Designing with the Participation of the Community – an On-Going Project of Redesigning a School Yard in Serbia

Is it possible to gather ideas from school children and teachers, translate them into design language and build them into an architectural design of a school yard? With this project we intend to investigate and broaden our knowledge of the methodology and process of participatory and cooperative design in the specific environment of a local elementary school in Serbia with limited financial resources. The research is focused on creating methods and techniques of gathering data from all user groups (children, school staff, and parents), weighing them with respect to the available spatial, organizational and financial conditions and, finally, formulating the relevant brief – architectural design assignment. The research input data focused mainly on diverse uses of the school yard space, problems users encounter daily, and multiple needs of school yard users. The data was collected through: interviews with the school staff and parents; hands-on workshops with school-children, producing drawings/models 779 Synnyt / Origins | 2 / 2019 | Non-peer reviewed | Full paper and led by urban design students as mentors; as well as through questionnaires for all categories of users – children, school staff and parents. The data gathered was analyzed both statistically and through qualitative content analysis, and the research outcomes were then applied by the design/organizational team as a starting point for developing the architectural design of the school yard. Since the research showed that user-centered design process can benefit significantly from developing new methods of gathering "design data" from direct users, and that "translating" them into the design language is a powerful design tool, this approach can be used as a developed case study for further research in the field of participatory and cooperative design in limited institutional and financial conditions.

Synnyt / Origins | 2 / 2019 | Non-peer reviewed | Full paper we should ask those directly affected by design for their opinion."Participatory design strength lies in being a movement that cuts across traditional professional boundaries and cultures.Its roots lie in the ideals of a participatory democracy where collective decision-making is highly decentralized throughout all sectors of society, so that all individuals learn participatory skills and can effectively participate in various ways in the making of all decisions that affect them" (Sanoff 2004, 213-214).Carroll and Rosson (2007) state that: "Participatory design integrates two radical propositions about design.The moral proposition is that users have a right to be directly included in the process of design.The pragmatic proposition is that directly including the users' input will increase the chances of a successful design outcome" (Carroll and Rosen 2007: 243).
The starting point and basic assumption of this approach is that the process has a long term positive impact on the community's self reliance, bonds strength and internal involvment.By working together on a shared vision, different stakeholders have more chance of understanding competing positions over an issue, and forming realistic expectations towards their own interests.Involvement also lowers resistance to change among certain interest groups, which is a common feature of the urban planning and design practice.
While theory of participation and collaboration in design is widely available (Frayling, 1993;Sanoff, 2000Sanoff, , 2004;;2006;Sennet, 1977), the urban design focused case studies are significantly fewer.Bearing in mind the complexity of the urban environment, collective decision making, the organization and control over the process -it is a rather demanding, possibly slow and complicated, as well as very diverse process.Participatory design process appears to be a fluid concept, and each spatial situation and problem in particular demands a project-specific design of the participatory process, preceding the action.
In this paper we shall present a case study in participatory design process -a specific ongoing project of redesigning a school yard in Belgrade, Serbia, with the participation of all user groups.Besides being almost 90% covered in concrete, without trees or greenery, it has never been renovated since the school was built in 1959.Hence, there are now many spots in the schoolyard that can jeopardize children's health and safety.Some of these problems are: the old and damaged concrete surfaces with exposed steel bars, a very low fence that can very easily be stepped over even by very young children, lack of gates that can be closed and locked.

Introduction to the case study
After having pointed out these problems, and after several unsuccessful attempts to persuade the authorities to remediate and reconstruct the schoolyard, we, the parents, decided to take action on our own and organize ourselves in order to solve this problem.A team of parents was formed on a voluntary basis, consisting of parents that were willing to contribute in different ways: with various skills, knowledge and competencies, links and connections in relevant institutions, devotion of time, financially etc. Biljana B. as an architect and teacher of Urban design, was one of the heads of the organizational team of parents and coordinator of the Project.
Since we, as parents, initiated the reconstruction ourselves and were the ones that were supposed to carry it out from start to end, we saw a great opportunity and freedom to do it, hence, in a way that enables all the user's voices to be heard -by applying participatory approach.
Since there are not many cases of participatory design in Serbia, we had to make our own first baby steps in the whole process and learn along the way.We had to investigate and broaden our own knowledge of the methodology and the process of participatory and cooperative design in the specific environment of a local elementary school with limited financial resources, and this paper describes the process that we went through.

