Recent Trends In Community Design

Recent trends in community design: the eminence of participation Zeynep Toker, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, California State University, Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330-8259, USA This paper reports a recent study asking current community design practitioners to identify the most influential people and key issue leaders in the community design field and to define the concept itself. The results of the study show that in addition to the continuing concepts such as participation, there are new concepts such as new urbanism and sustainability which are now associated with community design. The most important conclusion, however, is that community design field is in fact in search of new perspectives. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: collaborative design, design practice, decision making, user participation, new urbanism

I

n 1969, Sherry R. Arnstein opened the discussion on redistribution of power in her famous article ‘A Ladder of Citizen Participation’ with this sentence: ‘The idea of citizen participation is a little like eating spinach: no one is against it in principle because it is good for you’ (p.216). Today, I believe this observation remains relevant in the light of increasing popularisation of the term community design in the fields of architecture, urban design and planning. Many approaches (e.g. new urbanism and sustainability) and many practitioners have now adopted the term to use it as a catch phrase. Some (e.g. Comerio, 1984; Hester, 1996; Curry, 2000b) have criticised recent community design practices for their lack of reference to the original principles, such as advocating low-income and politically disadvantaged groups within a voluntary organisational structure. The purpose of this paper is to unveil the new face of community design as it is understood and practiced among its recent practitioners.

Corresponding author: Z. Toker zeynep.toker@csun. edu

Four decades ago, community design stood for an alternative style of practice based on the idea that professional technical knowledge without moral and political content is often inadequate (Comerio, 1984). In the broadest sense, community design has been identified as a movement ‘discovering how to make it possible for people to be involved in shaping and managing their environment’ (Sanoff, 2000: i). However, representation of these ideas has changed during the four decades of practice in terms of the ideals and www.elsevier.com/locate/destud 0142-694X $ - see front matter Design Studies 28 (2007) 309e323 doi:10.1016/j.destud.2007.02.008 Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain

309

achievements, and has become more diverse than ever. Increasing use of community design as a catch phrase especially requires attention. Therefore, current practices of community design have become not only different compared to initial ones, but also diverse and open to misinterpretation. Since the last study asking community design practitioners about their personal approaches, values and understandings were completed in 1984 by Randolph Hester (and published in 1990), it is important to identify the new concepts community design practitioners have integrated into their practices in the last two decades. In order to explore current practices of community design, I asked several community design practitioners to define the concept, to identify the most influential people and key issue leaders in the field, and to list references associated with these people. This paper reviews the definitions of community design in literature and historical evolution of its practices, and reports the definitions and most influential people and references provided by 15 recent practitioners. The conclusion section points out to possible future trends in community design field.

1

Definition of community design

Community design movement, related practices, and its definition have been rooted in different parts of the world with unique characteristics. Consequently, definitions and use of the term ‘community design’ in the literature are paradoxical. Several attempts have been made to overcome the obscurity of terminology in this field. For example, Sanoff (2000: ix) states that the term ‘community design’ is an umbrella term covering community planning, community architecture, social architecture, community development, and community participation, all of which emphasise the involvement of local people in social and physical development of the environment they are living in. Similarly, Francis (1983: 14) defines ‘community design’ as a concept receiving different labels such as participatory design, social architecture, social design and architecture for people. However, Wates and Knevitt (1987: 17) state that the term ‘community architecture’ embraces community planning, community design, community development and other forms of community technical aid. For them, community architecture is the name used in the UK, while social architecture is used for the same concept in the United States. For Hatch (1984: 7), ‘social architecture’ aims to create critical consciousness among citizens. Furthermore, Hamdi (1991: 75) claims that ‘community participation’ is the term covering all the scales and techniques, which refer to the processes involving professionals, families, community groups, and government officials in shaping the environment.

310

Design Studies Vol 28 No. 3 May 2007

In addition to the terminology problem, how much participation of whom is expected in community design has also been receiving diverse comments. Different approaches and continuums have been proposed to clarify the roles of different groups participating in decision-making processes for shaping the physical environment.

