THE FUTURE IS TODAY. Scripting public debate on Design Anthropological encounters

Abstract

In the village Godsheide (BE) controversy exists on the role participatory processes play in defining the decision-making in spatial planning design. This is due to ten years of inadequate communication between the citizens, policy makers and property developers. In 2014 the citizens started a Participatory Design (PD) process with our research group to re-open communication between all actors. We used a Design Anthropological approach wherein we followed everyday activities in Godsheide through Action Research to build collaborative relationships with the participants (Bradbury, Reason, 2003). At the same time, via co-design workshops we engaged more actively with how people perceive, create, and transform their environment and guided this towards spatial scenarios addressing different timelines: past, present and future (Gunn, Otto & Smith, 2013, xiii; Sanders & Stappers, 2008). As Otto & Smith (2013) indicate, this distorted temporal orientation is one of the clear differences between design and anthropology. This position paper engages with the methodological implications of designers engaging with “ethnographies of the possible” or doing ethnography in a a semi-fictional space.