How to conduct a Planning Charrette

Planning Charrette

The charrette process aims to develop a vision for a geographic region on planning process which is based predominantly upon the issues that stakeholders have said are a priority.

The design charrette process aims to be transparent, allowing information to be shared between the design professionals and the stakeholders of a project area. The information shared and the understanding gained by the participants is the most important product.The trust that is built between the parties ensures that the resulting vision is based predominantly upon the issues that stakeholders feel are most crucial to them.

Method:

• Identify the planning policy issue of community and/or environmental importance.
• Select a suitably cross-disciplinary team or teams
• Select an Expert Panel who can help assess the designs at the end of the process.
• Hire a trained design charrette facilitator, who can help form teams and small groups, obtain quick agreement on desired outcomes, and keep everyone involved in the process.
• Brief the teams on the charrette process, which aims at delivering feasible and creative solutions for real clients within a short period of time.
• Plan for a workshop that provides sufficient time for the designers to work intensively on a problem and then present their findings (often five days).
• Book a venue (indoor or outdoor) with room for the design team as a whole to work, as well as areas for smaller, break-out groups.
• Encourage the team to begin each day with a whole-group discussion of issues, goals, findings, and approaches; these help to define subsequent goals and issues for break-out groups to discuss and analyze.
• Encourage break-out groups to join the larger group regularly to present ideas and approaches; these can then be integrated or adapted into the overall design concept.
• Record ideas using on-site graphic recording in a somewhat standard format that can easily be compiled in a report. Examples include 'fill-in-the-blanks' flip charts that can be scanned into booklets or files for Internet distribution.
• At the conclusion of the charrette, allow each team to present its proposed solution to a large audience of the public, planning professionals, and business and civic leaders. The goal is not necessarily to prepare a final design but to explore and understand all the design issues. The information shared and the understanding gained by the participants is the most important product.
• Invite questions from an Expert Panel and questions from the audience.

Uses/strengths:

• A design charrette is a good idea when people need to cut across boundaries and work on a large, collaborative project.
• Because participants are encouraged to offer design ideas and solutions to problems that are outside their areas of expertise, charrettes are particularly helpful in complex situations calling for new ways of looking at things.
• Can save money where many many drawings are needed in a short time. Rather than commissioning expensive drawings without input from the community, a charrette offers an inclusive, less expensive process.
• A highly specialised participatory tool, usually applied in planning and design projects.
• Attempts to bring together project stakeholders to facilitate fast and interactive decision making.
• Provides joint problem solving and creative thinking.
• Effective for creating partnerships and positive working relationships with the public.
• Allows a problem to be analysed holistically, attempting to resolve community problems and encourage consensus building
• Enables the initiating agency to understand how a proposal appears to a community.
• Allows the desires, attitudes and preferences of special interest groups to be tabled so that conflicting issues can be resolved by consensus.
• Can energise community participation by introducing new perspectives through introducing multidisciplinary teams
• With expert facilitation, can provide a transparent and accessible process, giving voice to all participants, including those that may not be as self assured and confident as others
• Can stimulate community momentum through the intensity of the process;
• Encourages people to become actively involved because the process promises immediate feedback.
• Properly facilitated and with extensive community contact, can function as a community education process.
• Provides an opportunity for the community to have input at a number of points in the process.
• Can save money by being an effective use of time and resources

Special considerations/weaknesses:

• This specialised tool is only applicable to certain scenarios, for example, where a short-term resolution is needed, or where a high level of public awareness and input is needed and welcomed.
• The process is intensive, and usually lasts 5-14 days.
• As specialists are required, the process is costly.
• Ideally, the break-out groups should contain a cross-section of people in the various disciplines represented in the design team.
• A compressed time period means a number of stakeholders may miss out.
• Inadequate time provided for reflection and refinement.
• The process can be 'railroaded' by vocal stakeholders if not run by a trained design charrette facilitator.
• Participants may not be seen as representative of the larger public.
• The effects may not last if this is seen as a 'one shot' technique, rather than part of a large planning and decision-making process.