Shirvani (1985) for example identifies two types of approaches in the overall scheme: facilitator approaches and political activist roles. Wulz (1986), on the other hand, presents a continuum (Continuum 2 in Figure 1) composed of seven stages of participation ranging between full autonomy of the professionals and the full autonomy of the users. By combining these two categorisations and adding other definitions in the literature, another continuum can be constructed (Continuum 1 in Figure 1). On one end, there is the facilitator approach. According to Shirvani (1985), facilitator approach uses participatory methods for both problem definition and design solution generation through design assistance techniques. Sanoff (2000: 38) defines facilitation as ‘a means of bringing people together to determine what they wish to do and helping them find ways to work together in deciding how to do it’.

The facilitator approach, as Shirvani (1985) and Sanoff (2000) define, covers the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh stages of Wulz’s participation continuum, which are dialogue, alternative, co-decision, and self-decision. The dialogue is based on informal conversations between the architect and the users. The alternative participation gives the local residents the chance to choose among the alternatives prepared by the architect in a fixed frame. The participation as co-decision aims at achieving direct and active involvement of users through the whole design process. The participation scale is full in the seventh stage, self-decision, in which the user controls the whole design and construction processes (Wulz, 1986).

In the facilitator approach, the aim is to make the users aware of the alternatives by using different techniques such as rating mechanisms, training and use of graphic communication, and use of various simulation techniques. The extent that architect is involved, in facilitator approach, varies according to the specific situations. This definition of the facilitator approach also matches with Hatch’s (1984) social architecture definition. He claims that social architecture

Figure 1 Two continuums of different roles of professionals in community design

Recent trends in community design

311

is in-between. It avoids the idealistic utopias and encourages the generation of alternatives by using the information received from the user. Beyond the facilitator approach is the advocacy approach. Shirvani (1985) explains the political activist role as the advocacy, in which the aim is to organise, and politically activate disadvantaged groups in society in order to involve them in the planning process. Similarly, Hester (1990) defines characteristics of community design as empowerment of destitute citizens for helping them to get a fair share of community goods and services, assistance in litigation that addresses any number of environmental inequalities, and participation of lay citizens in the design process. With a parallel emphasis on helping disadvantaged and destitute groups in the society, Shiffman (1984) explains the practice of the community design as maximising opportunities and range of choices, particularly for low-and moderate-income people. If one end is defined with facilitation and beyond that with advocacy, the other end of this continuum is the lack of those; the first three stages in Wulz’s continuum (Continuum 2 in Figure 1): representation, questionnaire, and regionalism. In the representation architecture, the architect reflects his/her personal and subjective interpretation of the user. In questionnaire architecture, the concern is the general characteristics of an anonymous user. The third stage, regionalism, puts an emphasis on the historical and cultural heritages of the specific localities and collects data from the local population about inhabitants’ preferences on architectural expression, symbols, forms, and spatial behaviour (Wulz, 1986). At this end, participation dissolves as the professional expertise dominates. It is difficult to distil one way of describing what exactly is done as the practice of community design, in the literature. Although involving people in the decisionmaking process for shaping their environment is the common theme, advocating politically powerless or specifically low-income groups can only fit into one end of a broad continuum. Different expectations and descriptions of community design can be followed in its historical development as its focus has shifted on that continuum.

2

Early practices of community design

In the United Sates, community-based struggles of the 1960s were related to the civil rights movement, the rise of women’s liberation, and the challenges of alternative cultures. The social momentum of the Civil Rights Act (1957), the innovations of Ford Foundation’s Gray Areas Program (initiated in 1960) were influential on the rapid change. The experiences provided by the Economic Opportunity Act in Community Action Agencies following the Act’s passage in 1964, and the stimulus of the Office of Neighborhood Development enhanced the economic development role of grassroots organisations (Shiffman, 1984; Curry, 2000b; Sanoff, 2000). Realising the social unrest of the

