PURPOSE

Once again, we faced the difficult task of designing a complex project with multiple areas, various technical stakeholders, and the head of the university. Although they shared the same goals, they had different visions of how to lay them out and articulate them spatially.

We decided to ask our friends from ArtifactOne to help us once again. We designed a participation workshop with the following objectives:

1. To be developed on a virtual whiteboard, as we were on lockdown.

2. To have different specialized stakeholders from each area tell us their vision on spatial articulation of how their operations would run.

3. To have a qualitative idea of how they want their institution and their area to be seen from the outside.

STRATEGY

We asked the university to form groups of three people who were stakeholders in the different areas that we wanted to engage in participation: laboratory, library, simulations, classrooms, and administration. The virtual whiteboard was organized into four areas for four different activities. There was a fifth space used by the facilitator to do a warm-up and have each participant familiarize themselves with the UI.

1. Diagram of Your Area: This activity consisted of each member laying out the different areas of the program given to us at the beginning of the project into a diagram, using virtual Post-Its. They were also asked to draw lines to form groups and relationships for each area. At the end of the activity, they were asked to present their visions to their peers.

2. Sell Us Your Uni: Participants were asked to write two simple tweets that involved their university and their area, focusing on future students and outsiders. This activity helped us grasp qualitative concepts that were important to portray.

3. We had a doodling area to hold an open conversation if they wished to add recommendations.

4. There was a "parking lot" area where every idea and recommendation that our team found during the session was recorded.