This paper examines how a multi-narrative section, as a thick mapping representation, operates simultaneously as analytical and propositional design research. Through multimodal analysis of the representation's compositional, interpersonal and ideational meanings, we reveal three interconnected findings: (1) Nama spiritual and cultural knowledge is structured through spatial-temporal relationships (vertical ground-wind-moon connections; horizontal transhumance routes); (2) embodied movement and threshold moments constitute central practices of stewardship and healing; and (3) design, when grounded in careful listening and embodied engagement, becomes a tool for visibility and adaptation in socio-ecological transitions. Situated within a Master's landscape architecture thesis investigating Nama women's knowledges and practices in the Karoo, this work demonstrates how thick mapping, framed through Puig de la Bellcasa's concept of 'reclaiming care', can generate transformative design research that enables recognition; is disruptive; and imagines 'what could be'. We argue that care-full design practice - combining recognition, immersion and futuring - offers a framework for future co-design processes that honours embodied knowledge while supporting community agency.
What happens when the body's messages cannot be conveyed in words? In Parkinson's disease (PD), the discrepancy between lived and communicated experience creates relational gaps that impact social connection and well-being of people with PD and their caregivers. This pilot study aimed to characterise the communication needs of PD stakeholders and to co-design non-verbal strategies for bridging experiential gaps. Interviews with people with PD, informal care partners, and healthcare providers revealed complex challenges arising from stigma, relational factors, and intertwined motor, affective, and cognitive aspects of disease progression. Participants highlighted the limitations of verbal communication across multiple contexts and described dream solutions to convey PD experiences in a multi-modal manner. Two non-verbal approaches were subsequently explored: 1) workshopping the SymPulseTM armband, an existing technology that simulates parkinsonian tremor and 2) collaboration with a visual artist to develop 'Envisagez l'invisible', a portraiture activity that prompts reflection on the invisible aspects of PD. We detail the participatory process, report on preliminary user feedback, and share emerging challenges, reflections, and strategies to guide future co-design.
Amid overwhelming evidence from the social sciences about the inherently extractive nature of predominant machine learning imaginaries, and visceral designerly and artistic explorations of how algorithmic governance of urban resources consumes our labour and bodies, calls to put people back into AI are growing. This paper describes a participatory experimental design project that adopts a critical making approach to rehearse collective machine teaching to distribute rescued food. It argues that collective training data generation is key to translating the affective and convivial aspects of the community's deliberations into the algorithmic c of the distribution infrastructure. By creating a blueprint for community-based machine teaching while shedding light on the data-labour-related costs of optimisation and the limitations of scaling, it opens pathways to counter extractivist machine learning paradigms with just community- and commoning-based alternatives.
Landscape represents the complex interplay between physical and biological systems that sustain life. Recognising this, there is a growing call for a socio-ecological transition. Yet, urban and architectural design education often lacks the operational depth to foster lasting, meaningful relationships of care with the landscape and the planet.To bridge this gap, the Architecture of Landscape course at the Lisbon School of Architecture uses visual landscape representations as tools for co-design. These representations-objects of both artistic interpretations and scientific explorations-help integrate landscape processes into architectural thinking, viewing architecture not as separate from, but as an extension of, the landscape. This shifts the design focus beyond form and function to include systemic contributions to ecological care.The course adopts a pedagogical strategy grounded in thick mapping , using layered exercises that build deep, relational visualizations of the landscape. The value lies not in the final output, but in the cumulative knowledge generated through co-creation-mirroring the landscape's own capacity to integrate multiple perspectives over time.This approach fosters innovative teaching practices, enabling students to engage in respectful, ecologically attuned interventions and view territory as a living ecology, habitat, and resource.