312

Design Studies Vol 28 No. 3 May 2007

time, in the United States, the government provided necessary legislation to involve people in the processes of decision-making. Thus, national legislation following the civil rights era required widespread participation at the local level (Hester, 1996). Although legislation was there to support the existing social movements, these social movements remained unorganised until the formation of social reform, known as the War on Poverty, and legitimisation by the provision of the Community Action Program. With these federal programmes of the 1960s, people, outside the professions were allowed to make decisions about the planning and financing (Sanoff, 2000). With the Model Cities Program of 1967e1973, citizens were given the right to participate in policy making (Hamdi, 1991; Hester, 1996). This programme was activated by the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966. The act authorised grants and technical assistance to help communities to participate in the planning and implementation processes (Rice, 1979). Later on, even though the neighbourhood units of these grassroots organisations emerged, they did not share common goals. Therefore, their achievements were limited. However, Alinsky model of community organisation emerged as an effort to organise urban protests (Castells, 1983). Saul Alinsky was a sociologist, who started his career as a neighbourhood organiser (Castells, 1983). According to Alinsky (1972) his agenda was based on the belief that people have the desire to change the world. In order to achieve this aim the only way was to be organised. For him, the power of the poor and the disadvantaged lies in their standing and organisational capacity. ‘Alinsky believed in pluralism, government accountability, local autonomy and widespread citizen participation’ (Sanoff, 2000: 2). The most important weakness of the Alinsky-inspired community organisations was that in some instances community control was not achieved because they could not be multi-ethnic. When they were multi-ethnic, the interests of different ethnic groups were at odds with each other. Moreover, most of these organisations were not able to achieve community control. Instead, they were absorbed into the management programmes, they were supposed to control. However, these organisations successfully represented the diversity of neighbourhood interests (Castells, 1983; Sanoff, 2000). While Alinsky model was dealing directly working with communities, Davidoff questioned the planning practices, which failed to provide the formulation of alternatives by the interest groups that will eventually be affected by the completed plans. He argued that the grassroots movements proved the necessity of planning practices to involve all groups in society, particularly lowincome families to discuss the political and social values (Davidoff, 1965). Being a planner and a lawyer, he challenged planners to become advocates

Recent trends in community design

313

of participatory democracy in order to overcome poverty and racism (Sanoff, 2000). Community design centres emerged in the United States as the staging ground for design and planning professionals, who were influenced by Davidoff’s advocacy model of planning and were questioning conventional practices of their own professions (Sanoff, 2000). Practitioners who aimed at fighting against urban redevelopment and advocating for the rights of poor citizens established community design centres. These design centres aimed at providing planning, architecture and development services to emerging civic organisations or established community-based development corporations (Sanoff, 2000). Services provided by community design centres are specified by Mikesell (1976) as architectural services to people and organisations that cannot afford to pay the high fees normally required. Community design centres have introduced low-income people to the practical benefits of good architecture and planning (Dean, 1976). The aim was to help low-income communities gain more control of their own resources (Sachner, 1983). Therefore, the initial practices of community design were based on the advocacy approaches and they originated from the grassroots movements of the time. They represented the statements of designers and planners, who were against conventional practices and intended to help disadvantaged groups to control their future. The first community design centre in the United States was one of the pioneering implementations of the advocacy approach. Architectural Renewal Committee in Harlem in 1964 fought a proposal of freeway passing through Manhattan (Sanoff, 2000). However, in the following decades, community design centres have evolved. The phases that community design centres have gone through are very demonstrative of how community design practices evolved in general. Two phases can be identified for community design centres: until late 1970s e the idealistic phase, and after that until late 1980s e the entrepreneurial phase. During the idealistic phase, in an effort to help low-income people define their own planning goals and effectively present them to city hall, community design centres became advocacy groups, providing professional and technical support, including information, management know-how and design assistance. They provided, free of charge, a wide array of services, ranging from helping individuals cope with the local red tape and economic problems of remodelling a house to creating plans and designs for developing an entire neighbourhood; from designing a rural health clinic to recycling a city library (AOD, 1976). Towards the late 1970s, community design practices had gradually become less idealistic and more pragmatic due to the new political climate, which turned out to be more conservative and reluctant in terms of funding (Comerio,

