Project Design and Research Methodology

2.1. Collaborative Research and Practice Project

The study reported in this paper was initiated by local community stakeholders in Sisimiut, Greenland. The Municipality of Qeqqata had established an initiative led by the Homecare Department called ‘Healthy and Active Ageing’. The Homecare Department had long had the idea of creating better access to nature for a group of senior citizens living in a local public senior housing area. After taking part in previous

ethnographic research carried out by AgeArc, the Homecare Department presented the researchers with their idea and a formal collaboration was initiated. Other local stakeholders included the Municipality of Qeqqata’s Culture and Sustainability Department and the Technical and Environmental Department as well as the local residents living in the senior housing area. AgeArc is an active project running from 2017-2021 that combines research and development of welfare initiatives and in general aims to study and enhance wellbeing, quality of life and health promotion among older people in Greenland (Nørtoft et al., 2018).

AgeArc invited the research network Activity and Health Enhancing Physical Environment Network (APEN) to team up and collaborate on the research side of the project. The research team behind this study consists of an architect and an antropologist. Prior to this study APEN had carried out two co-design processes with two senior housing areas in a low-income area of Copenhagen with the objective of involving local older people in co-design of new neighbourhood spaces (Pawlowski et al., 2017).

Prior to the start of the project, funding from Qeqqeta Municipality’s Sustainability Fund had been obtained (DKK 200,000). After the completion of the co-design process, when the design proposal had been selected, additional funding for the design solutions (DKK 260,000) was applied for and granted through the Municipality and AgeArc. During two weeks in June 2018 approximately 50 older people took part in a co-design process in Sisimiut. Four workshops were scheduled to take place each with a clear co-design purpose that would involve the participants in the stages of a design process from ‘inspiration to ideation to implementation’ (Brown, 2009). In our terminology these were ‘immersion, ideation, prototyping, presentation and refinement’. Additionally, implementation and celebration events were later added to the process. The installations were built in the autumn of 2018.

2.2. Research Context

Sisimiut is the second largest city in Greenland with approximately 6,000 inhabitants. The city is located within a rural context surrounded by wild nature, mountains and the sea. Facing the mountains lies a public senior housing area consisting of four building blocks of 2 and 3 storeys with 48 apartments for seniors.

Fourty-one of the residents live alone and the remaining seven live with a partner; all residents are retired.

Every apartment has a view of the wilderness right on the door step, but no access exists if you have low mobility. Nature is a big part of people’s life in Greenland and hence, a limited access in older age can negatively influence the seniors’ quality of life (Nørtoft et al., 2018).

Figure 1 and 2: Photos of the area before the construction.

143 2.3. Research Methodology

The methodology of this project draws on qualitative data from an explorative co-design approach which is event-driven, open-ended and collaborative (Brandt & Eriksen, 2010a). The approach follows the notion that collaboration between research and practice partners must be based on ongoing dialogue and respect of each partner’s experiences, contributions and areas of expertise (cf. Nørtoft et al., 2018). The study is empirically guided and combines ethnographic fieldwork and co-design. In this paper we draw on three different data sets: 1) ethnographic data from the planning phase prior to the design workshops, 2) data from the co-design workshops including field notes, photos as well as audio recordings from the last workshop feedback which were transcribed and 3) four semi-structured follow-up interviews with the core local municipal stakeholders. These semi-structured interviews were carried out by the AgeArc researcher two months after the workshops. She did not participate in the workshops herself. The interviews were analysed and organised into categories using thematic coding encompassing categories that evolved as the analysis progressed.

Topics related to the process included: e.g. roles, collaboration, collaborators, contribution and design methods. The various data sets represent a triangulation of methods reflecting the interdisciplinarity of the research team, and collectively the qualitative analysis inductively served to form a completion of the case to inform the discussion (Schutt, 2012).

3. Methodological Background: Co-design

As presented earlier, in this article we inscribe the development of AFCCs into the field of co-design. An understanding of the mindset behind the co-design approach is required in order to discuss the empirical stakeholder perspectives from this study.

