Abstract
Grassroots sports communities (GSCs) express and impact values through everyday design practices that build belonging, identity, and agency. Adopting qualitative multi-case analysis of representative GSCs (n=10), this study explores how these communities define and reclaim their values through design practice. Four modalities are identified: 1) narrative re-authoring, 2) aesthetic re-coding, 3) collaborative re-making, and 4) ethical re-grounding. These modalities constitute a dynamic process wherein design functions as a relational infrastructure for collective meaning-making. Based on these findings, the study generates a Gearbox Model of Value-Reclaiming Design, theorising how communal design agency is exercised through dynamic and recursive interplay. The model offers a transferable tool to understand how self-organised communities create and keep shared value through everyday design practice. This study defines these actions as 'designing for themselves', showing how community-driven design agency formed and supports more grounded forms of social innovation.
Keywords
communities; design value; leisure sports; social design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1184
Citation
Jiang, Y., Zhang, H., Zhang, K., Liu, S., and Siu, K. (2026) Designing for Themselves: The Gearbox Model of Value-Reclaiming Design within Grassroots Sports Communities, 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.2026.1184
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Designing for Themselves: The Gearbox Model of Value-Reclaiming Design within Grassroots Sports Communities
Grassroots sports communities (GSCs) express and impact values through everyday design practices that build belonging, identity, and agency. Adopting qualitative multi-case analysis of representative GSCs (n=10), this study explores how these communities define and reclaim their values through design practice. Four modalities are identified: 1) narrative re-authoring, 2) aesthetic re-coding, 3) collaborative re-making, and 4) ethical re-grounding. These modalities constitute a dynamic process wherein design functions as a relational infrastructure for collective meaning-making. Based on these findings, the study generates a Gearbox Model of Value-Reclaiming Design, theorising how communal design agency is exercised through dynamic and recursive interplay. The model offers a transferable tool to understand how self-organised communities create and keep shared value through everyday design practice. This study defines these actions as 'designing for themselves', showing how community-driven design agency formed and supports more grounded forms of social innovation.