314

Design Studies Vol 28 No. 3 May 2007

1984). Community design centres were almost forced to replace their political model of empowerment by an economic one (Comerio, 1984) due to the economic pressure of the 1980s (Sachner, 1983). Therefore, many of the community design centres became private practices, others disappeared, and some are occasionally ‘reactivated’ to deal with a crisis (Curry, 2000a). The whole process became less academic (Sachner, 1983). The typical university affiliated design centre of the idealistic phase provided general planning and preliminary design services. By contrast, the community design agencies of the entrepreneurial phase took one problem and finalised it in an entrepreneurial manner (Comerio, 1984). As a result, ‘funding for planning, social activism and advocacy became increasingly scarce and led to an increasing focus on financing projects at the expense of broad community revitalisation goals’ (Curry, 2000a). The shifting focus of community design practices away from advocacy had become evident.

In 1984, Randolph T. Hester conducted a national survey and asked the purpose of community design to several of its practitioners. Despite the change in the character of the practice, community designers of the time still ranked empowering the disadvantaged as the primary purpose. It was followed by improving environments for the deprived, designing for user’s needs, and achieving environmental justice by making communities economically viable (Hester, 1990), all of which are parallel to the characteristics of the early community design practices.

Almost two decades later, in the light of the fact that community design concept has been increasingly popularised among the proponents of new urbanism, in a sense that cannot be further away from advocacy, it is reasonable now, if not imperative to ask community designers define the concept.

3

Research on recent trends in community design

This study was designed with the ultimate purpose of identifying the recent trends and changing approaches in the community design field. Statements regarding the current community design practices were compared to the initial principles of community design; and a reference list of the major publications in the field, which have also been the most influential ones, was compiled.

Considering that transformation was inevitable in the course of four decades, the purpose was to explore the current definition of community design, the key figures and the most influential literature in the field. The main questions of this study were: - Who are the key influences in the community design field? - What is the current definition of community design?

Recent trends in community design

315

Since the aim was to gather the ideas of the practitioners, lists of community designers were compiled. Practicing architects and planners, who have been noted in the community design related conferences, books, directories, and WEB Sites were listed. Out of these sources, a list of practitioners was compiled according to their current association with the field of community design. This list contains 114 currently practicing professionals of architecture and planning in the community design field (Table 1). Then, the ones who have e-mail addresses (62) and fax numbers (17) currently available were identified as potential respondents.

Although the list of practitioners who were contacted includes practitioners from different countries, their representativeness was not sought in terms of their geographic locations. Since the original lists were acquired from international gatherings and directories, it was inevitable to include practitioners from different countries. Therefore, rather than the geographic representativeness of the group of practitioners in this final list, the fact that they are still practicing community design e and sometimes internationally too e was the most important criterion for them to be included in this list. Table 1 List of currently practicing professionals of architecture and planning in community design field with available e-mail addresses and fax numbers

Abbey, Bruce Bell, Bryan Borgenicht, Roger Cameron, Mark Chaffers, Jim Comerio, Mary Curry, Rex Del Rio, Vicente Fama, Joe Ford, Frank Fredrickson, Mark, P. Glasser, David Evan Griffin, Jim Hamdi, Nabeel Hasell, Mary Joyce Hermanuz, Ghislaine Huang, Bill Larrick, Steve Linn, Karl McIntosh, John Miller, Lim Maurice Mullahey, Romana O’Hanlon, Liam Romice, Ombretta Sanoff, Henry Skabelund, Lee Swann, Michael M. Turner, Chuck Woolford, Paul

316

Anderson, Annette Bilello, Joseph L. Brower, Sidney Carp, John Chalfoun, N. V. Creighton, Max Curry, Terrence Fr. Durack, Ruth Farley, Diane Francis, Mark Gamble, David Gleason, Jan Gureckas, Vytenis Hanlon, Don Hatch, Richard Horelli, Lissa John, Richard St. Lambert, Brent Malinowski, Lerome J. McIntyre, Lionel C. Moore, James Murphy, Ruth Plattus, Allan Russell, Frank Schuman, Tony Smith, T. Michael Trawick, Jack Wates, Nick Yoklic, Martin

