Example Reflection: A new town square, where people feel good

Challenge

I live in Prague, the capital city of Czechia. The district is made up mainly by housing estates that were  built in 1970s. The district is ideal for families, because of extensive greenery, transport accessibility  and civic amenities. However, as much as the district tries to be modern in its ideas and approaches,  there is still a lot of unused areas that developers are trying to gain. Stakeholders’ interests in the  district are the main friction area. Now, there should be a new square in front of the town hall. The  square will serve the citizens – kids, young adults, senior citizens, mothers, fathers, but also the local  representatives or visitors. What should such a place contain so that people feel good there?

Selection

For the purpose of finding out where, when and why people feel good in certain public places, we  selected the mind mapping tool. Mind mapping provides a segway from what is to what if. We need to  gain quite a lot of data and seek patterns in “what is”. Customers (=citizens) make observations –  where do they feel good? From these observations, we can gain insights – what are the factors that  cause them to feel good?

Application

We held a forum, where were approximately 80 citizens and 20 local representatives. By digital voting,  they chose 10 most favourite places in the district. These places were written on pieces of paper and  placed all around the room. People could place sticky notes with what exactly they like in the place,  but also something they don´t like. After that we formed teams in front of each paper and the teams  discussed together. We, the facilitators, helped the teams to form insight statements from their  observations. For example, one team member felt good in an area by the lake because he likes water,  the insight statement was that people associate water with refreshment, vacation and fountains in the  city centre, all of which enables them to relax. It is also known that the district fundamentally lacks  water surfaces and elements. In the end, we collected all insight statements and voted, sorting the  statements from least important to the most important.

Insight

Based on the insights, we formed design criteria, the conditions the design solution must satisfy in  order the citizens to feel good. Unsurprisingly, we found out that the needs, wishes, and values of all  the groups are quite different. However, when we looked on the insight statements, we knew the  design (like in any urban planning problem) must be complex and versatile. A square, as an urban  form, must be open to new ideas and needs that may come up in time. However, the basic needs, at  which we focus, do not change – people like to spend their time in places that are safe, clean,  beautiful, and open.

Approach

This approach definitely contributed to understating how citizens want to spend their free time. The  important factor was that we also included the local representatives themselves. They needed to see  that they themselves like to spend time in some places more than the others and why is that.  Therefore, when discussing the urban planning problems with the developers, the representatives  identify with the citizens and are able to protect their interests. Next time, I would include some  visualizations of possible forms of the square. This way, the visual aspects could be incorporated more  directly.

