What is civic design? | 5 minute exercise to get started

Civic design is defined by Naked Civics as, “A practice that focuses on the common good outcomes of our communities by pulling upon all of the institutional tools in our communities, beyond our traditional sole focus on government alone.”

Civic design is basically a human-centered approach to serving each other and finding ways that we can better shape our community to be what we ultimately want it to be while servicing the needs of all. I personally think of it as a mechanism to empower all the voices in an area, as it’s rare to have everyone at the table talking about what they want to see happen.

I recently discovered the Process Lab at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, which is an amazing take on civic design.

The Process Lab was launched to provide an immersive experience on how to start thinking like a designer. Visitors engage in both digital and physical activities that are split into 4 different categories: getting ideas, prototyping with materials, critiquing, and evaluating everyday design solutions.

I decided to choose the community value of connectivity. I then went through the process of selecting a question to answer: “How might we encourage people to explore their communities?”

I was then led to a giant table where I had to randomly choose two different tactics and design around these two ideas, even if they seemed unrelated at first glance. I chose: Fences and Community Kitchens.

Next I engaged with the civic design piece, where was I going to begin. I felt the first creative barrier building as I sat down to start designing. “Channel the initial nervousness and let your mind wander,” I reminded myself, “It’s time to play.”

I started thinking about food and what it means to me. Beyond that, I started thinking about how the community could become more connected, like a family. I was pretty surprised when I was able to start jotting down ideas just from those two trains of thought. Now, none of my first ideas were truly innovative or fresh, but they mattered to me, and I found myself getting excited about attending them.

There you have it. Civic design. What are you excited about bringing to the space that you live in? Hackathons are a fun community playground to start figuring out how many other people are behind your idea. Find your next event and go with an open mind and the intent to connect with your community, and who knows? Perhaps you’ll be inspired to do something more.

Additionally, you don’t need to be immersed in a process lab when it comes to generating ideas (although it can help). Just sit down with a warm tea on a Sunday morning for 5 minutes and ask yourself how would you redesign your environment if you could change one thing tomorrow?

If you want to learn more about civic design and how civic hackathons are the ultimate space for creativity, contact me at experimentalcivics.io