Arens, Ed Blake, Sheri Bryant, Rudy Carpenter, William Chapin, David Criss, Shannon Daas, Duraid Elizabeth, Lynne Feldman, Roberta Frankel, Susan Gibbs, Jody Goerhert, Reinhard Habraken, N. John Harrison, John H. Haverland, Michael Host-Jablonski, Lou Joiner, Duncan Ledford, Tim McClure, Wendy McNulty, Rose Moore, Robin Nardi, Norberto Pride-Wells Michaele Russell, Francis Schwartz, Bob Spear, John K. Truex, Scott West, Troy

Bainbridge, Robert W. Bohem, Bill Busser, Robert Castello, Childress, Perry Crissman, Jim De Vere, Don Erlandson, Todd Findlay, Bob Frederick, Jane Gilbert, Carol Goltsman, Susan Hack, Gary Harrison, Sally Hayashi, Yasuyoshi Hsia, Chu-Joe Koyabe, Ikuko Levine, Jeffrey McCoy, Bill Medlock, Bob Morrish, William Oberdorfer, Jeff Pyatok, Michael Sammons, Thomas Shiffman, Ron Sullivan, Brian Tsoukala, Kriaki Wilcox, Peter R.

Design Studies Vol 28 No. 3 May 2007

A self-administered questionnaire, which was composed of three open-ended questions, was prepared for e-mail and fax formats. The questions were open-ended in order to avoid insertion of pre-conceived notions. Moreover, the questionnaire was self-administered without a concern that the questions could be misunderstood, since the respondents were practitioners in their fields and therefore questions were within their expertise areas. Furthermore, questions were tested by fellow researchers, who were knowledgeable about community design practices. These community design practitioners were asked how they define their practices and whom they identify as the most influential people in the field with references to their publications. Regarding the possibility that people may identify the most influential person and key issue leaders differently, they were asked separately in the first two questions. Moreover, in order to achieve more specific information about the most influential person and the key issue leaders, the relevant references of these people were asked. In the third question, the respondents were asked to define community design according to their own perspective of the concept.

3.1

Data analysis and findings

Out of 114 identified community design practitioners, 62 respondents were contacted via e-mail, 15 of which answered all three questions; and 17 respondents were contacted via fax none of which responded. Out of 15 respondents who answered all three questions (approximately 24% of the e-mail respondents and 19% of all the respondents), most were directors of community design centres, some of them were involved in community design practices privately in addition to an academic career, and a few of them worked only in private practice. Analysing the answers of the first two questions: (1) the most frequently mentioned key issue leaders and most influential people were listed, (2) the books and articles stated to be written by the most influential people or key issue leaders of the community design field were listed. For the third question, (3) content analysis of the responses revealed key concepts to define community design. (1) The most frequently identified key issue leader in community design field was Henry Sanoff, who was followed by Rex Curry and Michael Pyatok. The third group included Christopher Alexander, Andres Duany and Peter Calthrope. Finally, Sam Mockbee, Randall Arendt and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk were in the fourth group. The notable aspect of the third and fourth groups is that three of them (Andres Duany, Peter Calthrope and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk) are associated with new urbanism as the founders and strong proponents of that trend. Considering the long standing critique of new urbanism regarding its spatial determinism disguised as

