Under the lead of Pamela Napier and Lee Vander Kooi, select Herron School of Art & Design graduate students partnered with AIGA Chicago, Growing Home, and various local designers for the main purpose of teaching co-design approaches through practical application. Our team was responsible for developing and facilitating a one-day, condensed co-design workshop for local designers, community members, and Growing Home staff.

Co-Design Process
Based off of Dr. Min Basadur’s Simplex Innovation Process, we utilized a design process that enables cross-discipline collaboration in order to achieve quality results through integrating diverse perspectives and areas of expertise.

To maintain an environment conducive for collaboration, emphasis was placed on separating the creative problem-solving process from content area information. This separation allows for multiple content experts to contribute differing or conflicting perspectives, while process experts acknowledge all points-of-views and focus on moving collaborators through the design process in order to achieve an outcome.

With a co-design approach, each person in the group brings with them their own distinct area of expertise, creating a cross-disciplinary design team, in which diverse perspectives serve to improve outcomes. 

Tasked with addressing complex challenges that were voiced by Growing Home, each team collaboratively reframed problems and developed strategic plans for solutions, which were then presented to Growing Home for further implementation. 

Results & Outcomes
The results of this workshop were two-fold. On an educational level, we successfully engaged local designers, community members, and a non-profit organization in a co-design experience; thus, achieving our purpose of promoting and teaching a collaborative, creative problem-solving process. On a practical level, we delivered four action plans for implementing viable solutions to Growing Home’s expressed challenges, along with volunteer commitments from workshop participants for further assistance in carrying out solutions.