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A participatory approach in urban development: Co-designing

resilient coastal neighbourhoods
Alazne Echaniz
Delft University of Technology

Sine Celik
Delft University of Technology

Pieter Ham
Delft University of Technology

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Citation
Echaniz, A., Celik, S., and Ham, P. (2022) A participatory approach in urban development: Co-designing
resilient coastal neighbourhoods, in Lockton, D., Lenzi, S., Hekkert, P., Oak, A., Sádaba, J., Lloyd, P. (eds.),
DRS2022: Bilbao, 25 June - 3 July, Bilbao, Spain. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.573

This Research Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the DRS Conference Proceedings at DRS Digital
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A participatory approach in urban development:
Co-designing resilient coastal neighbourhoods

Alazne Echaniza,c,*, Sine Celika, Pieter Hamb,c

a
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
b
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
c
Finch Floating Homes, The Netherlands
*corresponding e-mail: alazne.echaniz@gmail.com
doi.org/10.21606/drs.2022.573

Abstract: Urban development projects are complex processes that involve numerous
stakeholders. Lately, urban design has gained a human-centred dynamic to be able to
correspond to the needs and aspirations of the stakeholders that form the community.
This paper proposes a participatory approach to bring the community to the centre of
the design process. Through a case study conducted in the coastal areas of the Philip-
pines, we take a closer look at how co-design can help tackle fragile living situations
that emerge from challenging environmental and social conditions. First, future sce-
narios are co-created with residents in the form of visual summaries, boards and rela-
tionship maps. Secondly, these insights are translated into a design framework, where
stakeholders can discuss and further iterate on the proposed solutions. This bottom-
up approach that directly uses participants' input in identifying the essential elements
of the new settlements enabled the generation of implementable design scenarios on
neighbourhood scale.

Keywords: co-design, participatory design, urban development & neighbourhood design

1. Introduction
Designing a neighbourhood is a complex task (Gharai, 1999; Tan, 2014). On one hand, urban
designers face the challenge of designing fair, resilient and sustainable living spaces that pro-
vide housing with respect to the environment and local resources. The need for considering
environmental, social and economic factors in a holistic manner generates a complex multi-
dimensional problem. On the other hand, a neighbourhood is a living organism involving
multiple stakeholders with different expectations out of the same process. These differences
need to be realised and operationalised in harmony. When this harmony is not established,
the risk of creating a design rejected by the inhabitants whose needs are not satisfied is high.
In fact, throughout architectural history, many neighbourhoods built in the growing housing

