Young and Creative - a Designerly Approach to Enhance Interventions in the Public Space

Abstract

The public space is often offset for young people, where bold and complex routines usually may result in more or less functional solutions, sometimes even in unpleasant design. More than ever the future depends on the engagement of youth in the public arena, and as a counterweight to unpleasant design, youth creativity may have in some case an extremely powerful effect in urban environments. On the other hand, it is questionable how their surroundings are prepared and willing to learn and absorb their inputs. The concept of divergent and convergent thinking is used as a viable framework to address and understand youth creativity in public spaces. Using data gathered over several years from a group of skaters, the paper gives new insight in how they learn, create and share new knowledge and how they envision the possibility to design and change their surroundings. Finally, this paper argues for using a designerly supported framework to enhance youth’s creativity and design in public spaces, based on collaboration and co-creation across technology, space and grounded on their creative mindset.