Ways Of Working

For us the commitment to democratise design has been as important as arriving at new designs and exploring new product development.

We began with three workshops funded by Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing that brought together Ryders Architects and in-community health professionals such as Occupational Therapists, Psychologists, and Support workers with Visually Impaired people. Over the course of three workshops participants were asked to take part in seven separate activities designed to bring out and record their thoughts and tap into their understanding and expertise on design of housing.

For many, if not all participants, it was their first opportunity to discuss ideas around housing with other health professionals or architects in an arena where their views could be recorded taken on board. This lack of prior cross communication between designers and professional users points towards a need for broader, more inclusive design processes across knowledge silos to become more mainstream in the future.

Capturing, reviewing, revising but not discarding information allowed for the tracking of decision making in an iterative manner. These methods, having been tested in the Health Professional Workshops were subsequently as a starting point for the co design group that drew in a broad disciplinary group for seven full day sessions. There were parallel workshops with both older people and parents of younger children as well as a workshop with middle managers in housing organised by the Housing Learning and Improvement Network