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0

International Licence.
Alazne Echaniz, Sine Celik, Pieter Ham

demand in critical situations were either rejected by society or arose social and physical in-
adequacies in the housing environment. Some examples of such dysfunctionality are the
Peabody buildings in London or the Grand Housing programme in Addis Ababa (Ejigu, 2012,
pp. 98–112; Tarn, 1966).
In this study, we apply human-centric design principles to the urban design context, which is
traditionally considered a top-down design process (e.g., Awan, Schneider, & Till, 2011). The
study proposes a shift towards a bottom-up approach in urban design practice. The bottom-
up approach is becoming popular in urbanism projects (Tramhel, 2012, pp. 147–159), for ex-
ample, to generate sustainable cities in the global south; however, in this study, this is em-
ployed at a neighbourhood level. This study proposed using a bottom-up approach in urban-
ism starting from the household level and integrating the social and physical needs of stake-
holders as a key attribute to designing multi-functional spaces at both scales (Robertson,
2012, pp. 14–28).
This paper aims to test bottom-up approaches in participatory urban development, as well
as evaluating their outcomes through a case study. Focusing on the coastal rural areas in the
Philippines, this study searches for design-driven strategies for community formation with
an alternative housing typology adapted for the environmental challenges, while putting the
social requirements and wishes of the end-users in the centre of urban development. The
starting point is the quotidian needs of residents translated into a basic living unit. Upon
which, a modular clustering of the basic unit that respects the needs of public-private bal-
ance in the community is co-developed. The approach is performed through a participatory
methodology that involves the citizens of the future community in co-creation sessions. The
generative process is designed in the form of a serious game, where the target group is em-
powered to share their knowledge and communicate their wishes regarding the neighbour-
hood structure. Lastly, the community’s needs are addressed by using first-hand infor-
mation, expanding the solution space of a complex problem in an inclusive way.
Although many researchers have addressed the efficacy of participatory design (Mulder &
Stappers, 2009; Sanders & Stappers, 2008; Simonsen & Robertson, 2013) the literature is
lacking in-depth conclusions on how co-creation and bottom-up approaches can come to-
gether in neighbourhood design context. This article describes the theoretical background of
these concepts. It focuses on the use of generative workshops as the method to involve the
end-user in urban planning. Thereby this study aims to explore an approach in which citi-
zens' social and physical needs are being incorporated into neighbourhood development.
First, an introduction to the participatory approaches in human-centred design practices is
presented. Secondly, background information on the case study is given to understand the
context, followed by an explanation of the methodology used to develop a co-creation strat-
egy. Then the results of the study are analysed and synthesised to finally wrap up with the
discussion and conclusions on the use of the participatory approaches in urbanism as a
neighbourhood development framework. Lastly, future implementations and opportunities
are discussed regarding the context of the case study.

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 A participatory approach in urban development

2. Participatory approaches in urban design

Emerging factors such as humanitarian crises and the loss of habitat caused by climate
change force communities worldwide to relocate and cause a housing crisis (World Bank,
2016). This is a complex issue where economic, societal and environmental dilemmas are
combined. All these factors have created significant challenges for urban designers demand-
ing innovative solutions that embrace the ever-growing complexity.
Scholars agree that open, complex, dynamic and networked problems, also called wicked
problems, cannot be solved directly; and they require new ways of knowledge production,
decision-making and problem solving (Dorst, Kaldor, Klippan, & Watson, 2016; Lang et al.,
2012). Creating cities and neighbourhoods that can be considered examples of wicked prob-
lems, as a community implies physical and social dimensions (Abu-Ghazzeh, 1999; Gharai,
1999; Williams, 2005). Thus, creating a new urban development is a complex task with multi-
ple stakeholders, invested interests, and ensuring social acceptance are vital for the desira-
bility factor of the new urban settlement ( Abu-Ghazzeh, 1999; Lafontaine-Messier, 2012,
pp. 30–46; Manzini & Thorpe, 2018). Urban designers recently aim to create new urban
models that place people at the centre of decision-making processes, taking into account the
diversity of experiences and needs instead of expecting the people to adapt to the predeter-
mined conditions of the space (Valdivia, 2018). Consequently, co-creation through a partici-
patory approach could be a possible strategy to facilitate the necessary dynamics and the so-
cietal acceptance of new urban textures that integrate basic human needs, such as interac-
tions or safety and generate an inclusive city reducing the existing status and gender gaps
(Maslow, 1943; Valdivia, 2018; Williams, 2005).
Since the term ‘design participation’ was introduced at the Design Research Society confer-
ence in Manchester in 1971, participatory planning and design have gained velocity as valid
working methods (Cross, 1972) in urban and architectural projects. The participatory design
offers planners access to local knowledge that is otherwise difficult to reach, contributes to
re-creating communities, involves diverse stakeholders in the process to integrate the best
available knowledge, reconcile values and preferences, and create ownership over the
reached solution (Dalsgaard, 2012; Keeton et al. 2020; Luck, 2018; Manzini & Thorpe, 2018;
Sanders & Stappers, 2018). Hence, community-based, generative, or participatory ap-
proaches are often considered suitable means to meet the demands posed by real-world
problems (Lang et al., 2012). Commonly, participatory sessions can utilise diverse methods
or tools such as workshops, serious games, sketching or storytelling and are organised by an
organism seeking to enable mutual learning, reflection, and evaluation (Robertson & Simon-
sen, 2012; Poplin, 2012).
Despite the presented benefits, participatory approaches also face several challenges, in-
cluding obtaining appropriate conditions for participatory design; handling a multitude of
stakeholders; managing stepwise implementation processes; and conducting realistic, large-
scale participatory design experiments (Dalsgaard, 2012; Keeton, Mota, & Tan, 2020). Practi-
tioners have pointed to highly subjective tensions such as trust, loyalty, guilt and discomfort