Recent trends in community design

317

community design (e.g. Harvey, 1997; Hayden, 2002), any association between new urbanism and community design remains debatable. It is also notable that some of the respondents identified concentrations within the community design field to list the most influential people. For example, one respondent identified five areas of concentration in community design: community participation, architecture, city planning, policy making, and livable communities. Another respondent categorised the community design practitioners in three groups: new urbanist designers, participatory designers and planners, and theorists on environmental psychology and community form. Although some of the community design centre directors were mentioned as key issue leaders (such as Rex Curry and Michael Pyatok), the fact that some respondents identified these categories hints not only the shift of focus away from advocacy and community design centres, but also the diversity of recent community design practices. (2) Parallel to the tendencies in identifying the most influential people in the field, the list of publications mentioned by the respondents includes references to new urbanism (such as Calthorpe and Duany) in addition to publications in the field of sustainability (such as McHarg) (Table 2). The association between community design and both new urbanism and sustainability also suggests presence of new trends in community design practices. (3) However, respondents’ definitions of community design are more in line with the original purpose of community design. A content analysis of the definitions revealed that although the practice has changed, the definitions of ideal way of practicing community design still remains close to the original principles. As one of the qualitative data analysis methods, content analysis is a way of analysing verbal or visual data by grouping and categorising them according to coding frames, which are derived theoretically to reflect the purpose of the research. In a data set, every text (or visual) unit must fit a code, many of which constitute a coding frame (Bauer, 2000). In this study, based on the data set, the codes are identified as participation, needs, involvement of local people, empowering people, public realm, and sustainability (in decreasing order of count). The most frequently emphasised concept by the respondents was participation. David Gamble and Mark Francis mentioned that community design is a participatory process, which operates through public meetings and workshops. Nabeel Hamdi stated that it is people’s taking part and influencing the decisions affecting their physical environment. Robert Bainbridge and Joseph Bilello mentioned the importance of shared visions and values in this participatory process. Furthermore, Yasuyoshi Hayashi and Ombretta Romice emphasised the importance of partnership and cooperation between residents of the community and

318

Design Studies Vol 28 No. 3 May 2007

Table 2 List of publications stated to be written by the most influential people or key issue leaders in the community design field

Alexander, Christopher A Pattern Language Arendt, Randall Rural by Design Bell, Bryan (Design Works) Curry, Rex Pratt Institute and the Association for Community Design http://communitydesign.org. intranets.com, PICCED (Pratt) Duany, Andres New Urbanism Manuals Forester, John (1989). Planning in the Face of Power. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, New York. Gibson, Tony (who devised Planning For Real and whose work can be found at the Neighbourhood Initiative Foundation) Hester, Randy Community Design Primer. Ridge Times Press. 1990 McHarg, Ian Design With Nature Moorish, Bill (University of Minnesota Center- for the American Landscape is a key player.) Pyatok, Michael Good Neighbors: Affordable Family Housing, McGraw Hill 1997 Sanoff, Henry (1992). Integrating programming, evaluation and participation I design. A theory Z approach. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., Averbury, USA. Sanoff, Henry (1990) Participatory Design. Theory and Techniques. North Carolina State University, North Carolina. Sanoff, Henry (1995) Creating environments for Young Children. North Carolina State University, North Carolina. Towers, Graham (1995) Building Democracy. Community Architecture in the Inner Cities. UCL Press, London. Turner, John Freedom To Build

Alexander, Christopher Community and Privacy Bacon, Elinor R. Hope VI Manuals Calthorpe, Peter The Next American Metropolis Davis (1995) The Architecture of Affordable Housing. University of California Press, Berkeley. Feldman, Roberta (coming out with a website that catalogues community projects) Forester, John (1999). The Deliberative Practitioner. Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes. The MIT Press, Berkeley, Cambridge, MA. Gindroz, Ray New Urbanism Manuals

Jacobs, Jane The Life and Death of Great American Cities Mockbee, Sam (Auburn Rural Studio) Neary, S. J., Symes, M. S. and Brown, F. E. (1994) The Urban Experience. A People- Environment Perspective. St Esmondsbury Press, Suffolk. Pyatok, Michael (FAIA, Pyatok Associates, Oakland CA) Sanoff, Henry The experience of community action in an Australian town. In Neary (1994), p.109e122. Sanoff, Henry (1991) Visual Research Methods in Design. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. Sanoff, Henry (2000) Community Participation Methods in Design and Planning. John Wiley and Sons. Inc. New York. Turner, John Housing By People Wates, Nick (2000) Community Planning: How people can shape their cities, towns and villages in any part of the world. Earthscan

Whyte, William The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces

professionals. The necessity of interdisciplinary collaboration was stated by David Gamble. Similarly, Jeffrey Levine explained that it is a process, in which architectural and planning solutions are created for the community. On the other hand, needs was another common concept respondents referred to for defining community design. Bryan Bell, Robert Busser and Don Hanlon mentioned the importance of respecting the needs of people, which is defined by the people, in community design. Don Hanlon clarified one of the characteristics of community design as providing architectural design services for people who need but cannot afford them. Involvement of local people in the process was mentioned as another characteristic for community design. Nabeel Hamdi, Don Hanlon, Robert Bainbridge,

