"... so what?"

Abstract

This article addresses certain Participatory Design (PD)-related aspects of the project OurCity that took place in Meri-Rastila, a multicultural suburb in East Helsinki, Finland. The aim of OurCity was to democratize design processes and to empower local residents to influence the redevelopment of their area. PD processes were a key component to the OurCity project and its activities, particularly in relation to the process of drafting an Alternative Master Plan (AMP) for the area. The plan competed with, and lost by a narrow margin to, the plan drafted by the Helsinki City Planning Department. The scope of PD was underestimated because AMP, the design object, was envisioned in isolation from the participatory process it entailed. Had PD been presented as crucial to the process, AMP would have greater impact. In this article, we argue that it is necessary to make PD processes more visible in the end products of participatory planning. We base this argument on firsthand experience as members of the OurCity team and on an analysis of printed media and digital texts.