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Alazne Echaniz, Sine Celik, Pieter Ham

as “complicating ingredients” in participatory design (Wynne-Jones et al., 2015). The ten-

sions and other communication issues such as language barriers, cultural differences, etc. in
participatory sessions can make comprehending the community’s needs difficult.
Moreover, the linear structure of the approach commonly employed in urbanism and archi-
tectural projects does not encourage iteration once the sessions are over, even if the goal
has not been fully reached. Additionally, such practices are often criticised for being solu-
tion-oriented is relevant in the short term and the knowledge generation that results from
this process does not necessarily focus on measuring the effectiveness and implementability
of the solutions in the long term (Keeton, Mota & Tan, 2020; Poplin, 2012).
To summarise, few of the current participatory approaches in the urban development sector
are tackled bottom-up (Tan, 2014; Tramhel, 2012, pp. 147–159). These practices typically
start with a macro perspective, where the obtained outcome is a common scenario for pol-
icy-making rather than focusing on the domestic level. The goal generally is to boost the de-
cision-making process and reach a shared agreement among the stakeholders. This is a pre-
viously organised and structured process wherefrom one outcome is generated after the
participatory sessions. Nevertheless, complex problems require fluid solutions with room for
iteration and reassessment (Manzini & Thorpe, 2018).
The human-centredness plays a significant role in participatory approaches due to its inclu-
sive and iterative nature that relies on loops of idea generation and feedback from various
stakeholders (Rizzo, 2010). Despite being primarily adopted by product, service and system
design scholars, mainly because it has its roots in ergonomics related fields (Giacomin,
2014), human-centeredness stands at the core of all contemporary design practices, as de-
sign output needs to meet people’s needs and aspirations (van der Bijl-Brouwer & Dorst,
2017). International Organization for Standardization defines six principles for human-cen-
tred design: involving multiple skills and perspectives (1), understanding of users, tasks and
environments (2), evaluation driven design (3), consideration of the whole user experience
(4), involvement of users throughout design and development (5), following an iterative pro-
cess (6) (Giacomin, 2014). Following these principles, the case study presented in this paper
uses participatory approaches to interact, empathise and stimulate the potential end-users
involved.

3. Creating a resilient floating neighbourhood: a case from the rural

Philippines
A case study in which, due to its complexity, the described participatory approach is used to
propose a framework for a neighbourhood in Hagonoy in the Manila Bay Area, the Philip-
pines. This area is exemplary for many Southeast Asian urban deltas, facing a high housing
demand and city expansions (Habitat for Humanity, 2021). This case study is considered to
be relevant since it raises the question of how to design an urban area that has become
available for desired urban expansions by the introduction of a new building type (in this
case a floating house). Large vacant and abandoned wetland areas can now be used for new

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 A participatory approach in urban development

settlements, leading to rethinking of possible functions of these urban areas and new ap-
proaches to urban challenges. To come to implementable and suitable new approaches the
input of the population is considered to be essential, which makes this case study suitable
for using and evaluating the bottom-up participatory approach of this research.

