This practice-led research explored participant learning within the context of
community-based co-design practice, with focus on uncovering the designerly
conditions whereby such learning could be ignited/supported. As environmental
and sociocultural challenges progressively threaten and constrain our present and
future qualities of life, we are pressed to re-design ways of living and working
together. Design is a key feature in meeting all these challenges, and transforming
our environment. Such transformation leads to the emergence of new socially
shared meanings, and the rethinking of a society that will be increasingly designed.
These pressing sociocultural challenges require interdisciplinary expertise, and I
argue that the practice of co-design is an approach that provides such expertise.
Co-design is collaborative, and also responds to the cultural demands of a society
eager to participate. I argue that these demands require significant research to be
undertaken on co-design practice. Informal-mutual learning is central to the
emergence of co-design practice capabilities and competences that participants
(‘designers’ included) need. Participant learning is central to co-design. Yet
participant learning in co-design has not been investigated holistically in previous
studies, which have largely assumed it was just ‘embedded’ in practice.

The aim, then, was to visually unfold the relationship between informal-mutual
learning and co-design practice. The implications of the study lie in its deepening of
our understanding on how co-design practice can benefit from such learning, and
how this can support societal transformation. In this process people’s perceptions
are changed, and hence their behaviour, leading to cultural change.

My explorations led me to identify Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a
suitable theoretical framework. It supports a holistic approach to the study of
participation and learning. Its strength is in the attention that it pays to multidimensional human interactions with the social environment. The unit of analysis supporting holistic co-design activity, is the ‘activity system’. Using CHAT has enabled me to begin visualising the complexity in co-design practice.

The methodology adopted was a participatory action research (PAR) approach.
This was informed by ethnographic and creative methods, developed following a
reflective approach in a pilot study and two case studies. Each case study informed
the refinement of a rigorous and transferable methodology. This proceeds through
five steps: preparation for co-design, co-design situations, follow-up, systematising
learning, and dissemination. I deployed my reflective drawing ability and co-design
competences to enact an original research-path that enabled me to locate myself
as a third-party participant-observer, gradually gaining trust, understanding the
local sociocultural contexts and unpicking the generation of shared meanings. The
participants’ motivations and emotions were revealed to be significant in setting
the social environment, and also influencing learning.

The analysis of the data-gathering from the three cases assisted in the formulation
of a modified theoretical framework. Using a 3D geometric drawing system to
translate the CHAT unit of analysis, I added social and personal dimensions of
participant learning. The diagrams illustrate the human-human and human environment interactions, and represent steps for achieving/enacting genuine
collaboration. The modified framework theorises on the relationships of
interdependence through a three-phase process. This points to a symbiotic
relationship between informal-mutual learning and co-design situations.