ABSTRACT
Visual tools such as probes and design games are used during co-design events to facilitate a common design dialogue. They evoke new ideas and invite users, designers, and other stakeholders to explore and rehearse future opportunities. This ‘toolkit’ and working practices are continually evolving, but the focus is almost always on the upcoming design. Based on an experiment, this paper investigates how co-design tools can be used as a part of a Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE).
When you do a POE, you evaluate the performance of an already-completed building in relation to the daily use. Unlike a traditional co-design process, the POE looks back on the process in order to adjust or redesign the building.
The chapter argues that co-design games and tools can be instruments to make architects and other stakeholders reflect on the project once again in order to see it from a different perspective. This is because an evaluation usually is based on data and a presumption that problems are out there ready to collect; but in reality, it is not that straightforward. Sometimes we need to step back and ‘break the project open again’ to see underneath the obvious and more superficial ‘problems’. Co-design games are relevant tools for this, and they are seldom used as quick problem-solvers. We aim at using the co-design tools and processes to create an engagement that opens up alternative ways of understanding and expanding issues. A shift from problem-solving toward a focus on ‘matter of concerns’ is relevant both when initiating a project and when you do a POE with the intention to fine-tune a building.