3.1 Current housing situation

In the city of Hagonoy, people settled in family compounds along the riverside. In these fam-
ily clusters, intergenerational living is ordinary practice, and these clusters ensure social and
economic support, which is of high importance in the family-oriented Filipino culture. (Ken-
dall, 1976; Lorenzo, 2016). Over multiple generations, this family-owned land has been di-
vided among various family members, who built their homes on these plots. Due to this rela-
tively rapid urbanisation, most of these areas are now fully occupied with buildings, resulting
in a high urban density in which public social nodes and safe pedestrian spaces are lacking.
This forces the population to socialise on the sides of the streets, resulting in unsafe and un-
comfortable situations. However, the people with higher income often socialise in private
outdoor spaces mainly located in gated communities. This contributes to a certain social di-
vision between income groups and employment sectors. The lack of public spaces can as
well be seen during the town’s celebrations and festivities. Since 80% of the Philippine popu-
lation follows Catholicism (Habitat for Humanity, 2021), these festivities play a vital role in
the community. Due to the lack of public space, these festivities are forced to be held on the
streets.
The availability of land to realise demanded urban developments is also diminishing due to
the increasing number and intensity of flood events. Mainly due to the combination of
ground subsidence (5-10 cm per year) and rising sea levels, large areas, which until 25 years
ago were still equipped as rice fields, are now permanently underwater (Rodolfo & Siringan,
2006). Some of these areas have been transformed into fishponds (see Figure 1). In many
cases, however, the dikes of these ponds regularly overflow, causing these areas to lose
their function and thus become vacant and abandoned.

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Alazne Echaniz, Sine Celik, Pieter Ham

Figure 1. The city of Hagonoy with its settlements (yellow) along the riversides (blue) and vacant and
abandoned former rice fields (grey).

The current situation is analysed through a causal loop diagram (see Figure 2), where ‘B’
stands for balancing and ‘R’ for reinforcing. The diagram identifies points of tension in the
current system concerning the floods and the housing demand from a systemic perspective
that considers the societal shifts and environmental pressures as a whole.

Figure 2. Causal loop diagram

3.2 Future scenario

Floating settlements, to be placed on abandoned former rice fields, can be a housing solu-
tion for the people without them having to relocate to other areas, which is beneficial con-
sidering more than 70% of the Hagonoy’s population works in water-related businesses
(Hagonoy Water District, 2016). Furthermore, these floating settlements can freely move up

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 A participatory approach in urban development

and down with the water level to avoid floodwater entering the streets and homes, which is
currently occurring on a daily basis (Rodolfo & Siringan, 2006). Obviously, these flood events
have a devastating impact on the daily lives of inhabitants of these areas nowadays.
To find suitable solutions for housing in these vacant former rice fields, research has been
carried out on the design and implementation of affordable floating homes (Ham, 2021). A
prototype floating home has been designed, built, and evaluated to come to implementable
housing solutions for lower and middle-income families. This floating home (see Figure 3) is
constructed from a locally prefabricated system of modules and panels with locally available
renewable and recyclable materials. The building design aims to create a comfortable and
dry indoor environment without relying on energy-intensive devices by focusing on avoiding
heat gain and encouraging natural ventilation.

Figure 3. Prototype of the floating home developed by Finch Floating Homes and TU Delft.

Implementing a floating settlement based on this architectural type can contribute to solu-
tions for the current housing problems since it unlocks the possibility for city planners and
urban designers to reconsider how the landscape can be designed for urban expansions.
However, the rapidly changing environment and the involvement of many different stake-
holders make designing a socially accepted and technically and financially feasible neigh-
bourhood for the Manila Bay Area a complex task.

4. Methodological approach
The study started with multidirectional desk research on the city of Hagonoy and the local
history to understand the significant elements that have an impact on society’s culture, ar-
chitecture, beliefs and language. Additionally, diverse communities that have a challenging
relationship with water have been studied with their respective dynamics. The complexity of
the situation that presents an interdependence of environmental, economical, and social is-
sues requires using a participatory approach with reflection iterations. The action research
approach is employed to ensure involving participants and gathering first-hand information
to complement theoretical insights. This methodology integrates an action and reflection cy-
clic process and puts theory into practice by involving the end-user in the procedure through
two participatory exercises (Howard & Somerville, 2014; Kemmis et al., 2014; Yang & Sung,

7
Alazne Echaniz, Sine Celik, Pieter Ham

2016). Lastly, all the insights are translated into design solutions, and then a settlement
framework proposal is generated and validated with the end-user.
This approach provided valuable insights, as it shed light on the city as a complex system
where the vested interests of all stakeholders, existing conflicts, interactions and relation-
ships between users and architectural elements are merged into a participatory community-
making method (Tan, 2014).

