Lekkontoret - designing an environment for participatory design practices between adult designers and children

Abstract: Article 12 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child asserts that children have the right to participate in society, express their views and have their opinions respected. A 2009 revision of the Article outlines that, to achieve this, states should “provide an environment that enables the child to exercise her/his right to be heard”(CRC, 2009). In countries such as Sweden, where the UN Convention has been enshrined in national law, this Article presents a unique challenge – for governments, city planners, designers and other actors working with child culture. In this thesis, I consider how environments can be designed to facilitate democratic exchanges between adult designers and children. The thesis is based on the development of a research project, during which I created a design studio, Lekkontoret, and tested a method for participatory design through a case study in Gothenburg. The case study involved two adult designers working with six children to create a children’s programme for a cultural heritage site. During this project I used my position as a child culture designer to interrogate the realities of child participation and aimed to bridge the gap that exists between law and practice in the implementation of Article 12. After describing the research project and findings, I conclude this thesis by summarising the project’s outcome: a method for conducting participatory projects with children, which focuses on child-adult relations and the importance of context when facilitating participatory design projects. I propose ways an adult designer can design and implement an add-on environment for participation through props, tools and scenography, which would enable children and adults to work together on level-ground within a public site.