An Approach to Community Design

I got a great question on the community space design post yesterday.. it was -

“As a community space - are there a lot of opinions going into the design? How do you manage input from all?”

An excellent question, and one I’m excited to unpack.

This is a project I’ve been in conversations with the local church community on for over a year.. patience is a virtue and playing the long game when you’re working with any type of potential client is always the way to go, assuming delays are necessary and you have established clear communication with the client.

So, with any community-based project - one that isn’t just a single family property for example - you’ll end up with the question of how to make sure voices are heard, and also ensure that the process is efficient and real decisions can be made at specific milestones throughout the project, knowing that you’re not going to get blind-sided by something down the line and have to make major changes.

I’ve worked with school groups, neighborhoods, and other community organizations in my design career, and have found that the same answer is not applicable to each situation.. so for now I’m just going to explain how I’m approaching this particular project.

To see the full post, head over to the free Epic Ecopreneur Facebook community, link in bio.

There were a couple ways I was considering approaching this project.. I want to make sure that people are getting what they really want and need in a gathering space at this small and growing church community. Especially with the COVID situation, outdoor space is increasingly important and a real asset to any group wishing to keep active connections and events going during this time.

The first idea that came to mind was to have a community review period of time during a specific point in the project, namely after the main concept had been designed, or perhaps a couple iterations thereof. This would allow for the congregation to view the designs on a bulletin board in their main “coffee hour” space and write comments to be considered for the final detailed design.

This method would ensure that the community can have a say while making sure that I don’t have to get way in the weeds as a designer, having drawn up a detailed design and then realizing I have to change a bunch of things. You want to make sure that - regardless of the type of client - you give them some kind of ability to review things before you put too much time into a project - especially if there’s a risk of going over budget if you have to re-do things.

The second method is to simply put together a concept and submit it to the church, letting them know that “this is what we’ve come up with” after I work with a few key people who are good, honest representatives of the group as a whole.

This makes things simpler overall, since the congregation is represented by their own membership, and I’m simply taking the ideas and distilling them into a legible plan.

I want to point out here that this is a simplification of the process, and we get into greater depth on the Focused Growth Live Q+A’s within the design business mastermind. That’s where the specifics for particular projects can be hashed out.

The above two routes are what I had decided may work best in this situation with the church community space and gardens. I’ve already put in the time to understand the congregation’s needs on a deep level, so I’m not just coming in blindly and saying “this is what you should have”. That’s a whole different situation if you’re new to the group and need to go through some more information-gathering to really get the context of both the site and the needs+dynamics of the community itself.

Since I knew that either of these methods - the community-engagement design method or the key-representatives method could work, these are the two options I gave to the client. I didn’t ask them to come up with the process, but I did give them some flexibility within what I believe to be an equitable process, and asked for their feedback.

This is how I can ensure that I’m comfortable with the scope of work being laid out, and not get in over my head trying to reinvent the design-process wheel based on methods /approaches that may not fulfill our actual needs in the process.

The client ended up choosing the key-representative approach, which does indeed simplify things, and honestly in this case there’s only so much that can really be done with the space since it is technically challenging with varying grades and steep dropoffs along the South property line, which rests about 20 vertical feet above the church building itself on a hillside.

Whenever you encounter technical projects like this, I always recommend clarifying your scope and what you’re comfortable addressing as a designer. I personally will be responsible for the conceptual layout, and eventual detailed planting design of this area. 

I’ll provide ideas in terms of materials and overall site planning/programming approach, but will not be doing any construction detail drawings or technical grading plans. 

Building relationships with local civil and environmental engineers, etc. can be very helpful if you find yourself in situations where you’re not 110% sure you know what you’re doing and can ensure nothing will go awry - for the sake of your clients’ and your own sanity and the safety of everyone, including those who may simply use the space once or live next door, etc.

Please drop a line below if you’d like me to elaborate on any part of what I mentioned above. I could literally write a book on multiple topics in this post, there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to community projects and bringing the public onto a property.. as well as creating successful gathering spaces which foster positive interaction, create lasting memories and enhance social equity for continued growth of the community mission.

Images by: Patrick K?hler, Darren Smith-Thorgrimson