4.1 Data Collection

The conducted interviews combined with participatory design sessions that follow the core
idea of ‘Play the City’ (Tan, 2014). Stakeholders are brought together to co-create and dis-
cuss the function and spatial division of a particular area. In addition, this study uses the
structure of the exercises proposed in the book Convivial Toolbox, called ‘the path of expres-
sion’ (Sanders & Stappers, 2013). The combination of these methods is a generative session
that utilises digital boards as a toolkit ( see Figure 4). The toolkit enables participants to
share insights on their lifestyle, and communicate their emotions while assessing how they
perceive the shift towards a floating community. The exercises are simple and easy to under-
stand so the participants can follow the guidelines given by the facilitator. During the partici-
patory session, the following questions were asked:
1. What is your daily routine as a citizen of Hagonoy?
2. Which elements do you consider to be essential to your neighbourhood?
3. How would you distribute these essential elements in the newly available
space?
4. What are you missing in the present community and the existing space?
5. How would you describe your relationship with water in the area?
The recruited participants are potential end-users, the citizens of Hagonoy. A total number
of eight participants have collaborated on the participatory session. The participants also
had diverse profiles: teachers, business owners and those who work in aquaculture. This di-
versity ensures the inclusion of different age groups, gender, education levels, perceptions
and awareness towards societal problems, as well as a variety of economic classes to gather
contrasting points of view as suggested in the literature study (see section 2).
First, the path of expression was followed, which is a process of sensitising and awareness-
building, by which designers and researchers guide participants to a better understanding of
their needs, wants, hopes and deeper knowledge levels (tacit and latent) (Sanders & Stap-
pers, 2013, p. 25). The session’s structure guides the participants by immersing them in
their present situation, afterwards, a jump back to their childhood and memories. In the last
step, participants describe their dreamed community, which helps them generate ideas and
express their wishes by combining needs and memories.
This first exercise, A day in the life, is created to visualise the present status of the partici-
pants. The board is composed of different layers to gain a deep knowledge of their routine,

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 A participatory approach in urban development

habits, social activities and circulation around the neighbourhood. Then, the second exer-
cise, Make your dream neighbourhood, helps the participants visualise their district on an
image. The created toolkit, a Miro board, is a map of the targeted area in Hagonoy. The illus-
tration represents the shape of the city and the available space for the development of the
floating settlement. It must be considered that this toolkit aims to generate a sharable visu-
alisation with the participants rather than an accurate representation of the context.

Figure 4. Visualisation of the two exercise boards. On the left is the exercise, “A day in the life”. The
game “Make your dream neighbourhood” is formed by the board and icons on the right.

4.2 Data Analysis

The results of each session are visualised on “game boards”, these are analysed individually
by comparing the outcomes. Then by clustering, the boards’ conclusions are drawn. Next,
the results from the first exercise are synthesised into design scenarios. The scenarios iden-
tify the popular locations in the city, as well as the related activities and routines. Then, the
second exercise generates neighbourhood development proposals co-created with the par-
ticipants and the designers. Finally, the gained insights are combined on two boards to visu-
alise different target groups’ priorities and the essential architectural elements around the
family unit and community.
Once the co-creation sessions’ outcomes are gathered and analysed, the next step is to
transform the insights into architectural and urban planning elements to generate a floating
neighbourhood proposal. Lastly, the design is validated with the users. The user evaluation is
done through interview sessions, where the designers collect feedback from the participants
(see Figure 5).

