In July 2016, CoDesign Studio facilitated a 1-day session for the YMCA Camp Manyung Community Seminar to support community engagement in the New Schools PPP Project.

As a social enterprise design consultancy that inspires people to shape their neighbourhoods, CoDesign Studio engaged the participants in ideas and strategies for place transformation.

CoDesign Studio provided a comprehensive overview of the ‘placemaking’ approach and the projects they have completed. Their passion for community-led engagement and outcomes was very evident in the presentation.

From there we worked as groups of ‘stakeholders’ such as a community neighbourhood house, a school, a local organisation etc. and from that point of view, set out to transform a place into an optimum place.

It was a challenging process as groups had to create a ‘place’ with materials like pipe cleaners, sticky notes, icecream sticks, fake grass. However, just when you were getting somewhere with your table-sized model, the group moved to the next table, leaving one consistent leader to engage with the next group.

The second hands-on activity was outdoors. On a cold day by the coast, we transformed an outdoor area by scaling up our table-sized model through a random selection of materials CoDesign Studio provided. There was a lot of interpretation of the original design but we enjoyed the challenges of working in groups and against the clock.