Participatory Approach in the Design of Creative Community Spaces in Surabaya

Creative communities have the potential in promoting a citys cultural and touristic values. In Surabaya, the lack of properly designed spaces to accommodate their unique activities and promote them to the society have become key obstacles observed. Meanwhile, the profit-driven tendency of interior design practice today has led to the decrease in community and social awareness in design education. This research aims to implement participatory methods in the design of community spaces as studio projects to encourage students and lecturers to gain more social awareness of surrounding communities and utilize their expertise to contribute to the society. Through ethnographic methods of observation, students and lecturers participated in a creative community�s activities in order to grasp their aspirations empathetically. The community was also invited to participate in the design process of defining problems, setting design goals, ideating concepts and testing design prototypes. Findings reveal that through participatory design, the designs of community spaces yielded can accommodate creative activities in a novel way and assist in promoting their potentials to the society, contributing to the vision of Surabaya as a creative city. Students and lecturers also gain a reflexive introspection of their significant role in the society as agents of social change.