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Alazne Echaniz, Sine Celik, Pieter Ham

Figure 5. Visualisation of the employed approach in this study.

5. Co-designing resilient neighbourhoods

5.1 Participatory tools for neighbourhood design
The outcomes of the first exercise are clustered into two scenarios. Scenario one describes a
regular working day and scenario two a typical Sunday.

Scenario 1
For workers and business owners, the sample weekday begins by waking up early and travel-
ling to work in the middle of the traffic. Then, they work until 5 pm and go back home to
have dinner with their family. After dinner, there is time for socialising with friends or rela-
tives either in or near their home or at their friends’ place. These social and leisure activities
that take place at the end of the day are marked as the happiest moment. On the contrary,
the time spent in traffic is seen as the saddest or annoying ( see Figure 6). The frequently vis-
ited public locations in the city are markets, sports facilities and shops. Private or semi-pri-
vate spaces, other than their own homes, people commonly use homes or property of rela-
tives and friends. The session also reveals how men and women socialised in different loca-
tions and days of the week. Similar differences are also apparent between income classes.

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 A participatory approach in urban development

Figure 6. Synthesis of the gathered information from the first exercise of the participatory approach.

Scenario 2
On Sunday the main activities are going to church and being with the extended family ( see
Figure 7). Every weekend they have family gatherings after the mass; they eat, sing, and
have fun with their beloved ones. Therefore, this day is mentioned to be the happiest day of
the week.

Figure 7. Synthesis of the gathered information from the first exercise of the participatory approach.

In the second game board, architectural elements are clustered in a way that fits the partici-
pants’ social class. The clustering of houses according to their social background is noticea-
ble in the game boards generated by the participants, for instance, in the selected elements
from the presented icon gallery and the desired connections to neighbours. The working or
low/middle-income class perceives living on the water as an opportunity to start their own
business by farming fish and vegetables. Participants of the lower income also cluster to
maximise the presence of leisure amenities such as bars or sports facilities. In contrast, the

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Alazne Echaniz, Sine Celik, Pieter Ham

priority of the higher-income group is the facility for social relationships. Consequently, the
dwellings are clustered in such a way that generates private spaces for gathering with their
family and friends (see Figure 8).

Nevertheless, boards of different income groups (see Figure 8) share commonalities, such as the presence of access and link-
ages between the inland settlement and the floating one. Participants express the desire to connect the frequently visited
inland neighbourhoods and amenities like church, market or school. Additionally, using natural resources, like water, natural
ventilation and the view over the fishponds is an advantage of living in the water for the citizens.

Figure 8. Outcome of the exercise ‘Make your dream neighbourhood, clustered according to the ob-
served social division.

5.2 A framework proposal for the new settlement in Hagonoy

The proposed framework in this study focuses on two levels, the first being the household
level and the second the neighbourhood level.

Household level
Daily family gatherings play a central role in Filipino culture. Their importance for habits and
traditions is also evident from the created scenarios in Figures 6 and 7. Therefore, it is imper-
ative that the urban planning of the neighbourhood begins with identifying the needed prox-
imity and interaction in the domestic space. When discussing the domestic space, partici-
pants created a basic unit formed of a family home, a garden and a means of transportation.
This household unit is combined with other household units to generate a cluster. This
should be in harmony with the local culture and should be comprehensible as a group of
families (National Committee for Human Settlements, 1976). According to the participatory
sessions, 2-4 household units per cluster.
Based on the participatory session, literature and desk research, the existing homes in the
rural areas of Hagonoy have different levels of privacy within the property. It goes from pub-
lic space in front of the house, semi-private on the house’s porch, to completely private on
the backside of the house. When considering this division for clustering the houses in the

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family groups, the houses’ positioning creates a communal space in the centre, often re-
ferred to as the realm ( see Figure 9). The realm is the space between private and public that
can be seen as an extension of the domestic space where the families can gather to cele-
brate and carry out everyday activities (Merriam-Webster, 2021). The realm area is the tran-
sition from semi-private to public space as it is connected to a pathway that joins the neigh-
bourhood‘s grid. Therefore, in this framework, there is only one pedestrian connection per
cluster, emphasising the privacy and security of the family. However, due to the visibility,
passing neighbours could join an activity or celebration after their working day ( see Figure
9). This dualism can satisfy the wishes of higher and lower-income citizens as it offers differ-
ent levels of privacy depending on their wishes.

