The Laundry Room : A Method for Democratic City Planning and Design

Abstract: This text explores and area of architecture connected to co-design of city planning and design and various other subjects connected to civic engagement and social integration. The first part is compiled by research and theory considering the background of the project and ideas contemplating co-design, the role of the architect as facilitator, translator and assimilator and the user as expert and weighs the potential and risks involving these. The second part considers the organisation Tvättstugan – an institution for democratic city planning, existing actors of interest, the present planning process and how to navigate within it if one’s intentions were to introduce an alternative to it. The third part addresses the project Kvartersråd – a neighbourhood council and particularly describes the project and the process of co-designing a proposal. The first part of the thesis mention the designer and the planner as well as the architect since the ideas presented considering co-design encapsulate many professions and are not only applicable to specifically architectural processes of design. Later in part two and three the text focuses more specifically on the design profession of the architect. This text is part of a wider architectural master thesis that also consists of a presentation presenting models, drawings and other various artworks.