Hammarkullen Heroes
Texten är bara tillgänglig på engelska.
Children are often excluded from meaningful participation in the planning and design of environments intended for their use, despite growing recognition of children as active citizens with valuable knowledge of their surroundings. While participatory approaches increasingly involve children, there remains a gap in understanding how co-design processes informed by principles of child-led learning can support children’s agency in spatial decision-making and translate their ideas into feasible design outcomes.
This thesis explores how co-design approaches informed by child-led learning can support 8-year-old children in shaping their local environment and how collaboration between children, adults, and institutional stakeholders can translate children’s ideas into a spatial proposal for the schoolyard of Hammarkullsskolan in Gothenburg. Contributing to discourses on participatory design, child-centered design, and children’s active citizenship, the study investigates the opportunities and limitations of co-design processes with children.
Using a participatory case study approach, the research engaged six children through a series of co-design workshops involving drawing, model-making, embodied exploration, and collaborative reflection. A swing intervention emerged as the central design proposal.
The findings demonstrate that children can meaningfully engage in spatial design when supported through adapted methods and sustained participation. The thesis contributes methodological reflections for future participatory design processes involving children.