As opposed to other disciplines within the design field, co-design has its roots in participatory design, where the user is regarded as more than a subject you design ‘for’, rather a partner you design ‘with’

(Sanders & Stappers, 2008). This mindset requires that expertise is distributed from the designer to every co-design partner and in this regard ‘situated’ or ‘experienced’ expertise is as legitimate and valuable as

‘professional’ expertise (Sanders, 2013; Sanders & Stappers, 2013). Every stakeholder comes to the table

with a specific expertise, interest or ability and hence starting from a blank slate will never be possible (Brandt & Eriksen, 2010b). Instead it is important to acknowledge the individual contributions to the collective process and, as Sanders (2002) articulates, ‘harness the collective and infinitely expanding set of ideas and opportunities that emerge when all the people who have a stake in the process are invited to play the game’ (Sanders, 2002, p. 6). In order for every user or stakeholder to become an active partner of the design team as ‘experts of their experiences’, they need to be taken seriously and genuinely be wanted in the process, and they need to be equipped with tools for expressing themselves (Cruickshank et al., 2013).

Therefore, carefully planning and designing the process (Brandt, 2006) and the respective design events becomes important as this is where people meet face-to-face, and the time must be well spent (Brandt

& Eriksen, 2010a). Further, in order to optimise the resources of all stakeholders involved and adding to the sustainable and long-term perspective of a process that goes beyond the co-design events, Björgvinsson and colleagues (2010) advocate for ‘infrastructuring’– reflecting to establish a process that is embedded the existing contexts. Especially when stakeholders from multiple contexts are involved, this alignment is important in order to bring stakeholders together. Some co-design scholars refer to stakeholder collaboration as a meeting between different ‘communities of practice’ with reference to Lave and Wenger (1991) and their work about ‘situated learning’ (Aakjaer, 2013; Brandt, Binder, Malmborg, & Sokoler, 2010; Malmborg, Grönvall, Messeter, Raben, & Werner, 2016). In order for communities to meet, the crossing of boundaries and negotiation of meaning and value are important aspects of making collaboration work. In relation to co-design with older people, Malmborg and collegues (2016) pay attention to the difference between work practice and everyday practice. Professional stakeholders in a work practice tend to have a common goal, while seniors who meet in the social settings of the everyday practice might only share short-term goals (Malmborg et al., 2016), which makes the alignment or crossing between these communities even more important. To facilitate these crossings of boundaries, ‘boundary objects’ in the form of tools for communication are suggested (Ehn, 2008; Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Applying such a mindset to a collaborative process further leans on the principle that everyone is creative and that this collective creativity is a way of creating innovation (Sanders & Stappers, 2008, p. 6).

Hence, people with no background in design can contribute equally to a design process if provided with the

145 appropriate tools for expressing themselves. Optimizing participation requires the designer to identify

opportunities and create suitable tools that spark creativity (Sanders & Stappers, 2008; Visser Sleeswijk, Stappers, van der Lugt, & Sanders, 2005). Such tools and techniques can come in many forms and can be regarded as a way of engaging in dialogue about new desired futures, when making communication tangible through artefacts (Brandt, Binder, & Sander, 2012; Sanders & Stappers, 2014). Further, scholars have suggested ‘telling, making and enacting’ as a framework for using tools interactively. The above terms refer to using our verbal language, our hands and our body to express ideas (Brandt et al., 2012; Sanders &

Stappers, 2014).

Thus, in contrast to traditional design practice, the co-design approach changes the role of the designer from a sole practitioner to someone who supports and facilitates collaboration by creating events and providing tools for collective creativity (Sanders & Stappers, 2008). The ‘professional’ designer then becomes someone who enables others to be creative, rather than creating a solution herself (Cruickshank et al., 2013; Lee, 2008; Sanders & Stappers, 2008).

4. Collaborating on Designing and Carrying out an Age-friendly Co-design