Co-design is increasingly a part of project work, say Boffa Miskell landscape architects Matt Peacocke and Rangitahi Kawe, who have been working with locals, mana whenua, artists, and communities, and involving them to a greater extent — sometimes side-by-side with the design team — to embed what is intended to be more thoughtful process, providing for richer solutions to places.
Co-design is a true process whereby the ego is left at the door. It brings different perspectives and expertise together — a union of minds working to achieve unique solutions and meaningful design outcomes for place, experience, and community. That’s opposed to what we used to do, which was listening to others, but leaving it more up to the landscape architects to research, advise and, ultimately, design.
Landscape Architects can co-design with other landscape architects on significant projects, especially if there are complementary strengths; or with other consultants, such as ecologists, architects or artists, in those cases when the landscape is particularly responsive to specific factors – like native fauna and flora, landmark buildings, or significant historical events.
We can also enter a co-design arrangement with those who might have a particularly deep understanding of a place in terms of history and culture. For Aotearoa | New Zealand, this is working usually with the Māori people (also known as Iwi, Hapu, tangata whenua or mana whenua) who can speak with authority on what is appropriate for the site, providing guidance (Kaitiakitanga), understanding (Manaakitanga), education (Mātauranga), and authenticity (Rangatiratanga).
There’s a real difference between ‘co-design’, and ‘informed design’, and each has their place. The quick explanation is that informed design is responding to the stories and information from other parties; whereas co-design is working with those groups to develop the design.
Informed design includes learning about the stories of the site (sites of significance, cultural narratives) and working towards potential appropriate design responses. This most typically involves listening and working closely with the people who understand the context and character of the site from a historical and/or cultural perspective. Landscape architects will then extract opportunities from those stories to inform the design experiences and outcomes. This might involve a series of presentations, and iterations and approvals, but ultimately the design sits with the landscape architect and the client.
Co-design means inviting someone else to the design table. There are many ways this can be done, but it needs to be an agreed upon arrangement; and although the process may look just like informed design, the key difference is that in a co-design process the final design and outcomes sit with both groups (and the client). The landscape architect may need to compromise on some ideas, and the same with the co-designer. Or everyone might get want they want. Either way, we hope that where the middle meets will provide a deeper and more authentic design response.
When co-design goes well, it creates opportunities for more thoughtful, richer, unique outcomes. Landscape architects—or anyone—can tend to go with what they know; therefore, the bringing together of minds significantly increases the potential for different and hopefully better ideas.
Additionally, co-design gives a sense of ownership and pride in the outcomes to those who are involved. Think of it like designing your own house side-by-side with the architect. It’s more work for both parties; but in the end, you will feel like you designed it, and that gives a deeper feeling of appreciation and connection to the outcome. Equally, you’ll have a better understanding of the decisions made during the process, and why some things that you had in mind at the start couldn’t be achieved or were modified along the way.
Co-design demonstrates the duality and balance that is paramount from a landscape architects’ perspective. The collaboration of minds, viewpoints and understandings may be challenged at first to have a shared vision, but throughout the process, each participant encourages one another to bring that vision closer to realisation.
Co-design is not the ‘easy option’. It tends to take longer, it can be trickier to navigate, and it’s often more expensive, up-front. It should not be a ‘go-to’ response, and it needs to be thought through carefully and only used when there is a significant reason to do it (like a special site), and the right people are involved (for example, an artist with a special talent in outdoor space and storytelling).
Workshop: For the ‘Innovating Streets’ programme in 2021, Boffa Miskell worked with Auckland Transport, the Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board and engaged in a co-design workshop with the Māngere East community to help more local people make the choice to walk, rather than drive.
Landscape architects are highly trained and experts in creating outdoor spaces that work practically and functionally, and also have meaning and poetics. We know how to make the spaces feel right and the flow work effectively, and we know how to get things built. That’s not to be underestimated and needs to be understood and appreciated by the co-design partner. It’s important that the distinction is understood, and we landscape architects mustn’t shy away from making that clear from the start.
The co-designer(s) might have expert input into the stories told, or the art or sculpture, or the arrangement of appropriate experiences. It’s worth mentioning that this process needs to be structured. It’s not a casual ‘so, what do you think?’ kind of conversation. The landscape architect needs to understand, value and accept the skills and ideas that the co-designer is bringing to the table. However, as with any working arrangement, this might be new and there is risk.
All this to say: you need the right people. The wrong mindset or understanding can be a disaster when, for example, you have a co-designer who dismisses the expertise of landscape architecture and over-values their own opinion or expertise, thereby hijacking any design solutions that run counter to their wishes.
Co-design isn’t the same as engagement or consultation. Engagement is typically a wider-lens process of bringing the community and groups into a project to help inform and guide the outcomes, along with a series of other considerations and constraints: site, client, budget, long term planning.
Consultation tends to be more specific, in terms of engaging with a select group on a specific aspect. Often, it’s putting design ideas to an audience or group of stakeholders to test and provide opportunities to adjust and refine.
So, engagement and consultation can be part of a design process, but co-design means including someone within the design team from beginning to end.
Our process at Boffa Miskell is not unique as such, but has inspiration from the Te Aranga Design Principles, Matapopore Urban Design Guide and is integrated with our company values.
As practitioners in New Zealand/Aotearoa, we’re lucky in that the design community has a good relationship with Māori, who have a unique cultural and historic connection to the land. It’s becoming more and more common practice to work alongside Iwi, Hapu, tangata whenua or mana whenua regarding the site’s history and cultural narrative. We want to ensure that what we’re designing is, first and foremost, appropriate, but we also want to allow opportunities for a more thoughtful and authentic design response.
The Boffa Miskell process puts Iwi, Hapu, tangata whenua/mana whenua first, through early engagement at the inception of a project. This is where we identify key design outcomes for the project through working in collaboration. Through collaboration, we interpret opportunities from those narratives to inform the design and implement the collective vision. It’s a process and values system shared by tangata whenua more broadly.
Many of our co-designed projects have been recognised with industry and community awards, or awards from the landscape architecture profession. That’s a great validation of the work – and it means a lot to our co-design partners when they see that their input has helped create something award-worthy.
More importantly, these projects are embraced by the local community and each one of them is unique. ‘Unique’ can be something of an over-used word, and most of the time its meaning is diluted or misapplied. But a co-designed outcome genuinely deserves that definition, and so does the process that brought it to fruition.
Article by Matt Peacocke and Rangitahi Kawe – Landscape Architects at Boffa Miskell
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