Figure 9. Dwelling cluster and positioning to generate a common semi-private space.

Neighbourhood level
The characteristics of the basic unit on the household level are established through studying
local living conditions and preferences. On the neighbourhood level, these basic units are
clustered and replicated over the available area in a way that enables social interaction and
fulfils the infrastructural and spatial demands for generating a dynamic and lively floating
neighbourhood. The proposed hybrid settlement is an extension of the existing city. The
public space offers the citizens a clear social node for gatherings and communal activities
(Gharai, 1999). People from both the existing land-based community and the new floating
community will make use of these spaces as it complements the existing infrastructure. This
space must be easily accessible to be perceived as welcoming to the citizens. In this frame-
work, multiple of these open spaces are needed to provide sufficient public nodes for people
to gather and socialise (see Figure 10). The roads or paths of the floating community have
several touchpoints with the existing ones to facilitate integration and accessibility. The
pathways connect the entire neighbourhood, and they promote pedestrian movement since
this is vital for the minorities of the society (UN-Habitat, 2016) as this promotes their auton-
omy and safety.

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Alazne Echaniz, Sine Celik, Pieter Ham

Figure 11. Detailed drawing of the proposed framework for the current context.

The living patterns and dynamics of the city might change over time. Therefore they demand
interrelated and adaptable spaces (public, private, domestic, personal…) that can grow with
the needs of the community (Carrasco Bengoa, 2007). From the first framework, develop-
ments can focus on the desired spatial design around the domestic and semi-public space,
serving the initial needs and wishes. As the infrastructure and public spaces consist of a
modular system of floating platforms ( see Figure 10, pathways grid design), it enables the
extension of these structures and thereby, it provides the ability for the settlements to grow
and adjust to the needs over time.
This new location gives the opportunity to make use of available resources around the dwell-
ings like the water, the available space to grow vegetables or plant trees, improving the
community's quality of life and taking care of the environment as it now is a direct source of
income. The targeted end-users for these settlements are fishermen, gardeners, small busi-
ness owners, and teachers, among others. These stakeholders can use the water around
their homes to expand or create new small businesses like farming fish, which contributes
to increasing their autonomy. Furthermore, it can merge their workspace with the dwelling
space, avoiding the daily displacement to work. This is because the fish farms can be delim-
ited by the dwellings of the family or relatives, fostering collaboration among neighbours.
Ecosystems can be developed in which the vacant water parts could be filled with autoch-
thonous trees, which clean the water and become nurseries for the fish. As well, floating gar-
den containers can be generated near the domestic space to produce healthy food for the
citizens.

