Abstract
In the Majority World, traditional approaches to urban planning are being challenged by emerging policy initiatives that recognise children as legitimate participants equal to adults in shaping their urban environments. However, the participation often remains tokenistic, due to a slow-evolving social and political mindset. Another wicked problem in the participatory planning process with children in the Majority World is that their primary focus is on what they produce and not on how they wish to produce. This paper shifts the lens. Drawing on the “Designing Delhi City Together” workshop conducted with 120 children from a publicly funded Central School in Delhi, India, the study investigates children’s reflections on the participatory method adopted in the workshop itself. A focused group discussion with 30 children, along with a qualitative questionnaire with all 120 children (40 groups), was conducted to gather insights about their experience in the co-design workshop process. The findings reveal four critical themes: (1) Method Choice = Participation Choice, (2) Silence Within Groups, (3) Teachers as Method Guides and Critical Actors, and (4) Designing the Brief Together. The paper proposes a Triadic Co-Creation model (TCCM), as an original contribution, for designing participatory frameworks, which situates external facilitators, teachers, and children as co-authors of participatory methods and processes. Findings suggest that co-creating the method is not just an inclusive practice but also an ethical imperative for equitable participation, especially in Majority World contexts. The paper contributes to design research by reframing participation not as method deployment but as method negotiation.
Keywords
Triadic Co-Creation Model (TCCM); Children as Method Designers; Participatory Design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1191
Citation
Kanojia, H.,and Tewari, S.(2025) Triadic Co-Creation Model: Redefining Child Participation in Urban Planning in the Majority World, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.1191
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 6 - Co-creation
Triadic Co-Creation Model: Redefining Child Participation in Urban Planning in the Majority World
In the Majority World, traditional approaches to urban planning are being challenged by emerging policy initiatives that recognise children as legitimate participants equal to adults in shaping their urban environments. However, the participation often remains tokenistic, due to a slow-evolving social and political mindset. Another wicked problem in the participatory planning process with children in the Majority World is that their primary focus is on what they produce and not on how they wish to produce. This paper shifts the lens. Drawing on the “Designing Delhi City Together” workshop conducted with 120 children from a publicly funded Central School in Delhi, India, the study investigates children’s reflections on the participatory method adopted in the workshop itself. A focused group discussion with 30 children, along with a qualitative questionnaire with all 120 children (40 groups), was conducted to gather insights about their experience in the co-design workshop process. The findings reveal four critical themes: (1) Method Choice = Participation Choice, (2) Silence Within Groups, (3) Teachers as Method Guides and Critical Actors, and (4) Designing the Brief Together. The paper proposes a Triadic Co-Creation model (TCCM), as an original contribution, for designing participatory frameworks, which situates external facilitators, teachers, and children as co-authors of participatory methods and processes. Findings suggest that co-creating the method is not just an inclusive practice but also an ethical imperative for equitable participation, especially in Majority World contexts. The paper contributes to design research by reframing participation not as method deployment but as method negotiation.