A Teenager-Friendly Community
in Tehran
Intro
This project is part of my master's thesis in urban planning and design. In this project, I used stakeholder group meetings, designing surveys with Maptionnaire, and interviews to engage young people in the process of designing their built environment. In Iran, the involvement of youth in designing their communities is not very common. The main challenges I faced, in the top-down system of planning in Iran, were asking the schools' agreement to let students participate in the project, teaching young people about spatial concepts, and making them believe that their voice matters. A short report of the project was featured on in Designing with Children website.
Year: 2014
My Role: UX researcher and designer
Timeline: September2013-Fabruary2014
Research Method: Stakeholder focus group meetings, workshops, survey
Research Type: Exploratory and evaluative research
Problem Statement
An expanding body of research underscores the significance of urban spaces in enhancing the well-being of young people and their active involvement in the design of their communities. Nevertheless, young people are often overlooked in the community development process, under the pretext of their immaturity or limited knowledge, and the required training demands both time and resources. The primary question that this research seeks to address is:
How can we encourage the participation of young people in community planning within an unfavorable context?"
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How can we foster young people's participation in community planning in an unfavorable context?
quality of open spaces in Golha community
Engaging Participants
I obtained approval from both the City and Regional Ministries of Education. Subsequently, I visited six schools in the area: two boys' schools and three girls' schools. During these visits, I discussed the project with the school principals. While some principals were receptive to the idea, others were not. Notably, the principals of the girls' schools expressed their reluctance, stating that they preferred their students not to venture into urban areas. I also created a flyer explaining my project and the Maptionnaire link
to the survey. I put the flyer in other cultural and educational centers for young people. I also created a Facebook page for online discussions.
I wrote about this experience in the journal of Childhood Explorer .
Focus group workshops
I conducted three workshops: (1) Understanding the Problem, (2) Analysis, and (3) Designing Recommendations:
Teenagers initially focused on environmental and social issues when they wanted to describe community problems, as these were more tangible to them However, after the sessions, they became more curious about physical and managerial aspects. Some of their recommendations from the last workshops were:
“I think expanding pedestrian ways will be a good option. I also propose cleaning the area; a group of us can be responsible for cleaning the area.”
"the municipality send some representatives to our schools to make us aware of plans that affect us, or at least they can ask what we want."
Reflections
Through this project, I learned that context plays an important role in shaping young people's involvement in community planning. In countries with a strong planning tradition, youth tend to be more prepared to engage in the process, while others may require additional support. Using diverse methods proved essential for youth engagement, as some found cognitive mapping challenging but were more comfortable with writing, and vice versa