Recent trends in community design

319

Jeffrey Levine and Peter Wilcox agreed on the importance of local people’s input. Community design was defined to be a process aiming at empowering people by David Gamble, Nabeel Hamdi and Ombretta Romice. Community design was explained through its relations to the design of public realm by Robert Bainbridge. In addition to this statement, David Glasser mentioned its relation to the civic life and to embracing sociological, economic, legal and physical aspects of life. Sustainability was defined as one of the major characteristics of community design. David Glasser, Yasuyoshi Hayashi and Peter Wilcox emphasised sustainability in terms of both environment and community. Overall, to define community design the respondents referred to the original characteristics of the concept in addition to sustainability and public realm concepts, which are new to the community design field. However, more interesting aspect is the difference in ranking of similar concepts in Hester’s study of 1984 by community design practitioners. According to his study, the highest number of his respondents identified the purpose of community design as empowering people, followed by improving environments for deprived, needs, environmental justice, educating about environmental politics, and providing housing choices for the poor (Hester, 1990). The difference between these two studies almost two decades apart might also be interpreted as the reflection of new trends in the field. For example, empowering people and concern for the economically disadvantaged groups are the two obvious and overriding concepts in 1984 study. However, in this study the overriding concern is neither. The new trend is towards focusing on participation with decreasing emphasis on disadvantaged groups and empowerment.

3.2

Results and discussion

The list of most influential people and key issue leaders in the field and the list of related literature support the idea that new urbanism is now very much seen as a part of community design field. Considering the criticisms directed towards new urbanism, this association is at odds with the original characteristics of community design, which included advocacy and empowerment. Similarly, although the content analysis of the definitions of community design reveals that the practitioners still refer to the original characteristics of community design, such as participation, needs and empowerment, in addition to new concepts, such as sustainability and public realm, the focus has shifted from disadvantaged groups and empowerment. It is important to point out that community design has become a popular term among the proponents of new urbanism, although in practice none of the original principles of community design are embraced. Harvey (1997) questions

320

Design Studies Vol 28 No. 3 May 2007

the very concept of community in new urbanist developments since in these developments the image of a small town character with a proper community for affluent residents is advertised without actually building a community. Due to the spatial determinism embedded in new urbanism based on the assumption that proper design will ‘save’ American cities and provide a new moral order, the neighbourhood becomes equivalent to the community in new urbanism (Harvey, 1997). Parallel with the findings of this study, Harrison (1998: 15) claims, ‘A new partnership emerged between environmentalists and urbanists that was helpful in redefining the notions of ‘‘site’’ and ‘‘user’’ that recognised the interdependency of diverse locations and socioeconomic groups.’ She mentions the current emerging emphasis on humanist issues under the rubric of sustainability even though it is still less visible. Considering the findings of this study, the new trends in community design field seem to be emerging according to the new fashions in city planning and architecture. However, since the number of respondents in this study and their representativeness are limited, generalisation is not the purpose here. It is rather to point out the possible emerging trends in the field.

4

Conclusion

Despite the diversion from the initial ideals, the role of contemporary practices of community design in the fields of architecture and city planning cannot be overlooked. It still is the alternative way reminding the social responsibility to the practitioners in those disciplines. This study, however, points to the fact that the current practitioners of the field are looking for new grounds for their practices, such as sustainability and new urbanism. Some of the terms, which are used by the respondents in their definitions, are new to the community design field. There may be several reasons for these variations in the field. Either as a result of changing social structures or because of the compatibility of new concentrations in the built environment disciplines to the concept of user involvement, the original conceptualisation of community design is less favourable now than it was four decades ago. Hester (1996) criticises some aspects of the current community design practices comparing them with the initial ones. According to Hester (1996), the current practices of community design are examples of diversion from the initial ideals because they are concentrated on surviving in the system, although their initial aims were based on rebelling against the system. Moreover, contrary to the triggering events of community design movement, current practices are focusing on the groups, which are not politically disadvantaged. He also argues that the revolutionary character of community design movement is lost as it is used as another tool in the system serving for the regulation rather than inspiring citizens to look for their rights (Hester, 1996).

