P-Kit: Picture listening for community planning

The Task

Liat Rogel is a researcher and lecturer at the Milano Polytechnico
She uses the design process in order to facilitate a given concept, often emphasising the design of services.
Her P-kit was designed for a regeneration project in Cimerosa (on the outskirts of Milan).
She needed to understand the needs of the residents in order to improve their local environment.
A significant challenge is how to facilitate common understanding in a highly diverse group of residents.
The idea of Planning for Real must embrace language and cultural difference
Often, there are also technical issues implicit in any residential situation - these may be daunting
Some residents may not even be able to read a map or an architectural drawing
also the possibility of resentment toward outside interference

Which role should a designer undertake in the context of urban development?
What tools are appropriate for creating a shared language within a regeneration process?
How do you tackle different points of view alongside communication difficulties and cultural discrepancies?

In participative design it is important not to deceive, or to create false hopes
It is necessary to create a realistic framework for action and possible change
Liat emphasised that the gaining and building of trust essential to a project's success.
She recommended the work of Luigi Bobbio who has written about participative processes
In his work, listening, constructive interaction and conflict resolution are seen as part of the process.

What tools and methods are most appropriate within a user-centred approach?
Ethnographic studies use many media such as questionnaires, video, photography etc.
Liat needed a tool for listening that could elicit common concerns without verbal language confusion
She found photography to be helpful both for gathering implicit and explicit issues in the community.

'Listening tools' may use visuals but depend on language to create a shared sense of meaning
The P-kit (above) is simple but looks technical or official. It therefore inspires trust
The tools consisted of numbered frames, and picture panels, designed to document each individualâ€™s concerns
The wide range of opinions gathered were then used to identify what was felt to be the most pressing, shared problems.
This information incorporated in a residents' exhibition (very popular), to encourage a more formal planning process
However, getting the Local Authorities to act was probably the most difficult aspect of the whole project.
The challenge is always to find how â€˜problemsâ€™ can be turned into potentials and opportunities.

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