Happenings
Happenings is a mapping tool that uses narrative and creative methods to gather neighbourhood data from young people ages 16-25.
This toolkit, deployed within a workshop, invites young people to pin the social infrastructure they go to on a map of their neighbourhood, and what that place offers them in terms of their wellbeing. We also ask where they would like to go, but can’t, because they feel excluded in some way (and what factors of wellbeing they can’t access as a result)
Happenings was designed to understand places as complex systems. People interact with them in many different ways over the course of their daily routines, and provision and development propositions should be seen in context to everything else that is there and nearby. Our relational mapping technology is therefore deployed to fully understand and assess these complexities, and invite creativity into the planning process.
“Happenings gets you thinking about places in terms of their use, what’s there that enables that use, and how that use builds or is detrimental to a sense of wellbeing. It really opens the conversation up and is the opposite of asking specific questions and getting predictable answers. Happenings enables conversations and insights that standard surveys and other map tools don’t get to.”
— Katie Lea, Place Studio
The engagement is fun, has narrative structure, and draws on our wider work in playable data and community-led data gathering.
Rather than extracting data from communities, this tool creates a space of equal exchange where young people can look at theirs and their peers’ data, to enable a richer conversation about their wellbeing in the built and natural environment.
Happenings is created in partnership with Play Disrupt, playful public engagement experts.
The tool is currently being developed for the Public Map Platform, a multi-partnered two year research project led by the University of Cambridge seeking to transform the UK Planning system into one that is more accessible, engaging and empowering.