The Public Collaboration Lab—Infrastructuring Redundancy with Communities-in-Place

Abstract

In this article we share an example of challenge-driven learning in design education and consider the contribution of such approaches to the weaving of communities-in-place. We describe the research and practice of the Public Collaboration Lab (PCL), a prototype public social innovation lab developed and tested via a collaborative action research partnership between a London borough council and an art and design university. We make the case that this collaboration is an effective means of bringing capacity in design to public service innovation, granting the redundancy of resources necessary for the experimentation, reflection, and learning that leads to innovation—particularly at a time of financial austerity. We summarize three collaborative design experiments delivered by local government officers working with student designers and residents supported by design researchers and tutors. We identify particular qualities of participatory and collaborative design that foster the construction of meaningful connections among participants in the design process—connections that have the potential to catalyze or strengthen the relationships, experiences, and understandings that contribute to enrich communities-in-place, and infrastructure community resilience in the process.