Community Infrastructure : Driven by Culture

Assaí specialise in the interpretation of community culture and needs to create:

• suitable, considered solutions for specific environments, and

• the improvement of these environments in response to existing conditions and changing needs.

The approach - known as Culture Driven Projects (CDP) - is based on two simple premises:

• that most of the knowledge and insight needed to design exemplary new environments resides in the heads and hearts of the future users, often in a tacit form. The central task of design is therefore to elicit that knowledge, allow the users to reflect and improve upon it, combine it with best practice, and turn into a form in which it can be used to guide all aspects of the design and implementation.

• that the prime critics, evaluators, and sources of improvement for an existing environment are-again-the users of that space. The central task of monitoring and evaluation is therefore to put in the users hands simple, effective conceptual tools, with which they analyse and manage their own spaces.

These two premises interlock. The more users are involved in the design of new space, the more proficient they become in evaluating it; the more they evaluate it, the more adept they become at generating accurate suggestions for improving it.

CPD is therefore also a methodology to educate and empower the users of an environment to manage its design and operation.