The charrette process gained favor during the 1960s, when citizen participation become an important element of the advocacy movement. It's importance as a planning activity was further boosted because many of the "Great Society" programs of the period required a method for citizen input.
Today charrettes are used as a means to efficiently gain input and ideas from residents on community design problems. Participants may include city officials, local business owners, residents and others. Participants may represent many varying perspectives on community issues, and all who have a vested interest have a chance to speak up. Since the charrette process gives each point of view equal time in a public forum, it can lead more efficiently to compromise and consensus building. The authorship of ideas and plans coming from a charrette is equally owned by all parties. This encourages a cooperative, rather than adversarial, climate.
Charrettes can include design or planning professionals in varying levels of involvement. Feedback in both directions--public to professional or professional to public--becomes almost immediate. Participants may present preliminary ideas to professionals for immediate feedback, or professionals may facilitate the process by providing necessary leadership.
The design process
- The process is endless.
- There is no infallibly correct process.
- The process involves finding as well as solving problems.
- It inevitably involves subjective value judgments.
- The process looks not at what is, but what can be and should be--thus, involves ethical judgments.
- It must work within the framework of a need for action.
1 Bryan Lawson. The Design Process.
2 Planning Advisory Service MEMO. American Planning Association. (August 1995).
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