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6.Discussion and conclusion

This section contains the discussion and conclusions of the carried study. As well it covers
limitations and recommendations on further research and development of the project.
As stated often by various scholars, understanding the influence of social relationships and
how people depend on these, is vital for generating a lively and accepted community, espe-
cially for close-knit cultures (Abu-Ghazzeh, 1999; Lafontaine-Messier, 2012, pp. 30–46; Wil-
liams, 2005). Although the outcomes differ between social classes, our study confirms the
desired relationship with the neighbours on both boards created by the participants (see Fig-
ure 8). The working class desires economical support from their neighbours while the higher
class is seeking emotional support. Therefore, urban planners should identify these vital so-
cial dependencies, and develop a neighbourhood framework that enables these relations.
Additionally, the research on local life has shown a certain gender division in the Filipino cul-
ture. This becomes apparent during social activities, where gender and social status within
the society come to the surface and it leads to different priorities in community planning.
We found that women prioritise family needs such as accessibility to schools and markets
and a safe environment, while men prioritise accessibility to the working areas and sports
facilities. These findings are revealed during the participatory design sessions, however,
there is a gap in literature that supports these findings. Therefore, further research would be
beneficial, with a larger and diverse group of participants that represent different economi-
cal classes, genders and ages groups to develop city-making strategies to increase safety per-
ception and inclusiveness within the community. This study was conducted remotely during
the Covid-19 pandemic, which created additional limitations regarding our access to a larger
number of citizens. Although the results highlight the value of participatory approaches as
used in this study in understanding the population’s wishes and needs for urban develop-
ment projects, our recommendation is to apply this method to a larger group of participants
in order to form a design framework. One of the limitations of this approach is the length of
the process when compared to other participatory planning or serious games. The double
intervention as proposed in this study aims to engage and familiarise stakeholders with the
community-making approach. This contributes to ensuring the continuation of the process
and preventing fulfilment issues (Keeton, Mota, & Tan, 2020; Poplin, 2012). However, it
could be said that the finalisation of the project could be hindered by extending the process
due to external factors such as management, schedule or economical reasons. Another limi-
tation is the size of the sample of participants to validate a methodology, nonetheless, it
could be argued that the sample is big enough to develop the first framework for neighbour-
hood development. Lastly, due to the conceptual level of the case study and the number of
participants, additional on-site studies should be done to analyse the validity of this urban
framework and approach, especially regarding the relationship between the new floating
settlement and the existing urban texture.

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Alazne Echaniz, Sine Celik, Pieter Ham

As an alternative to collaborative approaches, addressing the co-creation session on an indi-

vidual level offers a safe space for the participants to share their experiences without dis-
turbances, tensions or loyalty issues (Manzini & Thorpe, 2018). In fact, it allows a one-on-
one information exchange where the designers can ask questions in situ about the reached
outcome and gain more profound knowledge about wishes, needs and values. Furthermore,
the designers’ active participation opened up a suggestion space in the session, where new
elements/features are discussed to study the participant’s reaction towards integrating
them. Whereas in previous studies, the organisers are facilitators or enablers who do not
intervene (Awan et al., 2011, p. 170; Manzini & Thorpe, 2018).
Lastly, there is a general consensus among scholars that participatory design in urban plan-
ning allows the participants to communicate their needs, collaborate in the solution creation
and be involved in the decision-making process (Dalsgaard, 2012; Keeton, Mota, & Tan,
2020; Lang et al., 2012; Luck, 2018; Manzini & Thorpe, 2018; Sanders & Stappers, 2018). This
study corroborates the proactive attitude of the participants towards community-making.
Simultaneously, it strengthens the participants' feeling of ownership/responsibility for gen-
erating solutions that derive from the serious game. Furthermore, the structure of the co-
creation sessions in this study enables finding characteristics related to architectural and ur-
ban elements desired by the community to be used both on household and neighbourhood
levels. These outcomes provide the designers with insights into which elements should be
studied to build a socially accepted community.

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About the Authors:

Alazne Echaniz's interests are systemic design and participatory ap-

proaches, particularly in new urban development projects. She has a

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 A participatory approach in urban development

background in Integrated Product Design (TU Delft, 2021) and cur-

rently works as a user experience and service designer for a private
company.

Sine Celik is assistant professor of Design for Network-driven Systemic

Change in the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering at the Delft Uni-
versity of Technology. She is interested in the role of social networks
in system-oriented design.

Pieter Ham is researcher at the Structural Design and Building Engi-

neering Group at the Faculty of Civil Engineering (TU Delft) and co-
founder of Finch Floating Homes. He is working on research and im-
plementation of floating homes for Southeast Asian Deltas.

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