Designing for Youths’ Imaginative Placemaking Through a Local Civic Design Case Study

• In Event: Youth Voices: Critical Engagement and Care in Informal Education Spaces

Abstract

Youth are seldom presented with meaningful opportunities to design their own futures through civic engagement and advocacy. This study delves into how a critical place-based curriculum empowers youth in imagining and re-envisioning the future of Creekside Plaza, a local mall under redevelopment. The curriculum supported students’ imaginative placemaking through maps, plans, community engagement, and 3D design tools. Although some of the curriculum’s activities simultaneously augmented and curtailed youths’ creative expression, we argue for the necessary inclusion of youth in placemaking roles to design hopeful, vibrant futures.

Authors

• Hannah H. Ziegler, Vanderbilt University

• Jingyi Chen, Vanderbilt University

• Heidi Carlone, Vanderbilt University