Co-creating Urban Commons Through Community-Engaged Pedagogies

The importance of empowering and engaging citizens in the shaping of their living environments to ensure a sustainable development and promote a sense of community has been highlighted in recent years. Citizens and professionals are called to adopt new roles within the spatial design and provision process, which often challenges the ability of the latter to respond effectively to the rising need for a community-engaged design approach. The necessity to train future architects in conceptualizing and implementing such approaches, within a transdisciplinary framework, reveals the need to revisit, assess and rework the relevant pedagogical approaches. This paper reflects on a community-engaged housing studio approach and a subsequent design and build co-creation workshop at the Department of Architecture, University of Cyprus (UCY), for the design and development of a public space in a suburban neighbourhood in Nicosia. The housing studio incorporates principles of inclusivity and sustainability aiming to create the conditions for an integrated framework for achieving sustainable urban governance and to initiate a community of practice, fostering a participatory process. Drawing from the tools and methods of live studios and Urban Living Labs, this transdisciplinary process involves all participants at various levels and stages through a circular methodology of assessing and understanding, co-creating, co-designing and implementing and co-evaluating. Reflecting on the outcomes, the paper discusses the opportunities and limitations of a community-engaged design methodology through future graduates’ exposure to real world contingencies and interaction with diverse stakeholders, while empowering citizens as decision makers who have a responsibility for their residential environment.