Citizens
tire of participation that produces jargon &
highly theoretical proposals that seem to offer
little benefit or tangible outcome. The power of
the design solution is lost.
OPPORTUNITIESDuring the discussion, three arenas for adapta-
tion & innovation were identified to make design
& planning education more responsive, effec-
tive, & relevant to the needs of communities
Finally, there is an imperative for design
professionals to reclaim the role of “design
thinking,” which offers potential for solving
wicked problems in several ways:
• Design thinking generates the ability
to make lateral connections & tie ideas
together .
• It encourages transcendence over artificial
constraints & disciplinary boundaries—
encouraging hybrid planner-architects &
landscape-planners.
• It embraces constraints & complexity.
• It convenes stakeholders & facilitate a
common language.
TEMPORAL STRATEGIESIn order to successfully collaborate in a
community context, educators in the built
environment must find a way to work within
the timeframe in which communities operate.
Initiatives that span several years while
maintaining continuity in terms of personnel
& objectives will offer more opportunities
for success & more effective change in the
community. Smith argued: “We rub up against a
lot of other community engagement programs
that aren’t in it for the long haul, that aren’t
place based. They come in. They come out.
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must be inculcated in every graduating class of
new students.
“Why are we designing buildings today the way we are designing them when we know what the environment will be like in 50 years? Climate change is inevitable. We should be looking forward & imagining what the world might be like 50 years & 100 years from now; instead of trying to solve today’s problems.”
-Roy Strickland, University of Michigan
One example of this ethical shift is the
imperative to design for climate change. We
know that climate change will force colossal
changes in the ways our built environment,
infrastructure, & ecological systems function.
However, most design professionals are focused
on solving today’s problems rather than looking
at the problems of the next century. As noted
designer Charles Eames said, “Design isn’t
a problem solving discipline. It is a purpose
serving discipline.” Its power lies in its ability to
be predictive—understanding scenarios before
they happen, & describing or illustrating them to
constituents.
The impacts are all about what they can take
away from the community...Can you imagine
working with a group that just goes away?”
Secondly, educators and community members
should focus collaboration on the prevention of
issues, rather than fixing systemic problems.
“When Ernest Boyer wrote, ‘architecture education and practice must be tied to both public and private ends,’ he challenged the schools and disciplines of design to prepare students to take on the challenges of our common world, to use their unique skill set to find solutions, but most importantly, to engage communities in the prevention of problems.”
-Suzanne Morse Moomaw
PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIESFinally, this conversation led to a rethinking of
the goals & objectives for built environment
education & the way that curricula is being
developed & taught. Michael Rios, UC Davis
elaborated: “In my studios, we may focus in an
area, but then it is different scales of questions;
different scales of intervention... design in the
broadest sense, that it is not just the material,
the location, the context. We are linking those
things to ideas, the imagination, but ultimately
action.”
In essence, design courses & programs should
be approached with the same design thinking
process students are taught to use for sites
& cities. We should embrace complexity &
breaking away from conventional restraints.
Rusy Smith, Universiity of Auburn, argued
“When students approach us with an idea,
instead of responding “No, but...” (deny &
propose), we should response “Yes, and...”
(affirm & extend). This response supports &
conveys collaboration, versus improvisation. We
should teach students innovative tactics as well
as top-down strategies.
Most importantly, design schools should
continue to get students out in the field,
every day. By immersing students in the real-
world environment, engaging them with all
levels of stakeholders, & introducing them to
problems of every magnitude, educators can
best prepare them for the challenges of their
futures. Solutions are not designed in studios,
classrooms, or lecture halls. They are found on
the streets.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
SUGGESTED READING LIST
Anderson, Nadia.“Public Interest Design as Praxis” Journal of Architectural Education. 68:1. 14 March 2014. Online.
Agid, Shana.“Worldmaking: Working through Theory/Practice in Design” Design & Culture. 4:1. March 2012.
Morse, Suzanne W. Smart Communities: How Citizens & Local Leaders Can Use Strate-gic Thinking to Build a Brighter Future. Jossey-Bass. 2nd edition. 2014.
Rios, Michael. “Toward a Social Ecology of Scale: Collective Action, Design for Health, & Landscape Praxis”. Landscape Journal. 2011.
Innes, Judith E. & David E. Booher. Planning with Complexity: An Introduction to Col-laborative Rationality for Public Policy. Routledge. 2010.
Hyra, Derek S. “Conceptualizing the New Urban Renewal Comparing the Past to the Present” Urban Affairs Review. 2012.
Strickland, Roy. Place-Making as an Expression of Teaching & Learning: The Hilltop, Washington, DC” published in Places in 2005.
Sherman, William E. “Complex Systems, Interdisciplinary Collaboration, & Institutional Renewal” in Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning in 2011.
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