Collective creative approach
Engagement Overlay to the RIBA Plan of Work, published by the RIBA in January 2024, states:
A collective creative approach is making, designing and creating with people using participatory and collaborative methods. It emphasises leveraging a specific group's collective expertise and creativity to achieve a desired outcome. The collective approach involves designing together, fostering relationships, promoting collective thinking, shared consensus decision-making, and creating partnerships. Also, importantly tackling power imbalances between different stakeholders, design, and client teams.
To enable co-design, structures and partnerships should be established to give individuals agency and facilitate active participation in designing together. Ideally, an interdisciplinary collaboration should involve architects and other built environment professionals who possess the skills to facilitate a collective engagement process. For example, a collective creative approach can inspire and assist young people from underrepresented, disenfranchised, or historically marginalised communities. It is important to note that a genuine collective creative approach begins before any decision-making process has commenced.
Other descriptions of co-terms include collaborative design, community design, cooperative design, co-planning, co-deciding, co-evaluation, co-delivery, and co-build.
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