Participants in the Project
Participants in this Project were: parents of schoolchildren, school children, school staff, the local community and neighborhood of the school, urban design students from the Faculty of Applied Arts, local authorities -policy and decision makers.age and help children express their own visions about the present, and ideas for the future of the schoolyard, both through drawing and building 3D models.Also, as a contribution to the practical workshops, the children filled out a questionnaire pointing out the problems and the needs that they saw in relation to the school yard.
Images 5-9 represent some of the schoolchildren's ideas for improving the schoolyard.Children drew their ideas on a plan of the court (images 5, 6), and on black and white photos of dif-   The old fence is not an actual barrier -it can easily be stepped over from both inside and outside of the yard.Architectural design assignment defines the need for increasing the height of the fence as well as locking of the two gates, so the yard would not serve as a shortcut any more.or jeopardizing the old structure in any way.It was also important not to disturb its visual perception.

Encouraging physical activity
Since teachers particularly accented the need of enhancing physical activity of youngest schoolers, who do not use the big sport fields yet, a separate zone was devoted to creating a

The final architectural design
The final architectural design implies "packing" these different solutions into one architectural design.The participatory approach directed the whole design process towards a collaboration of many parties, so the final architectural design is currently "under construction" and engages a team of urban design students with a professor as a mentor (among the parents, Biljana B.), and an organizational team of parents and school staff coordinating the whole process.
After acquiring the final architectural design, several further steps are to be taken: Further steps • acquiring comprehensive documentation and applying for the building permission • fundraising from both small and corporate contributors (organizing a donor exhibition in the school; applying for financing from various government sponsored plans, providing help from companies, parents network -services, materials etc.) • building in phases Time flexibility and ability to conduct the reconstruction in several stages are one of the most important requirements from the school management, since it enables them to raise funds step by step and realize parts of the project separately.

Conclusion
So far, this bottom-up experimental approach of engaging the community, school staff, children, parents and design students on a single project appeared to be complex and slow in realization, as expected.It has proven the importance of participation and collaboration -bringing us knowledge and experience none of the parties would have acquired working separately.It is The authors of this paper are both mothers, and their children go to the same elementary school in Belgrade, Serbia.Besides being mothers of school children, Vera V. teaches Art Education at the Teacher Education Faculty in Belgrade and Biljana B., an architect, works at the Faculty of Applied Arts at the University of Art in Belgrade, where she teaches Urban Design to urban design students.The school that their children go to is located in the city center of Belgrade, a historical area that is protected by Serbia's Law on Cultural Heritage.There are several cultural and historical buildings in its close neighborhood, one of them being the Historical Museum, in the first building right next to the schoolyard.The images 1 and 2 show the actual schoolyard of the school.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Present day look of the schoolyard.

Figure 5
Figure 5 & 6: Schoolchildren's ideas for new elements of the schoolyard.Marker drawing on a printed schoolyard layout plan (age 9).

Figure 7 :
Figure 7: Children's ideas for introducing greenery and rest/leisure zones.Marker drawing on black-white photo (age 12).

Figure 8
Figure 8 & 9: Children's ideas for rest and leisure zones.Marker and pencil drawing on blackwhite photo (age, 10).

Figure 18 &
Figure 18 & 19: Solutions for a separate polygon-like playground zone for the youngest schoolers that encourages physical activity.Preliminary architectural design.

Figure 20 :
Figure 20: A child's solution for a separate zone for the youngest schoolers that encourages physical activity.Drawing on paper (age, 8).

Figure 21 :
Figure 21: A solution for a separate zone for the youngest schoolers that encourages physical activity, based on a child's drawing (image 20).Preliminary architectural design.

Figure 22 &
Figure 22 & 23: Solutions for rest and leisure zones.Preliminary architectural design.

Figure 24 &
Figure 24 & 25: Solutions for rest and leisure zones and new greenery.Preliminary architectural design.