Efforts to include children as the end-users in the co-design process are increasing. This paper evaluates a co-design workshop from the perspectives of the participating children, the involved teacher, and researchers separately. It examines children's satisfaction with using a provided toolkit through an entire design cycle and explores their interaction behaviour and experience. We conducted a co-design workshop with twenty-three 12-14-year-old Rotterdam children, who were asked to design their ideal nature-related digital games using a designed toolkit. We observed children's behaviour and experience and conducted online surveys with children, interviews with their teacher, and collected reflections (on toolkit, workshop, and children's engagement) from researchers afterwards. The findings indicate that children, while experiencing a high sense of enjoyment, behaved differently within and between groups. Findings highlight possible aspects to consider when designing children's co-design toolkits and workshops (e.g. toolkit clarity, workshop procedure, teamwork style, and materials). Based on these, we identify key areas of attention and challenges for researchers, designers and organisers, discuss practical recommendations for addressing these challenges, and outline avenues for future research, particularly concerning ownership, scaffolding, workshop organisation, and the evaluation of children's experience beyond enjoyment. The outcomes of this study are useful for planning future co-design workshops.
This paper discusses the potential role of mapping as a method in social sciences, focusing on migration research. Traditionally associated with spatial fields like geography, architecture and urban planning, mapping is increasingly used in social sciences to visualise and spatialise contemporary socio-ecological challenges and crises. Despite much writing about its potential, mapping remains an elusive method to researchers who are not trained in spatial fields. Addressing this issue, this paper unpacks key moments where mapping can enhance the social sciences research process, especially when intended as a process of deep understanding and thick description of complex migration processes and experiences. Focusing on its processual and spatialising value, rather than maps as final products, we argue that mapping - when constructed 'deeply' - represents a fruitful method for knowledge production. By discussing the findings of the Mapped to See project involving focus groups with social scientists who explored (collaborative) mapping in their migration research and interviews with experienced practitioners, this paper systematically presents insights into both the potentialities and obstacles of mapping as a method for knowledge production and accompanies this discussion with examples.
Housing estates offer significant potential for socio-ecological transitioning and practices of care. While many housing estates in single ownership - whether state or municipality-owned housing, or housing associations - are being modernised and modified to meet current and future needs, large privately-owned condominiums struggle to activate their resources to participate in urban transformation. Based on a case from Munich, Bavaria, we explore how social worlds/arenas maps can be used to represent and analyse collective processes of socio-ecological transitioning in large condominiums. We also discuss how the maps could add thickness and additional layers of care to co-design processes and support the planning of a future co-design process within the complex and contested field of change. By linking the spatial dimension to decision-making, and applying a sequential comparative perspective, we aim to bring a multidimensional view to power relations, pre-structuring effects, and collective actors. We conclude by arguing that social worlds/arenas maps are valuable tools for representing transitions and adding thickness to analysis, as well as for conceptualising possible future co-design processes, where community-led change is the main challenge and concern.
Co-design holds recognised potential for inclusive, community-led climate change adaptation, yet gender-equitable methods for urban contexts remain underexplored. This study assesses the operationalisation of a gender-inclusive toolkit structured around five guiding principles derived from global literature (participant selection, setting and accessibility, gendered priorities, power and participation, and decision-making) across a four-stage co-design process in three subwards in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Facilitators, as primary users of the toolkit, conducted systematic observations on group dynamics and processes compared against the five guiding principles, while 174 questionnaires captured participants' experience. Operationalising the principles through structured discussion groups and active facilitation supported broad participation across gender, age, and expertise lines, with high satisfaction reported by both women and men. However, the operationalisation process revealed that gender-disaggregated structures, while effective for inter-gender equity, were insufficient to address diversity within gender groups: intra-gender differences in tenancy status, disability, and education shaped participation and whose priorities influenced adaptation pathways. Contextual factors in a climate-affected informal urban setting further exposed gaps in the global literature's guidance for accessible co-design. The findings offer methodological guidance for flexible, locally grounded toolkits that move beyond gender binaries to account for intersecting vulnerabilities within gender groups in urban climate adaptation co-design.
