Abstract
This paper addresses a challenge for Transition Design (TD): how to make long-term, systemic frameworks tangible and actionable in small-scale, community-led practice. We introduce and evaluate the preliminary results of a methodological framework that scaffolds TD backcasting with seven principles of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) resilience for urban gardens. Grounded in a community garden case study in Shanghai, we analyse data from semi-structured interviews and a co-design workshop to evaluate this method in practice. Our findings reveal that this method functions as a dialogic tool, enabling participants to diagnose systemic issues, negotiate trade-offs, and co-create near-term actions with a longer-term vision. The paper provides a critical analysis of the new tool, including its differential effectiveness during visioning versus action planning and presents a theoretical framework for further replication and iteration. Ultimately, this research aims to contribute a theoretically-grounded and empirically-tested method for structuring co-design processes aimed at fostering community-led sustainable transitions.
Keywords
Transition Design, Social-Ecological Resilience, Community, Co-Design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.911
Citation
Hu, J., Campbell, A.D., and Baron, G. (2026) Scaffolding Transition Pathways: Integrating SES Resilience as a Dialogic Tool for Community-based Co-Design, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.911
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Scaffolding Transition Pathways: Integrating SES Resilience as a Dialogic Tool for Community-based Co-Design
This paper addresses a challenge for Transition Design (TD): how to make long-term, systemic frameworks tangible and actionable in small-scale, community-led practice. We introduce and evaluate the preliminary results of a methodological framework that scaffolds TD backcasting with seven principles of Social-Ecological Systems (SES) resilience for urban gardens. Grounded in a community garden case study in Shanghai, we analyse data from semi-structured interviews and a co-design workshop to evaluate this method in practice. Our findings reveal that this method functions as a dialogic tool, enabling participants to diagnose systemic issues, negotiate trade-offs, and co-create near-term actions with a longer-term vision. The paper provides a critical analysis of the new tool, including its differential effectiveness during visioning versus action planning and presents a theoretical framework for further replication and iteration. Ultimately, this research aims to contribute a theoretically-grounded and empirically-tested method for structuring co-design processes aimed at fostering community-led sustainable transitions.