Recent trends in community design

321

These criticisms echo the reasons why new urbanism cannot be a part of community design field, if community design is to carry on with its original ideals. However, Harrison (1998), for example, exemplifies the ways to adapt community design concept within the sustainability concentration by emphasising interdependency.

The new practices, as they influence the definition, are based on different ideals than the previous ones. The important aspect of this metamorphosis is that it provides adaptability to the concept since new disciplines are introduced to the field in the process. Therefore, it is noteworthy to realise the new potentials in the community design field, which are embedded in the various implementation processes within different concentrations in the built environment disciplines.

However, there should also be a cautionary note regarding the adaptability of the concept, which makes it open to misuse. The practices of community design as they embraced the original ideals four decades ago have obviously been long gone. It is inevitable for a practice type to shift its focus and change in order to survive in the conditions of economic and social systems. The influences of new fashions in city planning and architecture on community design field are also inescapable. Then, for future practices in the field, the main caution should be against tokenism.

References Alinsky, S (1972) Rules for radicals Vantage Books, New York AOD (1976) Community design centers: practicing ‘social architecture’ American Institute of Architects Journal January 1976 Bauer, M (2000) Classical content analysis: a review, in M W Bauer and G Gaskell (eds) Qualitative researching with text, image and sound: a practical handbook Sage Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi pp 131e151 Castells, M (1983) The city and the grassroots: a cross-cultural theory of urban social movements University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA Comerio, M C (1984) Community design: idealism and entrepreneurship Journal of Architecture and Planning Research Vol 1 pp 227e243 Curry, R (2000a) History of community design, in JM Cary, Jr., (ed) The ACSA sourcebook of community design programs at schools of architecture in North America, pp 38e43 Curry, R (2000b) History of ACD, www.communitydesign.org/History.htm Davidoff, P (1965) Advocacy and pluralism in planning Journal of American Institute of Planners Vol 31 pp 331e338 Davis, S (1995) The architecture of affordable housing University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London Dean, A O (1976) Community design centers: practicing ‘social architecture’ American Institute of Architects Journal January 1976 Francis, M (1983) Community design The Journal of Architectural Education Vol 36 No 5 pp 14e19

322

Design Studies Vol 28 No. 3 May 2007

Hamdi, N (1991) Housing without houses: participation, flexibility, enablement Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco Harrison, S (1998) Between tower and street Journal of Urban Design Vol 3 No 1 pp 5e37 Hatch, C R (1984) The social scope of architecture Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, Cincinnati, Toronto, London, Melbourne Harvey, D (1997) The new urbanism and the communitarian trap The Harvard Magazine, Winter/Spring 68e71 Hayden, D (2002) Redesigning the American dream: the future of housing, work and family life W.W. Norton and Company, New York Hester, R (1990) Community design primer Ridge Times Press, Mendocino, CA Hester, R (1996) Wanted: local participation with a view, in J L Nasar and B B Brown (eds) Public and private places EDRA 27 pp 42e52 Mikesell, B (1976) Architectural advice centers Architectural Design Vol 4 pp 215e217 Rice, R R (1979) Housing in the 1960s, in G S Fish (ed) The story of housing Collier Macmillan Publishers, New York MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, London Sachner, P M (1983) Still planning with the poor: community design centers keep up the good works Architectural Record 126e131 June 1983 Sanoff, H (2000) Community participation methods in design and planning John Wiley and Sons, Inc, New York, Chichester, Weinheim, Brisbane, Singapore, Toronto Shirvani, H (1985) The urban design process Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco Shiffman, R (1984) The Pratt Center now, in C R Hatch (ed) The social scope of architecture Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, Cincinnati, Toronto, London, Melbourne Wates, N and Knevitt, C (1987) Community architecture: how people are creating their own environment Penguin, London, New York Wulz, F (1986) The concept of participation, in H Sanoff (ed) Participatory design, theory and techniques Bookmasters, Raleigh, NC pp 39e48

Recent trends in community design

323