Codesigning a 21st century Citizen Space
How could the Saint-Marc site be transformed into an inspiring, inclusive and thrivable space open to and for citizens, the neighbourhood and the city?
CONTEXT
Codesigning Saint Marc Church’s future
Year 2013
Client Communautique
Service Public participation
The Church of Saint-Marc is located in the Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie neighbourhood of Montreal and like many aging Catholic churches in this city it is at a cross-roads as to its future. Having been put up for sale by the parish, two community organisations (Communautique and Compagnons de Montréal) wanted to explore possibility of transforming the church site into a collectively-managed community space. A process of citizen co-design was organised to answer the question:
How could the Saint-Marc site be transformed into an inspiring, inclusive and thrivable space open to and for citizens, the neighbourhood and the city?
OUR ROLE
Percolab’s team was invited to set up a residency in the church to explore these questions with citizens. We opened the site to the public for three intensive weeks over a period of a few months. We organized a series of participatory activities that invited and encouraged citizens and project partners to explore the site, reflect together, and dream of the possibilities. The fledgling ideas were prototyped on site and the concrete challenges involved with repurposing a heritage site were workshopped by participants.
While the future of St-Marc is still uncertain (the parish put a moratorium on the sale of the church) a solid proposal for a social innovation project has emerged.
The process culminated in a public presentation of a proposal outlining an innovative project featuring the powerful driving force of citizen co-design. The essence of the process has been captured (texts and videos) on the project’s website: https: //www.imaginonsstmarc.org [FR].
The co-creative residency [FR] is an approach co-developed by the Mandalab living laboratory (Communautique), Percolab and Grisvert. It is a vitality tool that enables organizations to imagine, rethink and design their products, programs and services by immersing a team of multidisciplinary residents in the host environment to accompany and support users, who are full stakeholders, in a co-design process.
