Projective Provotype Design: A Collaborative Design Research Method for Co-Anticipating Neighbourhood Communities’ Preferred Future Urban Experiences

Fenn, Terence (2024) Projective Provotype Design: A Collaborative Design Research Method for Co-Anticipating Neighbourhood Communities’ Preferred Future Urban Experiences. In: P/References of Design. Cumulus conference proceedings series, 1 . Cumulus Association, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, Budapest, pp. 1993-2013. ISBN 978-952-7549-02-5

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Abstract

This study describes projective provotype design, a novel method for design research which helps address the shortfall between bottom-up, community-centred approaches and the top-down, technology centred approaches typical of smart city design. As such, projective provotype design utilises the unique knowledge tradition of human-centred design to generate a neighbourhood community's preferences for their smart urban futures and, subsequently, communicates these preferences to a design audience in a manner that is informative, thought provoking and if necessary capable of challenging existing assumptions. Towards this outcome, the study utlises the method of design ethnography to outline key theoretical concerns that impacted the design of the method. This outline is followed by a reflective narrative attesting to the relevance of the method in the applied contexts of co-design project with community members of Westbury, an urban neighbourhood in Johannesburg, South Africa. While the unique method of projective provotype design suggests a robust strategy for the design of smart urban places, responding to the theme of 'ways of living together' the study further suggest how projective provotype design, and design research methods with similar intentions, provide an alternative role for human-centred design; one that bypasses the limitation of human-centred design current emphasis on users, and product development to instead focus on communities and futures research.

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